The Heart of the Country

For many urban Minnesotans, to vacation amid the pines and lakes of the north country is a frequent delight, but also a recreational commonplace. The thought of heading west out onto the prairie tends to hold less allure. When, at a recent family gathering,  I mentioned to Hilary's cousin's wife, who was visiting from Boston, that we were planning a trip to Thief River Falls, and added that "nobody goes there," she replied drolly, "Well, the name doesn't have much appeal."

In fact, we had plotted out an interesting route across the countryside and had researched a few cultural stops along the way to add variety to the hiking, birding, and camping that would occupy most of our time and attention. Most of western Minnesota has long since been converted to farmland, but even that can provide amusement and enlightenment. Is that wheat or flax? Are those sweet peas or soy beans? Is that an ethanol plant or a sugar beet factory?

And then you have that big, big sky and those enormous concrete-and-steel grain elevators for storing all the crops.

Every town you drive through offers food for thought. Is the architecture good? Probably not. Is the town "healthy?" Probably not. Does it have plenty of Lutheran churches? Very likely. But the Catholic one is probably more imposing.

The astronomical mural on the water tower in Cosmos is a hit, but the town itself has seen better days. Hutchinson has a fine town square, but it also has a 3M plant and a major medical center to feed the local economy; it's practically a suburb of the Twin Cities. Montevideo has a statue on Main Street of José Artigas, the national hero of Uruguay, where a much larger Montevideo is located.  (The two are sister cities, and the statue came from Uruguay in 1949.)

We want these communities to thrive, because they sustain our atavistic dreams of good-natured small-town life exemplified by Thornton Wilder's classic Our Town, The Andy Griffith Show, seven seasons of Northern Exposure, and even, in a strange way, Schitt's Creek. But arriving on the outskirts of Montevideo, for example, the first thing we come upon is the Walmart, its parking lot packed. And who are we to begrudge the locals a few dollars off on their potato chips and Kleenex?

Madison, MN

Madison may have a leg up on other towns nearby, not only because it's Lac Qui Parle's county seat, but also due to the fact that eminent poet Robert Bly grew up there and maintained a farm nearby for quite a few years. Most local farmers probably care little for his "leaping poetry," his anti-war protests, or his contributions to the Men's Movement, but at some time in the 1990s an abandoned schoolhouse on Bly's farm that he had converted to a study was moved into town and relocated within the confines of the county historical society's pioneer village.

We were lucky to get in. With July 4 landing on a Sunday, there was no way to tell whether a given business would open the next day, or would take that Monday as a holiday. We walked inside the main building—a huge pole barn full of bric-a-brac—and a voice from the next room said, "Can I help you?"

"We're here to see the museum," I said, stating the obvious, as we came around the corner into her office, "especially the Bly study."

"I haven't opened those buildings yet," she said, a little wearily. "I just got here."

"Well, we're glad you're open," I said.

"Yes, well, the boss called me last night and said, 'Are you opening tomorrow?' And I said, 'I don't know. Am I?'" By this time she was fumbling with her keys. Elderly, short, and stout, it seemed the afternoon heat was getting to her a little. 

"Do you want to see just the Bly schoolhouse or all the buildings?"

"Might as well open them all, if it isn't too much trouble."

"Just give me a few minutes."

"Sure. There's plenty to look at in here."

We wandered down one of the aisles, stopping here and there at a display of fifty-odd salt shakers; a room full of stuffed pheasants, mounted moose heads, and other hunting trophies; and (briefly) a local aficionado's personal collection of hand guns that had been fastened one after another in an orderly array to a  yellow wall. One section was devoted to musical instruments including several accordions, a hardanger fiddle, and a mold that a fiddle-maker evidently used to bend the delicate wood. A separate cubicle was devoted to each of the county's townships, and a sophisticated three-part banner offered a timeline of the county's history, running from the founding of the Lac Qui Parle mission in 1830—the first in the state—up to and including the first registered Covid infection and the first Covid death in the county.

We had passed the township of Cerro Gordo on our way into town, and I was curious to learn where it had gotten its name. Most of the families swimming and fishing at the dam were Latino, but 150 years ago that wouldn't have been the case. Turns out the man who platted the town had fought in the battle of that name during the Mexican-American War.

Twenty minutes might have passed before we left the building at the opposite end of the hall and walked out past the log cabin to the schoolhouse. It was blue, with white trim, and it was much larger than I expected. The main room could easily have housed eight or ten office workers comfortably. Some snapshots had been taped to one of the desks; broadsides of Robert's poems had been placed on other tables and desks. Visitors were invited to don the headphones hanging from the side of the desk, push the red plastic button, and listen to one of Bly's friends read the poem. But Bly himself is such a great reader that to anyone who has heard the man himself, these recitations would tend to deflate a given poem's effect, and I guess it was just as well that many of the headphones didn't work.

Most of the wall-space was lined with books, and I spent a few minutes looking them over. Some had been heavily used, others were pristine, as is typical in a personal library. Marx and Jung, Hamsun and the Kalavala, Arthur Waley and Octavio Paz. The range of subjects and the vintage of the editions reminded me of a well-stocked used bookstore of thirty years ago.

Hilary reminded me that Robert wasn't the only person to use the space. In the text of one small display we are informed that he and his wife, Carol, raised four children on the premises, and Bly hung a curtain across the room, dividing it in half, so he could have some privacy to think.

It's likely that Carol also spent a good deal of time in the building, though I don't know that for a fact. I had brought an old paperback edition of Bly's selected poems (ca 1986) along on the trip, but it occurred to me suddenly that Carol's book, Letters from the Country (1981), might have been a better pick.

In the end, the schoolhouse, well-lit by sash windows all the way around, had the feel less of a hermetic retreat or private study than a comfortable literary parlor—well worth a visit, though It would also be interesting, I think, to see Bly's farm itself, and the little chicken coop that served as his first makeshift rural study. (You can read more about the schoolhouse here.)

When we got back to the museum office, I asked the woman where the Bly farm was located. "Somewhere southwest of here, near Marietta. I don't know exactly," she said.

"Oh, out by Salt Lake," I said. "That's our next stop."

She became more animated when we started lavishing praise on the salt shakers, the doll collection, and the well-preserved antique carriages we'd come upon in another pole barn out back. "It's only a small part of the collection.," she said proudly.

In the end, we didn't drive the fifteen extra miles out to Salt Lake, though in recent days birders had been reporting eared grebes out there. We'd been on the road for four hours, the temperature had risen to 92 degrees, and it was time to "check in" at the park.

I was also somewhat anxious because I'd neglected to get the entry code to our camper cabin before we left home. When we pulled into our slot at the park a half-hour later, a vehicle with Texas plates was already parked there. We heard animated conversation as we approached the little cabin. It was the cleaners!

"We're just finishing up," the woman said, half-apologetically. "I'll leave the key here on the table." Crisis averted. (In fact, there never would have been a crisis: camper cabins don't use codes or key boxes.)

"I see you're from Texas," I said. "Come north to escape the heat?"

I was joking, but she replied, "That's right. "It's 115 degrees in San Antonio today."

____________

 If you're planning to rent a cabin at Lac Qui Parle, number two is far and away the best of the three. Number one is right next to the entry road to the campground, and number three, though somewhat better, is tucked back into the woods. Number two sits out on the top of the hill with an unobstructed view of the surrounding countryside with Lac Qui Parle itself glistening in the distance.

Once we'd hauled all of our stuff into the little cabin, set up our camp chairs, and enjoyed the view for a while from the shade of the only large tree in the vicinity, I took a little stroll down the hill to the unoccupied walk-in campsite in the field just below. We've camped here more than once over the years, and on our most recent visit we saw several orchard orioles out in the field. I went down on what many would call a fool's errand to see if I could see another one.

The orchard oriole is considered an uncommon bird, by which ornithologists mean to suggest that it has a healthy but small population, and you don't see it often. The Baltimore oriole, on the other hand, is a common bird, and you're likely to see quite a few of them if you spend any time in city parks or out in the field. The Baltimore oriole is easier to see, not only because it's more common, but also  because it sings beautifully and it's lower body is a spectacular bright orange. The orchard oriole is somewhat smaller, and its lower body in a rich but dark rufus color—much darker than, say, a robin's breast.

In my book, to see an orchard oriole once a year is a thrill, and also a triumph.

Well. As I was looking around across the fields I spotted a strange bird in the middle distance. It was a smallish, silvery-yellow bird with a lark black bib under its beak. I'd never seen anything like it, but it occurred to me immediately that it might be a female orchard oriole. I took a few photos with the mediocre zoom on my Canon Powershot extended, and hurried back up the hill to get the bird book, and Hilary.

Adult male orchard oriole

A glance at the book confirmed that the bird was an orchard oriole—but a juvenile male rather than an adult female. Would it still be there when we got back? No. But then Hilary spotted a male orchard oriole on a branch nearby. A female adult showed up not long afterward, and so did the juvenile male.

 And then a Baltimore oriole flew out of the woods in the distance, as if he wanted a little attention, too.

Our dinner that night consisted of leftovers from two celebratory gatherings we'd hosted recently. The air conditioner was a welcome addition to the cabin amenities, though the only two fan setting were "off" and "automatic" and I felt I was sleeping next to an airport runway. At the sound of distant thunder we stepped out onto the wooden porch in the dark and were half-dazzled by a field of fireflies. A twisty wind came up around two in the morning, with rain soon after.  The morning arrived with gray skies, cool air, and drizzle, all of them welcome.