The stars at night are big and bright ...
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By Bill Wundram | Tuesday, October 14, 2008 |
ON THE TRAIL OF AUTUMN — We roll over in bed, snuggled from the chill. Our eyes do not want to open because we did not sleep soundly. We were awake at 2 a.m.
Staying on top of a mountain, where the skies are the blackest of a blackout, we admire the heavens like we have escaped to some celestial Valhalla of mythology. The night is clear. The stars are like Italian lights on Christmas trees, close enough to touch.
There it is, the Big Dipper, nodding to the Little Dipper, with the North Star acting like a handle. The stars are etched in the skies, looking no more distant than a block away.
Then, it happens. Far above the fir and birch trees, a crack appears in this dark night on the northern horizon. The darkness is being pushed aside to reveal a tender luminescence. I stand still at the big window, while streamers of light cross the heavens. They streak, then puff, rolling as if playing games in greens and pinks and oranges. It is the Northern Lights!
We’re on the north shore of Lake Superior, about 500 miles above the Quad-Cities. Few Quad-Citizens travel here because it is so remote.
Finally we stretch and wake up to see a blazing sunrise burning off the fog on Lake Superior. The sun is rising too quickly for us to realize all the work that must have gone into this glorious dawn. Within moments, Lake Superior is far more azure than the sky. The white-capped waves are slapping the shore, far, far below.
The day is breezy, thrashing the tops of yellow birches. Their swishing, back and forth, helps to dismiss everything else — even our constant worries that our 401(k) is now a 201(k). This is a crystal day to head for the true red October. But first there is a stop at the landmark Betty’s Pies, along U.S. 61, the same U.S. 61 that travels through the Quad-City area. “I’m not Betty,” say the buttons on the aprons of servers at a place that turns out 350 pies a day.
The shimmering Lake Superior is at our side as we drive past Stone Chimney Road, Moccasin Mike Road and a place called Lemon Wolf Café. Here and there, a small church will be offering a Saturday night fish boil. No chili suppers, like in the Quad-Cities. But then again nothing in the northland is like the Quad-Cities.
Around the Q-C, we gush at a neighbor’s red maple or the weak yellow leaves on a decorative birch. In the northland mountains, around Lutsen and Finland, it looks like 10,000 helicopters have dumped 100 million gallons of paint on the hills. The maples are miles of rolling red trees.
Just past Split Rock Lighthouse, the trees look to have been dipped in color. All the world is a big paintbox. The only mortal we see is a man, walking with two ski poles to help him along through the hills.
Ahead is a sign that says “Heartbreak Hill,” with the explanation, “Early in the horse logging days, many loggers were heartbroken because their teams could not haul logs up or down this hill.”
This land is mystically silent.
An essayist, Ariel Steel who has a love affair with the northland, put it well:
“Up north is not so much a location, as it is a state of mind, to escape the pressures and frantic pace of everyday life.”
Bill Wundram can be contacted at (563) 383-2249 or bwundram@qctimes.com. Comment on this column at qctimes.com.
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