The habits of a naturalist are eternally ordinary. Watch, count, find wonder, and repeat endlessly (there is always an end, but let’s ignore that part for today). In walking with a friend at Siskiwit Falls today, in the tiny village of Cornucopia along Gitchi Gummi’s southern shore, I counted the steps one of the waterfalls had carved into the sandstone in one particular spot, 13, and compared it to another spot. All this counting before wandering down to a sandbar where a bare tree lies, a mystery to be identified and cataloged. And by cataloging we may know a little more or satisfy our inner curiosity, through which we naturalists build an honorable relationship with Place.
My friend and I debate the patterns of bark and growth, and find meaning in the speckling of knots along the debarked tree. We guess everything from alder to box elder to cottonwood. Through all this we find meaning from each other, deepening human bonds over curiosity in the slightest mystery. The habits of a naturalist are all about noticing relationships and tying niches together into a whole picture of a biome, large or small, and that includes human connections as well. My friend and I are just getting to know each other, and this mystery is our connection point. It is soon forgotten when they find an orchid along the river’s banks, a green bog orchid, which I still check in on every so often.
Along the same banks, we later observe layers of sandstone, separated from the main body of bedrock. Here on the South Shore our bedrock is glacial till and sandstone on top of igneous gneiss. Here in particular, the river has eaten a path in the sandstone, and along these banks’ underneath cedar roots and their threads of roots, disks of sandstone have fallen from the main body of bedrock, to be cradled aloft by the roots of the cedar. I feel that way sometimes. Separated from the beloved source, and held up by the barest of gossamer strings. Somedays, I feel as the debarked tree must, or as the sandstone steps of the waterfalls. Feeling deep relationship, kinship even, is also a habit of a good naturalist.
Here is a lovely resource for understanding Wisconsin’s bedrock regions. ——> https://www.wpr.org/take-your-own-tour-through-geological-wonders-wisconsin
Gossamer Naturalist 