Today was the third anniversary of my career as a “professional water-worshiper.” It has been at turns exhausting and exhilarating. I am often struck by simply how much I have done and experienced in these 36 months.
Luckily, my job often involves writing. I sometimes say it is the only thing I’m any good at it, and I enjoy it like really nothing else. I inherited the affliction from my Dad; a bequest that’s value is yet to be determined.
In my latest exercise of the craft, I co-authored a commentary published in the St. Paul Pioneer Press today. My partner was Kevin Proescholdt, a long-time wilderness advocate and a respected writer in his own right. We wrote about the prospect of new sulfide mine proposals, which would seek copper and nickel in the Arrowhead region:
For several years, companies proposing new mines in Minnesota have pledged to comply with our state’s environmental laws. But today they are seeking to roll back and weaken environmental protections with the help of a willing Legislature. All that talk about “doing it right” and “playing by the rules” seems to have been just that: talk.
I believe my organization carries on some of the work of Sigurd Olson, the writer whose books about the canoe country and his passionate advocacy are largely responsible for its protected status today. My three years of work and minor written output deserve no comparison, though I take solace knowing that he was 50 before publishing his first book.
Most folks would probably associate Sig with his prose, which sang the song of “The Singing Wilderness” (the title of his first book). He had adventures all over the Boundary Waters and wild Canadian rivers, and he wrote about his trips and the profound impact wilderness could have on the human soul.
Not many people probably would associate him with the conservation issue that I wrote about above and which consumes much of my life. But, the other day I dug up a magazine from 1974 called “Minnesota Naturalist,” a special issue which was all about the issue of proposed copper-nickel mining in northeastern Minnesota.
Sigurd Olson wrote a short introduction to the magazine. He was 75-years-old, and his words don’t quite hit the high notes of his prime, but it is unmistakably Sig. This is some of what he says:
Today this land is faced with a new threat that could destroy swiftly and forever the very qualities that engender love and dedication in those who have known it. Short term mining developments within the Boundary Waters Canoe Area or close enough to affect it adversely must be weighed now against its value as wilderness.
This is an ethical and humanitarian problem rather than one of economics and industrial development. Let us therefore plan wisely to preserve this wilderness treasure of the North … America cannot afford to lose another priceless heritage.
Click the magazine cover above to see a full-size version. The whole magazine featured color photographs by Les Blacklock, and the cover is Kodachrome goodness.
The guitarist Nels Cline — of Wilco and other bands — is a guest on two tracks on the new record from Duluth band Low, “C’mon.” A reporter from Uncut, a U.K.-based music magazine, contacted Cline in the course of doing a profile about Low, and got such a verbose response that the reporter posted the whole thing on the magazine’s website.
As a piece of music criticism, the essay almost stands on its own, though at times it gets a little rambling and “purple.” But it shows Cline has been a longtime fan of Low, and confirms that the best musicians love listening to music as much as they love making it:
Since my becoming aware of Low, I have watched as Alan has started other projects, both of which seemed to address a burning need to “rock out”, to make a racket, be immersed in a mushroom cloud of rhythm and guitar, to really cut loose. I actually have sat in briefly with both The Black-Eyed Snakes and with The Retribution Gospel Choir and witnessed/felt the music, watched Alan go for it, heard his beautiful guitar sound in modes both subtle and strangulated. With records like “The Great Destroyer”, Low had surges of volume on brilliant songs like “Pissing” and “When I Go Deaf”.
I’m glad he mentioned “When I Go Deaf” (off the 2005 album “The Great Destroyer”). There are many great Low songs, but I just listened to this one again two days ago and it got me. Here’s video of Low playing the song just a few days ago at a gig in New Orleans:
I remember first reading about the song in a review of the album “The Great Destroyer” in the now-defunct Rake Magazine six years ago, and the interpretation of the lyrics has stuck with me: “‘When I Go Deaf’ … speaks frankly about a time when it will be OK not to write or sing songs, when an artist’s obligation to create has died or been beaten away,” Chris Godsey wrote.
The lyrics demand Alan Sparhawk’s voice, but they stand on their own:
When I go deaf / I won’t even mind / Yeah, I’ll be all right / I’ll be just fine. / I’ll stay out all night / Looking at the sky / I’ll still have my sight / Yeah, I’ll still have my eyes. / And we will make love / We won’t have to fight / We won’t have to speak / And we won’t have to lie. / And I’ll stop writing songs / Stop scratching out lines / I won’t have to fake / And it won’t have to rhyme.
The new Low album comes out April 12. The band released a “trailer” for the album, primarily featuring footage of them screwing around during recording at Sacred Heart Music Center in Duluth. It is yet strangely endearing and captures the Low spirit:
You can pre-order “C’mon” now (I recommend vinyl) and stream the whole thing while you wait for delivery. I did that a while ago and have listened to it several times; it really does occupy a good place in their oeuvre, somehow managing to be both new and fresh and modern, and a return to their roots. As Nels Cline wrote: “Classic Low, yet new/expanded Low. Growth!”
Low will bring “C’mon” to First Avenue’s Mainroom on April 16.
Katie, Lola and I spent yesterday afternoon and the night at her parents’ house in rural Afton. They were out-of-town and we felt like some time in “the country.” It was a quiet retreat with books and movies and food. Snow fell for much of the day but as evening came the skies cleared, an almost summery meteorological moment.
Around dusk, I took Lola for a stroll down the driveway and a short ways up the road. It was still and cold and silent, everything muffled by the couple of inches of fresh snow. The road was even covered, with a discernible number of tire tracks on it.
The St. Croix valley
my home all these years
all these seasons
On my way out of Afton this morning, I took a wandering route and drove slowly along lightly-trafficked roads. I stopped my car on the side of the road at the intersection of Valley Creek Road and Stagecoach Trail and walked around the corner to the little bridge over the creek.
It’s the tendency of trout anglers to look over bridge railings into cold, clear streams. Valley Creek is known for its trout but none were visible from the bridge. The stream is pretty shallow and sandy in that stretch and in winter, the fish would probably be hunkered down in deep pools.
spring-fed creek
between snow-covered banks
seen from a bridge
where I look out and listen
to the song of running water
Historical Note:
Valley Creek’s original name was actually “Bolles Creek.” The website of the Belwin Conservancy–a 1,300-acre nature preserve near where I was standing–says the name goes back to the first of many commercial flour mills in Minnesota, located just downstream from the bridge:
It was here in about 1845 that Lemule Bolles constructed the first commercial flour mill in Minnesota. The Bolles Mill was constructed of timber collected from the shore of the St. Croix River and hauled to a site on Valley Creek just downstream of the Belwin Conservancy’s preserve. The mill had a ninefoot water wheel powered from a millrace – parts of which still exist today. The mill could produce about 50 barrels of flour in a day.
The creek was at the time called ‘Bolles Creek’ and not long after Lemule constructed his mill, his uncle Erastus Bolles built a blacksmith shop nearby. The small settlement that developed nearby was in turn known as Valley Creek.
Speaking of geographical naming, my research this evening turned up the name of Afton itself. The Washington County Historical Society says Afton’s name is believed to have been inspired by a poem:
According to many historical accounts, Mrs. C. S. Getchel gave Afton its name. The landscape reminded her of Robert Burns’ poem, “Afton Water,” with its “neighboring hills, and the winding rills.”
Here’s how the poem starts:
Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
Flow gently, I’ll sing thee a song in thy praise;
My Mary’s asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.
When I turned 30-years-old last May, I took the day off work and went for a long hike with my dog at Wild River State Park. It was quiet in the park that day, the trees starting to get green and only the two of us on the trail to breathe it all in.
Having recently gone morel hunting for the first time, my eyes were often glued to the forest floor, looking for mushrooms. I didn’t find any. But I did see all the delicate early-spring flowers; they seemed to be the first natural color I’d seen in months and months.
I was just flipping through photos and experienced an almost unbearable sensation in these cold, snowy, gray winter days. It’s overwhelming to feel the longing of life in the landscape, still a good two months off, but also the joy of that annual deep breath the forest takes as the sun comes back to us. I thought I would share the pain and the ecstasy with you, readers.
Click the images below to see larger versions. Click the larger image to see a very large version that might make an appropriate computer desktop this time of year.
Any help identifying the flowers would be much appreciated.
We were lulled by a mid-February thaw last week, but winter exerted itself once more this past couple days. The temperature brushed 50 degrees early Wednesday and one began looking for buds on the trees, and then ominous forecasts began and increased as the weekend drew near.
About noon on Sunday, tiny flakes started falling as if one at a time from the clouds. It quickly became thick, and has been waxing and waning ever since. I think we got 15″ at our house; it didn’t stop coming down until after 6 p.m. today.
Late Friday afternoon, on the precipice between thaw and blizzard, still making pretend it was spring, I was driving back toward home from St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin. I took a scenic route on Wisconsin Highway 35 down the St. Croix River valley. I spotted a road sign between Osceola and Somerset, pointing west for both a Wisconsin “Rustic Road” and a river landing. I turned right.
The road went through upland fields for a while, some cultivated or used for pasture, some prairie and scrubby woods. Occasionally, I saw small homesteads set back from the road.
Just as the road dropped over the crest of the bluffs, it narrowed and became rougher. Soon it started to twist down toward the river, though thick hardwood forests, the almost-down sun beaming through the leafless trees.
I drove through the woods along the base of the bluffs for another mile, forks occasionally branching off, me always choosing the westerly branch. I came around a bend and there was a parking lot and an outhouse and there was the river. I had never been to this landing before. After a few minutes, I figured out that I was directly across from Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota. I had once eaten lunch after canoeing on the deck of the restaurant right across the channel.
Down by the river, the sun was already just over the trees to the west, silhouetting white pine trees against a yellow and orange glow. The river ice, laid bare and warped by a week of thaw and wind and freeze, shone purple and blue.
It was 20 degrees and there was a steady breeze from the north. I didn’t stay long at the landing, but retraced my path to the top of the bluffs and then wandered downstream via more back roads.
As I followed roads that zig-zagged between upland and river bottom, I got pretty turned around. I was fine as long as I kept the river close to my right. The daylight was fading, but when I reached high points on the landscape, the sun was still in this hemisphere.
I have published two volumes of a chapbook titled "Esker." The most recent volume, "Nowhere Else But Here," was released in January 2010. It features writings from every day of June 2009 in an old Japanese form called haibun.
Posted: April 1st, 2011 
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