Guest Post by Phil Kiper

Phil wrote a beautiful piece entitled "Of Lions & Loons."  Below is the transcript of his writing, but you can see video and hear him reading the piece if you go here.  The video footage and many of the pictures in the movie are our own pictures from Canada.

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Of Lions and Loons

I am older now, but when I was a young boy I could walk out the back door of my parents’ home on a warm summer morning and hear the dominant roar of a 500 lb. male African lion. From the local zoo, over a mile away, the sound was still so forceful and intimidating that it left no doubt as to who was at the top of the food chain. On several occasions, I have heard it from only a few yards away. You feel it in your chest as much as you hear it. I can only imagine what that sound would do to a person in close quarters in the wild.

I have hunted and fished most of my life, and I have always been fascinated with the natural sounds around me, I have come to realize that these sounds play an important role in the overall experience. I have also come to realize that I am much more aware of these sounds when I am alone.  As you leave civilization and enter nature alone, it takes a while to slow down and tune in to the various sounds that are everywhere.  After a few days of being alone in nature, it is possible to feel a part of it and not seem an interloper.

I’ve heard the different, loud sounds of pheasants, quail, and grouse flushing, barking squirrels, grunting whitetail deer, bugling elk and gobbling turkeys, but I have also heard the subtle sounds various animals make when they move through the woods. I’ve heard the sounds of autumn leaves falling in the forest and a heavy snow hitting the ground.  I’ve heard the sounds of ducks and geese coming in to land just feet from where I am sitting. I’ve heard the sounds of trout feeding on a hatch, smallmouth bass jumping wildly, and schooling giant striped bass chasing shad on the surface of placid waters. 

Since I have retired, I have been fortunate to spend many hours alone in the bush and on the waters of Northwest Ontario, Canada. At times there are moments of complete silence with no sound at all. I imagine complete silence is a rare gift these days.

In Canada I have heard clean water lapping against an untrammeled shore, beavers slapping the water with their tales, a mother bear “woofing” to her cubs to go to tree as I was much too close, and the sound of wind moving through the feathers of a bald eagle as it swooped to snatch a fish from the water. Just recently, on the remote Pipestone River, I heard a bull moose coming to a cow call, grunting forcefully with every step, letting other bulls know that he was fully prepared for a fight. I stood on a shore, alone, late one evening and listened for hours as wolves called to each other across the lake.  

As an old acquaintance of mine once wrote, “Nature is the ultimate humbler.” 

On a soft, quiet night with the Milky-Way glowing above me and the reflection of the Big Dipper shining on the water in front of me, I again stood alone on a lake, and as I watched the northern lights unfurl like blue-green cigar smoke, a distant loon let loose a series of mournful cries that touched something ancient inside of me. 

A poet once said, 

Time wastes too fast…

The days and hours

of it are flying over our heads like

clouds of a windy day never to return -

every thing presses on -

It may be true, “Time wastes too fast,” but as I get older, I understand that time spent in wilderness isn’t wasteful and that all these sounds will travel with me to the end, 

these sounds of lions and loons.