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Muir Park, Marquette County (April 11, 2004)

This park is at the site of John Muir’s boyhood home in America. Even as he roamed the world, Muir remembered this area fondly as the following quote shows on a sign commemorating him near the entrance:

“…even if I should never see it again, the beauty of its lilies and orchids is so pressed into my mind I shall always enjoy looking back at them in my imagination even across seas and continents and perhaps after I am dead.”

Just like when I walked around at Walden Pond and felt strangely like Thoreau was still there, I get chills just thinking about John Muir being here and getting much of his youthful enthusiasm for the natural world by walking across this same land. Most of my hikes here provide me with fond memories too, some great and some not so great, but there always seems to be something different to see and observe. On one of my first visits to Muir Park a field of rough blazing-star (Liatris aspera) was in full flower and butterflies were nectaring frantically. It was certainly one of the most spectacular days I have ever had butterflying.

I went back a couple of weeks later and the blazing star was nearly gone, but other nectar sources abounded and different butterflies were flying. The Black Swallowtail in the photo below was nectaring on the tallest flowering prairie-dock (Silphium terebinthinaceum) that I have ever seen. I took this photo reaching up as high as I could and snapped this photo of the butterfly that was still 5–6 inches above the camera.

Interestingly, in 2003, possibly because of the drought, the tallest flowering heads were barely four feet above the ground.

In 2003 as part of an NABA butterfly count I stopped at Muir and walked the trail that goes around it (now part of the Ice Age Trail). It was an uneventful day until I saw these four Great Spangled Fritillaries nectaring on a butterfly weed, a favorite nectar source wherever it is found.

Another visit to Muir Park was on September 21, 2003 just after I had read on the Wisconsin DNR Natural Area page that the lesser fringed gentian (Gentianopsis procera) was supposed to grow there. I have always been fond of gentians but had never seen any of the fringed gentians. They were there and even more marvelous than I expected they would be and I totally lost track of the real world for nearly an hour as I flitted like a butterfly from flower to flower, not for their nectar, but for their beauty.

I mentioned before that there were good things and bad things that I remember about my hikes at Muir Park. One of the bad things is that a lot of poison sumac, a plant to which I am very allergic, grows there. I found out that this plant was here when I got too close to the edge of the lake and slipped into the water. Instinctively I grabbed the first thing I could get my hands on and unfortunately it was poison sumac. I immediately noticed what it was and let go, but the damage had been done and then I complicated it further by trying to wash it off in the lake, effectively spreading the poison all over both of my arms. I am a lot more careful on hikes to watch for this plant and if I do come in contact I don’t wash it off with cold lake water!

The last bad thing that happened to me was that I thought I would try to take a shortcut to the trail that goes around the lake, by walking across on the logs that were obviously used by others to do the same thing. (The photo below is of this shortcut.) I was concerned about falling off the logs and getting my digital camera wet, so I decided that I would just walk across in the shallow water and be safe. Bad idea. The first step off the logs was in shallow water but unshallow muck: about two feet thick. I lost my balance and my camera went under water for about one second, but it was enough to put an end to my photography with that camera forever. Another lesson learned!