Finally the leader of the walk left us and walked to the edge of a little island nearby. Our instructions were to wait in silence for ten minutes, to let the night settle after the inevitable noise of our passing. Then he would howl and hope to entice any wolves in the area to reply.

Have you ever stood outside for ten silent, motionless minutes on a snowy night? What light there was seemed to emanate from the snow itself, which gave off a soft, silver, otherworldly glow. Ranged around me in the gloom were the other people on the walk, facing out toward the trees in every direction, hands at their sides, still as statues. The only sound came from the steadily falling snowflakes smacking gently against our shoulders. Ten minutes stretched into eternity.

The howl, when it came, cut through the night like a siren. It echoed off the trees around us, and just as it faded into silence he raised his voice again and howled a second time. We waited, but no answers came from the hills.

A shadow detached itself from the island, approached us, and resolved into the grayscale figure of the walk’s leader who’d been doing the howling. Under his breath he counted one, two, three, and on three we all threw back our heads and howled ourselves. Howling at the sky, howling full-voiced into the January night. Howling requires letting loose and forgetting your inhibitions.

The wolves still didn’t answer. It didn’t really matter. We turned and returned the way we had come, talking among ourselves, the spell broken.

The track field guide I own is useless for deep snow (we have about a 15″ base now), where instead of nice neat paw prints I find these clusters of tracks where an animal leaped and bounded through the drifts. Each of these groups of prints was roughly two feet long, with about three feet of clear snow in between where the animal leaped. So, something bigger than a squirrel, smaller than a wolf, and more athletic than a porcupine. Fisher? Marten? Fox? You tell me.

Something had been gnawing at the bases of several nearby trees.

A porcupine?

You tell me.

Then I caught the stomach flu that’s been going around.

Feeling all better today, but I have a sad lack of snow shelter photos to share. Instead, here’s a different image depicting what life is like during the North Woods winter.

This is the road that I live on. We haven’t seen the pavement since November. So note to all, if you don’t like the idea of driving on a layer of compacted snow and ice for five months out of the year, don’t move to northern Wisconsin! I don’t really mind it – you  just have to be willing to drive sloooowly when necessary.

The hollow under this log actually went back further than I could see.

And in this case, something – probably a red squirrel? – agreed with me about its shelter potential. There were tracks leading through the snow straight to the log.

Not only do I live in Land O’ Lakes, on Friday I actually spent a chunk of the day in Tomahawk as well, which is about an hour and a half south of here.

This morning when I got up it was 27ºF. Over fifty degrees warmer than it was yesterday at the same time. This feels downright balmy by comparison.

Dead snags always seem to catch my eyes lately – probably because they always harbor signs of life, even on the coldest, snowiest days. (When I got up this morning it was -26ºF. Even after noon, when it finally made it into double digits above zero, walking in the snowy woods for half an hour was enough to make my face and feet very cold.)

Pileated Woodpeckers continue to rip apart the dead wood in search of food.

Lichens and fungus add contrasting texture.

Now I’m back inside drinking hot chocolate by the fire. Man, -26ºF. This has been a cold couple days.

Image via Wikipedia

There is only one animal tough enough to attack and kill a porcupine.

Before we left for Christmas break, two coworkers and I were on our way to “Mexican night” at the local rural bar/restaurant. I was driving down a country road through the woods after dark. Suddenly a large, dark, hairy animal with a bushy tail darted across the road through my headlights. Not large like a bear or wolf, but larger and heavier-looking than a porcupine or rabbit or other small mammal we expect to see regularly, and definitely big enough to catch our attention.

We were mystified. What had we just seen? At the restaurant we described our sighting to the elderly waitress, who confirmed our suspicions. What we were describing was a fisher.

Though they’re not as well-known as charismatic Northwoods predators like bears and wolves, fishers (members of the weasel family) have one important claim to fame: they are the only animals that regularly kill and eat porcupines. They don’t only eat porcupines (in fact, they’re generalists who will eat just about anything except fish), but their technique for killing them is terrifying and badass: fishers bite porcupines in their quill-less faces over and over again until they die.

Why am I talking about this now? I’m currently taking the workshop to become a Certified Interpretive Guide, and for my ten-minute presentation I’m going to be talking about fishers and why they are the coolest, toughest predator in the North Woods. In preparing for our presentation we had to brainstorm universal intangible concepts related to our topic, and my list went something like “power, survival, violence, toughness, perseverance, death.” It’s easy to forget how many animals here we almost never see because of their secretive, nocturnal habitats, but this is one that has captured my imagination.

In January one may follow a skunk track,
or see what young pines the deer have browsed,
with only an occasional and mild digression into other things.

January observation can be almost as simple and as peaceful as snow,
and almost as continuous as cold.

There is time not only to see who has done what,
but to speculate why.

(From a Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold.) I’m back. This afternoon it was 20°F and sunny, a beautiful, balmy day in the North Woods, and I made it all the way around our two-mile loop trail on skis without falling down once.

…and a local Common Moorhen was so inspired by all this finery, it decided to leave its rail roots behind and climb a tree.

Regular posting resumes this weekend. Thanks for reading.