The Wandering and the Woods
Short Stories of the Mind in Nature
Being alone in the woods brings with it many feelings and thoughts. The following is a collection of a few such reflections.
To be Alone
It’s lonely. The persuit of the outdoor life is a lonely place indeed. For to truly open one’s eyes to the space created by existing outside the confines of the society and four walls of familiarity can be nothing but.
The realization came to me as I waited for someone to occupy the campsite next to me. Our sites were just a hundred meters apart and with clear enough sight lines. As I waited late into the afternoon and the sounds echoing around the lake became quiet I felt lonely. Strange, I thought, as I camped alone exclusively and found the site and weather wonderful and accommodating. My book was good, I lay reclined in my hammock, and I felt fairly comfortable with the existence of the wildlife around me and the unlikelihood of an unsuspecting encounter. But I was lonely.
Wishing I had someone to talk with, maybe? At the same time I was understanding this feeling I was reading Cache Lake Country by John J Rowlands. He says,
“ No, living alone, be it in the woods or the big city, where you can be as lonely as in any wilderness, is bad business. Men were not meant to live alone.”
Of course, I wasn’t living here. But I was going about the contemplation of building my dream cabin on a large plot of land up north alone in the woods and thinking to myself how might I fare so alone?
With my current place in the proximate backcountry of Algonquin, sitting in my hammock waiting for clarity or darkness, I felt the overwhelmingness of the lonely existence I thought I desired. When a camper arrived at the site around 6:30 PM I suddenly felt less lonely. It wasn’t so much the desire to be with someone but to dwell in the comfort of someone else’s presence and know that they were also in this place.
As I continued reading Rowlands, I found his existence in the north woods was not what I had initially supposed when I picked up the book; one of slow living, harmonious with the seasons, and alone with one’s thoughts and identity. Of course, the character lives slowly with the seasons, but he inhabits a relatively crowded section of the wilderness, within a short distance of two very close friends. The trio spend time together, canoe tripping, chopping wood, cooking, and crafting.
To Eb and Flow
Hiking on a Saturday in August through a more remote trail with minimal markings and a lesser-trodden path, the air never feels quite silent. Instead, the inside of my head rattles around thoughts and conversations like boats rocking against a dock in the tide.
The wind blows around in the tree tops, now stronger than a month ago and the air is thinner, indicating the encroaching cool weather. The ferns and understory plants have begun to die and yellow.
This stretch of trail passes over shield, past lakes, wetlands, and marshes, through mixed hardwood forest, and across barren. Eight kilometers straight out, away from the nearest road, out of reach of cell service, across a beaver dam, and away from any remaining sound bites of civilization. The occasional drone of a plane engine in the distance interrupts this post-apocalyptic silence.
Traces of the Anthropocene persist. Power line clear cuts stripe across the trail at two points. First surrounded by low-growing shrubs and sumac, the second, rocks with only a thin blanket of lichens.
I hike until I realize the storm rolling in and feel the first drops of rain. Turning around I find once again my head rattling. As I march closer to the return to civilization, the thoughts take hold with more force, sticking. This same meditative reversal tends to happen when I take a vacation; initially, thoughts float in and out of mind, while the closer I come to the end of the trip, the more persistent they become in being considered.
In my mentally distracted state, I begin to get turned around. Coming to a clearing across a large section of the rocky face, I begin to walk in one direction instinctively, quickly recognizing my folly, that I am not where I thought I was, I turn to go another way, and yet a third and fourth before I find the trail again. A similar exercise in unconscious wayfinding happens again several more times as I meander back to the trailhead.
Such is the experience of hiking with only oneself.
To Come Upon a Stranger
It’s early November, a walk in the north woods, out 2 kilometers from the nearest road I come upon a stranger. Two, in fact, an older man in a suit vest and a middle-aged man in an orange safety vest and church shoes. They both peer over an iPhone, staring at the maps app and the little blue dot floating in the free space between lakes and away from any little grey rectangles or labels.
I nod a quick hello and begin to shuffle past when the man in the suit vest asks, “How far to the waterfall?”. I pause, mid-step, and consider his question. Odd, since there are no waterfalls I know of in this section of trail, a rapid at the 12-kilometer point, but no falls here or on the surrounding trails.
“The waterfall?” I reply.
“Yes, the waterfall, how far is it? Are we close?” he asks again.
“No waterfalls around here. Not that I know of….There’s a great lookout about 2 kilometers ahead, and a rapid around 10 more...”
“Eagles Nest? No, no, we don’t want the lookout…” (Crows Nest, I don’t correct him.) “…Waterfall, kinda like rapid maybe, yes rapid. How far?”
I tell him again, “Not for another 10 kilometers. There may be another one if you head back to where the wide trail, ATV trail, crossed back there. I know there’s a canoe portage a couple kilometers in so that could be the one you’re thinking of.”
I don’t tell him I think he’s mistaken, he continues to insist there is one here, right where we’re standing, he motions. Then he asks, how far I’m going, and whether I’ll be staying the night. All the while, his colleague in his safety vest remains silent.
To come upon a stranger in the woods can be a fine thing, to pass and say hello and continue in your respective directions, or where one has sat down to drink and the other continues past. Some may not even let a greeting pass between them, perhaps for fear of opening the door to more interaction, or perhaps out of distraction.
However, to come upon a stranger—or two—standing stationary in the woods of November, dressed strangely for the locale, and confused about the topography can feel like quite another. The length of an interaction can play with the mind. The lonely trees, leafless and cold, and the voice of a stranger whose questions grow strange disquiet the mind.
To walk alone in the woods is to trust that those you encounter have similar reasons for being there. To fear the bear is to wander into a neighbour’s home and wonder how they might react to your turning up unannounced. To fear the man is to come upon a stranger in your neighbour’s home and be left wondering if they’re there for the same reason as you.
To Feel the Cold Biting
As the snow falls silently around me I become aware of the silence of the birds. No, in fact, the only sounds around me are those I make myself. The squeak of the snow under my boots, the woosh of my backpack as it rubs slightly against my jacket where the straps meet the bag near my waist, even the blinking of my eyes as they fight the weeping cold.
No, the utter silence of the world at minus 20° in the middle of nowhere-near can be dissociative. Snow is a great insulator. While its primary insulation benefits seemingly come in the form of heat retention and windproofing — Twelve inches of snow has a similar insulation value to a 2x4 wall filled with fiberglass insulation — its ability to make a cold world silent is equally as effective. Well, not necessarily the snow itself, but the reasons for its existence.
In the biting cold, numbness of extremities is concerning, silence often is not. Silence can be interrupted; by the breaking or singing of ice, the popping of sap inside tree trunks, a jet flying overhead, or the woosh of my backpack against my jacket.
Losing the feeling in my thighs doesn’t seem like it ought to concern me as much as that my core is warm and my hands are sweating. I reduce sweat by dressing in a few light layers– ‘Be bold, start cold’.
No birds are flying about today, the snow is solid under my snowshoes but I’m careful to avoid the freshly frozen flood zones, though occasionally punching through and incurring a soaker. I wander alongside some tracks in the snow: star-shaped, with three front prongs and one long back one. They meander along in no real hurry for 750 meters and then disappear. Only a turkey, I suspect.
If I were to stop for long out in this exposed landscape of bare rock, bare trees, and bare essentials, I’d freeze. Surely, in very little time at all. Though I have one of those California-cancer-ban reflective safety blankets, a headlamp, a backpacker’s first aid kit, and an extra base layer, it wouldn’t take long to lose to this biting cold.
To Overwinter
As a season ends, the world becomes a transient place, and I, a fleeting guest on the landscape. Lakes still frozen and others breaking up, trees begin budding while others continue their rest, the air ceases to bite and begins to blow warmed by the sun. We’ve reached the period of the “Overwinter”. The birds and animals that stayed and fought through frozen bark and crust to find food are joined again by those that flew away or went to den. Flora starts to awaken in the longer, sunnier days, and I am more cautious to keep my feet on with softening steps.
I’ve overwintered here now and seen how the landscape has shifted over the last four months. I’ve come back to this place five times this winter and this is the first I’ve walked out to the middle of a lake. I’ve seen very few people, only ever zipping past on snowmobiles. The temperature has fluctuated between -20ºC and +3ºC. The snow has been different each time, rising, falling, an icy crust, soft and light.
I know this landscape and how it reacts to these shifts. I know where the water runs off and where it freezes. I know where the snow dunes, and where it becomes windswept. I walk across the open spaces like Paul Atredis careful not to wake what lies beneath and dart between the trees to find the sun. I never feel like I’ve understood a landscape completely until I’ve overwintered there. The other seasons bring predictability with their visible footpaths and contained elements. When the snow falls, everything becomes less predictable, and the only chance to truly know your way is to know that land and how it shapeshifts to accommodate the elements.
The Overwinter brings the change to the landscape and I come to bear witness to the final shifts and groans. The last stage of her accommodation, the earth beneath will soon be revealed, muddied by her acceptance of the final gift of winter eager to bring forth life.
I’d be happier now to hold onto the fleeting cold as it recedes like the tide. I think of the bugs that come in the summer. Then I think of the views and how they change. The more things change, the more they become known.
