The Lake Where You Live

Near sunset while fishing a favorite Northwoods lake, I noticed what looked like some sort of duck floating in the distance, gradually making its way toward my boat. Between casts, this shape kept drawing closer.

It took a minute to process what I was seeing out there hundreds of yards from shore: It was a man, leisurely sidestroking, wearing a blue life vest. As he came closer, the obvious thing to do was say hello, and so began a pleasant conversation that continued as he slowly paddled on.

It turned out he was the barber in Land O’ Lakes, a few miles away over the treetops. He’d grown up in Chicago, but now lived year-round on the small lake where I was fishing. As I typically did on meeting such transplants, I asked him how he liked the north. 

I wondered how he dealt with the cold, the quiet, and the relative isolation. “I was concerned about that at first,” he said. “But now I hardly ever go south of Land O’ Lakes.” That would be about 300 miles north of the Illinois border. 

His words echoed those of many others I’ve met who have traded urban life for a home on a northern lake. Cases like his convince me that certain people are born with Northwoods souls. They’re not content to experience the north as tourists; they accept the vast difference between that and full-time residence. 

Moving here does not by definition mean more hours spent fishing and hunting. Jobs are scarce. Summers are short. Life can be hard. It’s not all sunsets over water, loon calls and soaring eagles. All this Northwoods souls understand.

What is it about the north? To say its allure is spiritual is a cliché. It is also undeniably true. Not everyone feels the allure, but those who do seem to feel it deeply, beyond resisting. Up here, wind in the trees sounds fuller, more powerful. Storms loom larger. One can picture, to the boom of thunder, the strobe effect of lightning over vast stretches of woods and water. 

The forests are filled with bird songs, animal noises, rustles and footfalls. Loons wail on the lakes; what benignly demented sort of deity would create such a creature as a loon? At night, after the last light fades, the broad swath of the Milky Way sweeps across the sky. Paddle onto a lake in a canoe and the stars, on an obsidian background, leap out almost in three dimensions. 

Autumn is pure glory, in every stretch of woods, along every run of town road, around your own property, are splashes of reds, yellows and oranges, an absurd riot of color. The fallen leaves, lend the air a bouquet like fine cognac. In winter the snow is cleaner, brighter, the blanketed woods inviting, laced with the tracks of deer. 

The allure is indeed powerful, and a dozen years ago my wife Noelle and I — both Northwoods souls — succumbed. And so here we are on Birch Lake. Life isn’t always easy, but the quiet, the everyday beauty, and the embarrassment of fishing riches easily compensate.

And now I have the chance to help the Northwoods work its magic on two grandsons. As a project for my retirement years, I could do worse than that.

Ted Rulseh resides on Birch Lake in Harshaw and is an advocate for lake protection and improvement. This column is excerpted from a chapter in his newest book, “You Shoulda Been Here Last Week: Stories from an Angling Life,” just released by Cornerstone Press. Find out more at https://thelakeguy.net. Ted may be reached at [email protected].