Capturing a Season

How fortunate am I to experience each season so brilliantly? I breathed in the fresh winter air as I stood atop a small hill surrounded by mixed hardwood forest and wandering ski trails. Bright sunlight warmed my back as it shone through skinny maples and rattling oak branches, but as the sun then slipped behind gray clouds I felt the morning chill reach my bundled hands and feet. Regularly pacing back and forth between a slow succession of snowshoe racers, I once questioned whether it would have been more appropriate to allot my time to the various tasks I had amassed back at the Museum. No, I thought, this outing was necessary.

Following an increasingly rugged road away from the Museum's corner and soon from the town, one eventually reaches the head of the North End Trails. On a sunny Saturday morning of early January, I joined other volunteers there to help guide participants in the inaugural North End Snowshoe Classic. Part of me simply craved a brief respite from my artificially-lit workspaces. 

Having escaped from the office, I embraced my natural surroundings. The sounds of an anonymous woodpecker kept me company once the hum of a snowmobile carried off along the race course. I paced around a small section of trail to keep my feet warm. Every now and then a clump of soft snow plopped on the ground as branches creaked and swayed in the breeze, but little else stirred. Nearly a half hour went by before I noticed the first racer from the 5k course approach the incline to the hill. I greeted and directed him as he quickly passed by, then repeated myself to the next few dozen racers. I resumed pacing once the last of that group crossed. 

As I loitered between those completing a 5k and 12k course, my mind  eventually wandered back to the Museum. I felt a slight sense of guilt in not tending to the collection. A selection of specimens preserved in jars required a change in fluid, and I had been looking forward to planning out a new arrangement for some display cases. Despite my genuine love of caring for the natural history specimens, I still prefer to immerse myself in the natural world that produces them. 

The cover of snow reveals calculated journeys
or aimless pacing to anyone observant
enough to look down.

The next and final round of racers passed as morning dipped into afternoon. Within the long periods between each passerby my contemplative thoughts deepened. Alone on my hill, I noticed the path of two crows arcing over me. Their various subsongs combined to sound much like a lively gurgle. Do visitors grasp the value of preserving a dead animal? A winter crane fly then landed on top of the snow to my immediate left and I scrambled to capture a photo. How can I even begin to capture the experience of a world teeming with life through a photo or a specimen? 

I noticed multiple winter crane flies the afternoon of
the race. On warmer days, overwintering adults may
be observed outside of their winter shelters.

I returned to the Museum that afternoon with cold hands and one last, important question in mind. How can I bring people to appreciate the experience of the outdoors from inside the Museum? I knew it could be done, and in some ways I knew how to do it. I quickly peered at the motionless crows as I walked back to my office. The recent memory of two crows conversing overhead flashed across my mind--and just like that I was back to the snowy, wonderful forest.