I sat in a chair in our daughter’s lakeside kitchen, staring out across Lac Courte Oreilles in Wisconsin’s Northwoods. The dockside American flag stood stretched straight out in the wind as whitecaps raced across the lake before crashing onto the rocky shoreline. It was a mesmerizing scene, one I could have watched for the entire day. While I’ve lived in Utah now for 38 years, there is still a special feeling I get every time we come home to spend time on Lac Courte Oreilles. One of the largest lakes in Wisconsin, it has witnessed centuries of history. Dakota once hunted along its shores. Ottawa refugees fleeing the Beaver Wars found sanctuary there. French voyageurs later paddled birch bark canoes across its waters, trading with native villages before the Ojibwe Chippewa became the region’s enduring stewards. Looking out across the windswept lake, I found myself thinking that water has a remarkable way of holding memories. Today, we tend to see lakes as places to swim, boat, fish or water ski. But for countless generations, water was something entirely different. It was the highway that connected villages, the marketplace where cultures met, the source of food and life, and the thread that stitched together an entire wilderness. Sitting by the window, I could almost picture traders in birch bark canoes riding the wind across the whitecaps toward a distant trading post. Perhaps that’s why places like Lac Courte Oreilles feel different. They aren’t simply beautiful landscapes or nondescript destinations. They are living archives, where the water carries echoes of those who came before.  Water remembers. And so does the forest. A few days later, along a remote road in northern Minnesota, we wandered through one of the last remnants of old-growth pine forest in the Midwest. An 1882 surveying error had left this tract of land unallocated while timber barons stripped nearly every white and red pine from the surrounding Northwoods. By accident, this small corner of wilderness was spared. And that’s our benefit today. Before arriving, I had imagined towering, redwood-like pines stretching toward the sky. There were certainly some magnificent giants. But what captivated me was something much larger than any single tree. Here was a forest that had been allowed to write its own story for centuries. Healthy white pines reached overhead while fallen trunks slowly returned to the earth, nourishing the next generation. Layers of leaves blanketed the forest floor, quietly building the rich soil beneath our feet. Every living thing seemed connected to the one before it. Walking the trail, knowing this forest had never echoed with a lumberjack’s ax, left an indelible impression. It just felt different. The forest remembers. Two hours away, we followed another quiet path, this one leading to a modest lake perched 1,475 feet above sea level. Children splashed in the shallows while campers relaxed beneath the pines. At the lake’s edge, a narrow stream slipped away, winding beneath rustic bridges before beginning its 2,350-mile trek to the Gulf of Mexico. Standing there, it was almost impossible to comprehend that this gentle ribbon of water would become the mighty Mississippi River, gathering countless streams and rivers until it drained 41 percent of the continental United States. Carole dropped a tiny leaf into the flowing water. As it floated downstream, we wondered how long it would take to reach the Twin Cities? How long to St. Louis? And when would it reach the bayous of Louisiana. Water remembers. The forest remembers. And if we take the time to listen, perhaps they can help us remember, too. The post Sunday Drive: Forests and water remember the past appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less