No animal could change the character of the land as the presence of the wolf had that day.

On a winter’s day when a person’s spirits may be low and to behold thirty to one-hundred Evening Grosbeaks busily gorging themselves on bird seed and perched in a stand of pines with all of them creating a cacophony of sparrow like chirps, this is real therapy for me. It is an act of contagious optimism. It is at such times I realize that a bird can do more for me than a shrink.

The forest talks but a good hunter only hears it by learning its language.

We must stop seeing the natural world as a commodity and start seeing it as we would see a family member, something to love, protect, care for, and cherish.

While I lingered about the old village and the lake, with the water lapping on the shore and the wind whispering in the big pines, I felt for a moment that I was back in time among the Ojibwe families going about their business.