What used to be a thriving waterfront for boating, canoeing, fishing and swimming has been disappearing for decades. Lakes don't really dry up; they just fill in, slowly, from the bottom to the top with sludgy sediment eroded from the watershed and from decomposing plants. What used to be a lake deep enough for horses to swim in over their heads is now probably no more than a foot deep. This kind of lake is classified as eutrophic: shallow, weedy and filled with organic matter. It is evolving into a wetland before our eyes. Large areas have given away to vegetation.
Shrubs and wayward canola grow in the very bay that I once canoed across as a child at summer camp. It was a windy day, I was nine years old, in an aluminum canoe with two other girls my age. One was scared and crying; she wouldn't paddle. We were blown clear across the lake, coming ashore on someone's farm. I remember looking back towards our own shore and thinking it looked so far away. Other kids in other canoes paddled around the shoreline, but we were lost in some distant land, not knowing what to do or how to paddle effectively enough to get back. Eventually, a camp staff member rescued us and towed us to safety. To this day, when I look across the lake and see the field dotted with cows and the idyllic red barn, I think of sitting in a canoe at the edge of that field, wondering whether we should ask the farmer for help. But the idea of the lake being choppy enough to make canoeing difficult is almost laughable now. So much has changed.
Shrubs and wayward canola grow in the very bay that I once canoed across as a child at summer camp. It was a windy day, I was nine years old, in an aluminum canoe with two other girls my age. One was scared and crying; she wouldn't paddle. We were blown clear across the lake, coming ashore on someone's farm. I remember looking back towards our own shore and thinking it looked so far away. Other kids in other canoes paddled around the shoreline, but we were lost in some distant land, not knowing what to do or how to paddle effectively enough to get back. Eventually, a camp staff member rescued us and towed us to safety. To this day, when I look across the lake and see the field dotted with cows and the idyllic red barn, I think of sitting in a canoe at the edge of that field, wondering whether we should ask the farmer for help. But the idea of the lake being choppy enough to make canoeing difficult is almost laughable now. So much has changed.
Four summers ago, a large bull moose waded out into the lake, as I'm sure he had done for many summers of his life. They like to eat underwater vegetation. They stand long-legged in lakes and ponds, dipping their noses below the water to tear up tender grasses and weeds. But this moose hadn't kept track of the way the land is always changing -- how you can never take nature for granted. As he waded deeper and deeper, he sunk down into the sludge beneath the water. Down past his belly. Stuck out there, he must have fought a long time to free himself, but by the time we saw him, he was mostly still. We heard his moaning cries. We could see him from the area we use for campfires with the kids at camp. The little girls all cried for him, begging our staff members to rescue him, their fingers all pointing out past the large wooden cross that stands on the beach to the suffering soul in the water beyond. Fish and Wildlife had to come out the next day. They went out in a canoe to assess his situation and determined there was no way to save him. I was standing on the soccer field with a group of twenty kids around me when I heard the gunshot. The kids, startled, looked to me. I told them it was fireworks. The fact that it was mid-day didn't seem to occur to them, and they believed me. They went on playing, and that night their week of camp was over, so they all went home. I wonder if any of them ever thought of that moose again. Now there's no sign of him; the area is filled in with reeds.
So often I ride my horse alone up this shoreline. His hooves flatten reeds and tall grasses to the spongey ground. His footsteps scare up crickets and frogs. Sometimes the grass is stirrup-high. If I look up the shoreline, I can imagine I'm somewhere very far from civilization. Somewhere very wild. All I can hear in those moments are the sounds of my horse moving through the grass and the buzz of insects and the wind through the leaves of poplar and birch and the calls of birds and the splash of ducks moving across the water. And sometimes, my own voice, as I speak to my horse and to myself and to God.
There may not be water-skiers and fishermen on this lake anymore, but there is so much more here than ever before. The vegetation grows wild. What used to be a sandy beach is now overgrown with cattails, bullrushes, bushes and saplings. The ducks, geese and other shorebirds are thriving in ways I've never seen before. Once, while I rode my horse along the lakeside, what seemed like a thousand birds took off from the water's surface and flew over our heads; the sound of their wings beating was deafening. Awestruck and a little afraid, I craned my neck to watch them pass us and fled to the water around the bend.
In the early spring I can hear the constant mating calls of ducks from my house. Watching ducklings and goslings swimming along behind their mothers is a special pleasure. And in recent years, I've seen much more wildlife activity in our back pasture area, a mix of forest and meadow that borders the lake. I regularly see deer, moose, osprey, falcons, owls, coyotes, and even bald eagles. Just last night while walking my dog, I was followed by a red-tailed hawk, who cried at me to stop invading his privacy. I'm not sure if this increase in wildlife is related to the fact that our lake is becoming a wetland, or if I am just more conscious lately of what goes on in nature around me. Either way, it has been an incredible gift, and I want to share it with as many people as I can.
In the early spring I can hear the constant mating calls of ducks from my house. Watching ducklings and goslings swimming along behind their mothers is a special pleasure. And in recent years, I've seen much more wildlife activity in our back pasture area, a mix of forest and meadow that borders the lake. I regularly see deer, moose, osprey, falcons, owls, coyotes, and even bald eagles. Just last night while walking my dog, I was followed by a red-tailed hawk, who cried at me to stop invading his privacy. I'm not sure if this increase in wildlife is related to the fact that our lake is becoming a wetland, or if I am just more conscious lately of what goes on in nature around me. Either way, it has been an incredible gift, and I want to share it with as many people as I can.
Last week, I had the kids at camp making sandcastles down on this wild shore. I found four little clearings in the trees and brush that miraculously held soft, clean, non-weedy sand. The kids ran around collecting wildflowers, sticks, rocks and moss to decorate their creations. They dug moats, putting their hands into the same sand that I'm sure I felt between my toes when I was nine years old, standing on the shore with a canoe paddle in my hand. I looked at the trees that never used to exist but are now taller than me, and wondered what this lakeshore will look like in another fifteen years. Or thirty, or fifty, or a hundred. Long after Birch Bay Ranch no longer resides on this shoreline, what will it look like? Will the clearing where we have our campfires stay clear, or will the aspen forest overtake everything? Will there be any people here to build sandcastles and ride horses, or will the only residents be birds, moose and beavers?
Everyone mourns the lake, wishes it would come back deep and clear. Longs to splash out into the waves in bathing suits, dreams of boating along its surface, of standing happy and shivery on the shore, water dripping from their hair onto sunburned shoulders, smelling of sand and sunscreen and something vegetal, like algae. But I see the thriving community of plants and animals who have moved in now that we've moved out, and I don't mourn it the same way the others do. We can still use this lake, interact with it and enjoy it. I am glad to hear bird calls and watch ducklings grow and listen to frog songs. God created so many different and incredible things -- I hope I'll be able to cherish them all.
And nature has a way of reclaiming what is hers. What will she do with this piece of water and land that I have known and loved for seventeen years? And will I be able to witness it?
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