Natural Connections

Floating down the river, exploring the side canyons, relaxing around camp, I was always on the lookout for both the novel and the familiar. A giant insect I’d never seen before but knew immediately to be a Tarantula-hawk Wasp caught my attention just as easily as the glossy black feathers of a Common Raven. After a few days of pointing out something I’d noticed, or explaining the basics of a geological feature, I found more questions coming my way from the other participants. With each teachable moment, I felt more connected to both the canyon and my fellow rafters. I wasn’t surprised at the way this unfolded, and probably, neither are you.

Due to a stuffy nose, I’m not recording a new episode for you this week. I did pull forward this episode from 2023 about the elk herd near Clam Lake. 

Morning mist hung low in the sky as a dozen elk ran across a clearing. A similarly sized herd of Museum members held our breath and grinned at our good luck. It was luck 3 billion years in the making.

Curtains of vibrant lights were moving just above the horizon. The aurora! My jaw must have dropped as I stumbled backward to lean against the car, and tears welled up as I tilted my head back for a better view. The moon hung full and bright on my east. To my west, spruce trees were silhouetted against the faint, rosy afterglow of the setting sun. And all across my southern sky, northern lights danced in curtains of green and white and pink. The curtains were woven of many wispy streaks, as if I was seeing the individual particles of solar wind blazing through our atmosphere. Northern lights are not just an awesome benefit to living on Earth; they are an absolute necessity to our survival. Our Earth defends us. And the result is unspeakable beauty.

With the rough, rolling, cold, wet ferry ride behind us, we disembarked gratefully at the Windigo dock on the southwest corner of Isle Royale National Park. Isle Royale, a 45 mile long and 9 mile wide bedrock island, is teeming with life that somehow made the treacherous journey. We hoisted our packs and started off down the trail. Before long, we met several pairs of hikers just ending their trips. We asked about their route on the island, their hometown, and which ferry they took. In essence, we asked “How did you get here?” Mostly they used the water route, but one couple arrived by air in a float plane. Historically, making winter crossings by dogsled was also common. Isle Royale is not an easy place to get to, or to get around, and yet life surrounded us on all sides. Soon I started asking “How did you get here?” to everything we saw. 

Cliffs rose out of the lake ahead of us and soon towered a few dozen feet above our heads. Millenia of waves had worked their way into weaker layers of rock and then continued to enlarge them grain by grain. Some hollows were still tiny, but others formed deep alcoves. They spoke of the power of persistence. As we rounded one corner, a sea arch with one leg out in the lake framed our view. In another spot, multiple caves had coalesced into a maze we could paddle through.

After hours on the water, we returned to dry land to find food and shade. Taking our dessert to-go, we sat at a picnic table with a view of the lake and remarked about just how restful and healing the day had been. The combination of soaking in sunshine; gazing at and jumping in clean water; feeling awe at the ancient rocks; and admiring the beauty of life, had worked a special kind of magic on our moods. 

Sarah Montzka is about to start their senior year as a wildlife education major at UW Stevens Point. This summer, as a Summer Naturalist Intern at the Museum, they taught our Junior Naturalist programs, assisted with live animal care, and showed a real talent for finding and appreciating the oddest parts of nature. 

This week Sarah will tell you all about lampreys!

The main event of the moth workshop came after dark. Kyle hung a white sheet with a mercury vapor lamp across an old driveway. Then he painted fermented banana goo onto the trunks of trees along the drive. Until almost midnight, our little group walked from tree to tree to the sheet and back, with stops at patches of blooming milkweed in between.

From drab lichen mimics to shimmering green wings; micromoths smaller than a grain of rice to underwing moths the size of my palm; we were captivated by the multitudes of mysterious moths.

Butterwort, primrose, and eyebright are arctic disjuncts, or northern plants who have been separated from their main populations. “We're very interested in these species as the vanguard of climate change for the Arctic. Whatever is happening here is what we expect to see happening farther north, as the climate continues to warm,” said Dr. Briana Gross, an Associate Professor at UMN-Duluth.

I met a new friend this spring, and I’ve been heading up north to visit them every chance I get. We didn’t meet online exactly, but I did use an app to figure out their location. You see, I read about them over the winter, and just had to find out more about their life! They are a little odd – they supplement their diet with insects and make an unusual kind of yogurt – and they may not be hanging out this far south for very much longer. 

Being a botany nerd, I call this new friend of mine Pinguicula vulgaris, a plant also known as Common Butterwort.

Keir, who specializes in moss, passed around tuft after tuft of green Dr. Seussian inventions. The scientific names he gave with each sample slipped through my brain in a fog of unspellable syllables. I admired each one eagerly, though, in awe of the kaleidoscope of leaf shapes, textures, patterns, and colors.

I was crouched down, admiring the round, glistening leaves of a unique moss sprinkled in a thick jumble across a small bowl between cedar roots, when Keir finally spoke words I recognized. “And here’s some spilled penny moss…” I couldn’t even see the specimen he held up, but I knew he’d just named my lovely, shiny friend.