There’s nothing like a walk in nature to recharge your batteries and clear your mind when life gets complicated. Friends of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore board member Neil Howk notices the small but important things, as he takes us along for a hike on the Lakeshore trail, accessed from Meyers Beach.

The days are getting shorter and there’s a long winter ahead. Usually, I look forward to winter because I love to cross country ski. This year, however, knee replacement surgery will force a change in plans. I’ll not only miss the ski season, but spending time outdoors will be a real challenge. On top of that, the recent election did not go the way that I hoped it would. I am concerned about some of the changes that may take place in the next four years. I hoped that a walk in the woods might help me look beyond the short term by considering a much longer view.

I decided to take a hike on a section of the Lakeshore Trail I have not walked for several years. I went to the area above the middle section of the mainland sea caves where most of the trail is set back from the edge of the cliffs. It was a clear but chilly day with light winds and the view was spectacular. I could clearly see Silver Bay 30 miles across the lake. But this was not the only change in view I was seeking on my foray into the woods.

Eagle Island – Neil Howk photo

I started by looking at the lake. This inland sea is so vast it takes almost 200 years to completely drain it at its current rate of outflow. A drop of water entering Lake Superior today will take 191 years to flow out of the lake down the St. Mary’s River. Impressive! But going back even further, I thought of the thousands of years that it took for the last glaciers to melt and completely fill the Lake Superior basin. OK, that’s a good start.

As I walked the trail I passed through a forest of naked maple, birch, and aspen trees. I shuffled through windrows of dry brown leaves piled on the trail. I started to notice, however, that the late afternoon sun was highlighting scattered pockets of green on the ground. Many of these green plants were clumps of spinulose wood fern. This is a perennial species of fern native to damp forests. Its leaves are up to 30 inches long. The fronds bear groups of spores (sori) on the underside of the leaf. The fronds remain green through most of the year and can survive mild winters. Ferns are one of the oldest plant families on Earth, with fossils dating back more than 390 million years.

Underside of spinulouse wood fern frond with spore-bearing cases called sori – Neil-Howk photo

Along with the ferns, I noticed clumps of closely related plants called clubmosses. Club mosses are native, perennial, evergreen plants with tiny leaves. Like ferns, club mosses are seedless plants that reproduce by releasing large numbers of extremely tiny spores. The spores are released from club-shaped structures that give the plants their nickname. I noticed at least two different clubmosses along the trail. The interrupted or stiff clubmoss has individual stems that have a distinct terminal cone-like structure called a strobilis. 

Princess pine – Neil Howk photo

The princess pine, or ground pine, is named for its resemblance to a miniature conifer tree. This six-inch-tall plant grows in the understory of temperate deciduous and coniferous forests in eastern North America. Clubmosses belong to a class of plants called Lycophytes, the most ancient group of land plants with fossils dating back more than 400 million years.

Mainland sea caves – Neil Howk photo

I also noticed something else along the trail. Though all the trees were leafless, I saw a few tiny maple seedlings that still held onto their green leaves. It was a nice reminder that the sun will rise again tomorrow. After a long winter, spring will return, and life will go on. Perhaps that’s one benefit of taking the long view.