Arboretum Diary

"The charm of a canoe trip is in the quiet as one drifts along the shores, being a part of rocks and trees and every living thing. How swiftly it changes if all natural sounds are replaced by the explosive violence of combustion engines and speed.  At times on quiet waters one does not speak aloud but only in whispers, for then all noise is sacrilege." Sigurd Olson, from "Silence" The Singing Wilderness







9/11


Unless you have the advantage of being a muskrat, a mink, a dragonfly or a nesting warbler, there are few ways to get inside the real silence of the woodland swamp.  Most green we see from the seat of our boats, or further out yet, traveling by car at 55 around city streets and highways that have made their way like concrete

rivers around so much native wildlife.  Trails here at the Arboretum, on the other hand, lead you in and around the beauty of the periphery of the Curtis Prairie where the Leopold Pines, off in the distance, serve as tall guards against the noise incoming.  A simple walk into the Gallistel Woods, out at the edge of the Longenecker Gardens, and one right turn leads to the wonder of a small patch of city silence which Olson describes above as that last remaining way

for people to pursue spirit.  The walking bridge is the dry version of the canoe trip and provides its curious walkers a frog's perspective of the true cattail foliage; the sounds of the quaking poplars and the croak of the prairie crickets fade like background music to yet another lower decibel as all four sides are surrounded and each step across the planks of old wood sink that much deeper into the dark water below no doubt housing who knows how many other species.  At the end of the walkway, a small

shelter, completely open this early in the morning -- before the time of usual curiosity by most visitors -- and sunk in against the center of a functioning marsh, wild, and where the silence is only disrupted by the turn of the owl's head or the slither of the water snake through a tuft of lily pads.  Here there is no way to know where you are and yet it is the most common and affirming place we could know.  As Olson says of the silence to be found in these rare pockets, "How often we speak of

the great silences of the wilderness and of the importance of preserving them and the wonder and the peace to be found there! .... They will always be there and their beauty may not change, but should their silences be broken, they will never be the same."