Personal Reflection: The Echo Lake Nature Preserve

Yet as I dreamed, my eyes could not ignore the blackened stumps along the trail, the signposts of timbered forest from years ago. A couple choice trees leading to the locked gate of The Echo Lake Preserve were painted with blue dots, which Jeff, my guide with a personality like an indignant but ancient dire wolf (whose territory I was trespassing on), did not indicate as sold trees. I only understood as much. Instead, he laboriously explained his job as the Upper Peninsula Director of Land Protection, of The Nature Conservancy, overseeing the conservation easement on this 488 acre preserve. The easement dictates that this land is maintained under a land lease so that the timber is preserved for potential future buyers who buy through The Forestland Group. This group owns the timbering rights to most of the Upper Peninsula, selling trees when most profitable. Until The J.A. Woollam Foundation donated the land about Echo Lake to The Nature Conservancy, the rights still belonged to private investors.

As I ventured further into the preserve with him, I felt some tension in his job responsibilities, how little preservation he can truly do with such a lease. Even so, we walked the gravel-paved trail past the gate and up a long, steeping hill. He said this road was used for timbering purposes. Since then, volunteers placed gravel to make the preserve easier to access in the winter months. Jeff pointed out the native mosses and ferns planted by the Conservancy to help erosion. Then he walked ahead, silent, as I looked up into the trees, where patches of yellow-green leaves speckled the canopy. A couple miles from Superior, cold air and frost comes late to this region, so trees here are only bright yellows and mustard greens and keep their living colors much longer than towns farther inland. In Negaunee and Ishpeming, there is much more red, as if a painter pricked himself and bled across his canvas.

I hear only our footsteps on the gravel road, speckled with the first layer of fallen, yellow leaves. As the path curved uphill toward the lake, I asked about the silence, the lack of birds calls. Jeff said loons, merganser, and even bald eagles could live here along with otters, white-tailed deer, and chipmunks. As he explained, a small bird (maybe a chickadee) landed nearby. It chirped, then flew away, frightened by our presence, or perhaps the ominous clouds in the sky.

We stopped at the top of the hill, where the hardwood trees were close about. Here, the main trail split in two, and Jeff pointed me toward the graveled path. I stopped to examine the less-traveled lumber road leading into a deeper forested area. It would pass the headwaters of Harlow Creek, which would have been interesting to see. I recited Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” in my head as I climbed up the last of the trail over the bank leading back down to Echo Lake.

The forest opened out and away. Trees, conifers and deciduous, lined the shores, and up into the rock outcroppings on the horizon which once, Jeff said, were the remnants of ancient mountains. On the other side of the lake, it was predominantly white pines, spruces, and eastern hemlocks. Closer by on our side were sugar maples, white cedar, and aspen. I smelled the air again, and grasped a hint of spearmint underneath the scent of sugared pine. The ground cover leading down the bank to the lake held fall’s dull color in it, as most of the plants were dying from the cold and damp conditions. Of these, I found big and little bluestems seeding, long dead blueberries nestled amongst tired lichen, and the last blooms of goldenrods. I saw the ground cover crawl down the bank and lick the lakeshore, then morph into kelp beyond it into the waters.

Echo Lake stood still and clear. The water, like glass, reflected the dark green bank of trees on the far side, making it appear there were more trees than were possible. Halfway across the lake, a sheer exposed-bedrock cliff formed a canyon-like atmosphere. These rock outcroppings along the western shore cause one’s voice to echo across these waters, and that gives the lake its name. Its shoreline is a little over a mile long. Its depth reaches 70 feet down. Just south of where I stood is the outlet, Harlow Creek. Somewhere beyond my view to the west are the mountain lakes which feed and maintain the Echo’s waters.

Like a wolf, I felt seclusion here.

As Jeff and I neared the lake’s surface, he mentioned that somewhere in its depths reside a fair population of largemouth bass and bluegills. These fish are not normally near the surface, so the lake looked calm and uninhabited. With exception of my reflection in the water, all the life I had seen consisted of that small bird, a reflection of a crow in the water, a distant “cheep” of a chipmunk.

Jeff, the most distant of all, stood and waited for me as I sketched the shoreline into my journal.

As we hiked to the highest point in the preserve, where the waters of Superior would dominate the horizon, boundless and solid as blue stone, a giant hemlock tree’s remains stood out a hundred feet from the path. Amongst the other trees, it was long dead, but in its decay it was majestic; it summoned me. However, when my foot tried to venture toward it, Jeff reminded me not to stray from the path. I looked down, and noticed the rock outline which I had crossed.

That tree’s remains must have been a mature tree left there only because it was dead long before the timbering of this area. But that tree called me somehow, setting this area off limits with its ominous vibrations. Or was I just imagining it? With land owned by nonprofit corporations and groups, this tree, which captivated my attention so suddenly, was off limits to my approach.

Yet, at least, there was a beauty in that; after all I am no deer or owl, or wolf.

I am quite human.

And I own nothing here.

Hey everyone, you just read the only nonfiction piece I've ever published. It was for my non-fiction nature writing course at Northern Michigan University. Visiting this preserve was absolutely amazing. The professor asked for an essay of some sort, but I turned this in instead. I don't know what he was expecting from me. Ah well, it passed anyway.

-Anya