No Safety Net, No Internet: The Eagle, The Heron, and The Bears
As a family, we have put a lot of miles on getting to our outings. Couple that with the fact that I now live 600 miles away from where I grew up and my parents still reside, and you can say we have spent some time on the road. I actually like those longer trips since I can tune things out and think. But have you ever had those moments when you’re deep in thought and your eyes catch something in the periphery, out in the passing field or near the ditch? It’s uncanny how you while pondering something your subconscious picks things up and will awaken you to take note. Part of that is a habit you have to develop when driving in deer country, after dusk and later you have to be scanning the road for that bobbing white.
On my Sunday Nights Radio podcast this March I relayed how I spied a gray fox scampering up the road as I was heading north. When you sight things like that out of the blue you can get the feeling that you were meant to spot that creature. I'm a bit of a superstitious thinker that way. Oden’s blackbirds and omens and such are fun to ponder, they contain grains of truth sometimes.
On our last trip a few weeks ago it was just my wife and I heading up to the northern shores of Lake Michigan, and during the few days there we realized that we are at a different stage of life with our kids being adults now. It’s most apparent when we talked with families with young kids just starting on their years of fun of being out and about together. Unfortunately what my wife and I witnessed all in one day was after talking to these families - I can imagine the young kids’ faces as we would tell them about seeing an eagle, a blue heron and a mamma black bear and her cub, all after lunch on the same day. Those are good omens. Seeing a kid’s eye light up while relaying the folklore of those animals would have been very worth it.
We met two families and had pretty interesting conversations with them, they were both from out of state and had driven far to experience mistress Lake Michigan. There is a big sense of mystery up at Sleeping Bear Dunes, and the Indian legends contribute to that mystique. I’ll talk about the discussion my wife and I had with the families themselves. Our exchanges were interesting too, as my family had been hiking in their home states as well.
Folklore first. Part of our routine when we travel is to save our bike trip for the last day on the Betsie Valley Trail between Frankfort and Beulah. It’s a beautiful 16 mile round trip starting at the “harbor” of Betsie lake and along the shores of Crystal lake. We start in Frankfort for two reasons - if it’s hot we can jump in Lake Michigan one last time, and Moomer’s ice cream is a family ritual, just the right amount of procrastination before climbing into the car and heading downstate. I consider this part of our trips the last hurrah before our long drive back.
Michigan is home to 5 major tribes of American Indian, and in the northern section of the Lower Peninsula, or the mitten as many call it, we frequent Empire, Honor, Frankfurt and Lake Leland. That region is where the Chippewa or Ojibwa tribes today have reservations. Michigan itself is an Algonquin word for “big water”, and throughout the state we have Indian names for towns and regions to this day.
Anishinabbe Language Family
The Anishinaabe (alternatively spelled Anishinabe, Anicinape, Nishnaabe, Neshnabé, Anishinaabeg, Anishinabek, Aanishnaabe [1]) are a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples present in the Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States. They include the Ojibwe (including Saulteaux and Oji-Cree), Odawa, Potawatomi, Mississaugas, Nipissing and Algonquin peoples. The Anishinaabe speak Anishinaabemowin, or Anishinaabe languages that belong to the Algonquian language family.
http://www.native-languages.org/michigan.htm
Before I recount each of these awesome sightings, I am going to provide Chippewa and Algonquin legend. After all, we encountered these creatures in the region where these legends originated, and it arouses my curiosity to consider if there is a good omen to be found in these chance meetings in nature.
The Waŋblí - Eagle
The waŋblí — eagle — is an important winged symbol for the Native American people.
The eagle is the strongest and bravest of all birds. For this reason, Native Americans have chosen the eagle and its feathers as a symbol of what is highest, bravest, strongest and holiest.
The Eagle (Migizi) is one of our most revered and respected beings in creation. These beautiful birds represent our link to the Creator (Gchi Manidoo) and our connection to all that is spiritual for our people. It is taught that when we lay down our tobacco (sema), Migizi comes down to gather our prayers and then soars high up into Ishpeming (Above) to bring them to the Gchi Manidoo
The Eagle Clan (Migizi Dodem) is one of our sacred Bird Clans (Bineshi Dodem). The Eagle Clan (Migizi Dodem) people hold roles as Spiritual leaders in our communities, and help us to live in balance with all that surrounds us. The Eagle (Migizi) holds the gifts of knowledge and higher learning, and is responsible for passing on our oral history, traditional stories, and providing counsel and guidance to our community leaders.
https://www.saulttribe.com/images/Anishinaabe_Teachings_of_the_Eagle.pdf
I mentioned earlier that at this stage of our excursion, we were in wind-down mode because we knew we’re leaving in a few hours. So within the span of 1-2 hours, spying a bald eagle, a blue heron and the bears so close together was a bit surreal. My wife and I were seated on the shore of Crystal Lake in Beulah near the peer eating lunch and a shadow passing overhead grabbed my attention. Looking up, I see a bald eagle circle out over the water, then flap away. I’ve seen our bald eagles up close when we are on the rises overlooking the beaches of Lake Michigan, their nests are right there in the trees and they will circle with currents. But we were sitting in a park at the beach in downtown Beulah with no real foliage for an eagle’s nest. It was spectacular and surprising all at once.
The Zhashagi - Blue Heron
The Zhashagi is know for patience and wisdom.
An Algonquin Indian story, Honeyed Words Can’t Sweeten Evil, describes why the Great Blue Heron and the Wolf do not get along. In this a Blue Heron rides two weasels across a river on its back because they spoke to it in a flattering, respectful way. Seeing that, Wolf comes along wanting to cross and speaks foolishly commanding the heron to lie down so it can cross. Realizing its error the Wolf then tries to speak flatteringly. Blue Heron agrees to ride Wolf on its back. Grinning from ear to ear Wolf thinks it has tricked the bird. “Friend Wolf,’ said Blue Heron, ‘ you made a mistake. I am not strong enough to carry you across. For that you need two herons. I can carry you only halfway. Now you must get another heron to carry you the rest of the way.” Twisting away, the heron lets the wolf plop and drop to the bottom. No wolf has trusted a heron since that day.
https://janthinaimages.wordpress.com/2012/07/28/great-blue-heron-bird-of-symbolism-and-myth-i/
About 30 minutes later on the bike trail we had left Crystal Lake behind and were tracking the Betsie river. It is a shallow river and not very wide with some parts quite marshy. Among the reeds I caught a glimpse of what I thought was a branch stuck strangely in the riverbed. Until it moved. It was a Blue Heron, maybe 40 feet away. Stupid me, I had my phone in my backpack so no pictures. This bird spread its wings - and what wing span it had - when suddenly it flaps to take flight, its wings so long they make a graceful, undulating movement that appears as if the heron is in slow motion. That’s how large their wingspan is. With the whipping of blue feathers the heron departed, arcing up and away. We could hear the fluttering faintly as it took off.
The Makwa - Bear
Once, long ago, in the land called Wisconsin across the great lake, there was terrible hunger and many people died. A bear and two little cubs were trying to leave that place and come around the lake where there would be more food.
They walked for many days on the beach together, but after a while the two little cubs began to whimper with hunger, and so the bear decided to swim across the rest of the lake.
They waded into the water, one cub on each side of the bear, and they swam off into the lake a long way. After a while the cubs began to get very tired, and so the bear said, “Try hard, the land is not very far.” And very soon they did come in sight of land.
But gradually the cubs got weaker, and only ten miles away, one cub sank into the water. Soon after, the other also drowned.
The bear’s heart was broken, but she could do nothing. She waded ashore and lay down, looking out on the water where her cubs had died. Eventually, both of them came to the surface as two little islands, and so the bear still lies there atop the dunes, looking after here children.
https://www.nps.gov/slbe/learn/kidsyouth/the-story-of-sleeping-bear.htm
As we continued on the trail to head back to Frankfurt, I was thinking that we were lucky to see two beautiful birds in such a short time between sightings. Onward we rode, and I was lost in thought once again. After another 15 minutes the Betsy River departed from the trail and thicket now lay on both our right and left sides. At this part of the trail are large swaths of raspberry bushes. Up ahead, maybe 60 feet away, I see a black shadow on the right.
Have you ever detected something, it is in your field of vision, but it doesn’t really register because it’s so dark? Your mind is trying to stitch together what it sees, and yet you feel yourself on autopilot as you charge ahead. Maybe that’s where people get this idea of a slow motion effect when they experience out of the ordinary things unfold.
The dark shape moved, it was about the size of my 60 lb pit bull, but it had a large head and short muzzle. Jet black fur. A black bear cub, munching on the raspberries. He raised his head at the sound of us stopping, we’re now about 45 feet away.
Whenever you encounter a bear cub, you know that the mother is nearby. Black bear can accelerate up to 30-35 miles an hour. My wife and I are looking for the mother, who is nowhere to be found. We didn’t want to enrage the mother, but we also wanted to let her know we were there. The cub shot off across the trail into the thicket with a crash.
We stayed in place for about 5 minutes, ready to bolt if we needed to. The brush is thick enough that we would have heard if something charged at us, and I hoped that the mother bear was up ahead with her cub and not lurking unseen next to us. My wife and I were talking so we knew that it could hear us, so no surprise at this point. Was 5 minutes enough time for a mother bear to collect a cub who was spooked by the loud people? After 2 more minutes I told my wife we’d ride through, fast as we could. Again my thinking was that the brush was thick enough that we’d hear something charge us. But you want to know something, I really had no clue. I’ve read about bear encounters, and we had black bear in the Catskills and there were stories and things you picked up growing up, but I had never been this close, so all of this was a guess. My dad told me a story once of how a family in the region had come home one night to find their kitchen door open. When they looked inside a black bear was shoulders deep in their fridge, eating.
Yet these are stories, not direct experience.
We mounted up and peddled like hell, as we passed by where the cub had been, I glanced to the thicket to the left, and down the bank I could see a larger black shape move its head to watch us, like we were passing birds. It was the mother bear, but luckily she didn’t look alarmed, wasn’t facing us and was on all fours. But digging my phone out of my backpack was the furthest thing on my mind at that point, I just wanted to get far away and capitalize on our luck.
Passing On The Tales and Love of Lake Michigan
Those young families with their kids, full of energy and new to the area, reminded me of why we started traveling together to hike, kayak and camp. We wanted to have experiences, and let our children build up their own set of stories from all the adventure we had. Those tales remain with you. One family we met was from Indiana, this was their kids first time and they had never seen the large sand dunes of Sleeping Bear. We were happy to tell them that they were only 5 miles away from some of the most beautiful beaches in the entire US. This photo below is Esch Beach. Look at that emerald water, so magical you could imagine you were in the Caribbean. To see young families give that gift to their kids fills you with hope. We need much more of that, nature is out there for us all, just set down the phones. In fact, you won’t want your phone at all, you may miss the bear the shadows.
While it did age us to have the conversation, we spoke with another family who were from Middletown, Ohio - Hillbilly Elegy territory. As we discussed the hard times Michigan is experiencing and exchanged brief histories of the housing market increases and rough economy, we found out that they owned property in Red River Gorge Kentucky, an area we had gone hiking in a few years prior to the Pandemic. Red River Gorge is where you can find the Kentucky Land Bridge, an incredible geological structure. An arching stone bridge carved by wind, it’s something out of a movie when you encounter it. They were eager to climb Pyramid Point, one of our regular dune hikes.
While I don’t feel old, it struck me that we have been blessed to have had years of adventure. And it’s the small things that you see, and pass on to someone new to the region. When you continue to come back your discoveries in nature, you notice that on the rivers in the southeast portion of our state, birch trees are few, but take a kayak out on the beautiful Crystal or Platte river and you’ll notice more pine and birch. Meeting this family from Ohio, whose daughters were eagerly collecting slugs for their slug village back at their tent, was so gratifying because you saw courage and confidence in those young kids. That is so rare. These outings with family are part of a foundation. An important one. But filled with cool encounters with things that are all around us if we strike out to find them.
Is this what is meant by the bounty of nature? May we all pass that gift on as often as we can.