AS A WILDERNESS GUIDE, I have known many a storm. They are frightening and unpredictable, and often leave destruction in their wake. But after the passing of the storm—in spite of a changed perspective, or perhaps because of it—there is once more beauty to be found. Once more the sun rises. And once more there is a new day.
IN THE LAST slanted rays of the sun, as the sky fades to indigo, this old oak commands its last little piece of prairie. There used to be a ramshackle house/rowdy motorcycle club here. The house and the club are gone, but the tree, etching its art against the sky, remains.
THE BRIGHT MARE’S TAILS and puffy clouds of summer sunsets are no more. A skim of ice completely covers the Father of Waters, and by 5 o’clock the woods are dark. No lingering dusk, no calling of loons or white throats. But a late autumn glow fills the river valley, reflected by the ice, and the chill air booms with
IT IS WONDERFUL to gaze at a sunset, at the palette of colors in the sky. But when we cast our eye away from the setting sun, we sometimes find the world bathed in a glorious golden light. My old friend Sigurd Olson used to call this the Ross Light, named for a Life magazine photographer who first pointed it