By Tim Homan
August, 2009. Page and I were seeking a new place to paddle and portage in the northwood's land of lakes and loons. Judging from the photographs alone, Ontario's Killarney Provincial Park*-with its gloriously clear blue lakes, white quartzite mountains, and spectacular vistas ranging to Lake Huron's Georgian Bay-looked idyllic, a Northcountry canoeist's paradise. But the small print below the pretty pictures led us into troubled waters. Those words made us wonder if Killarney was like a lobotomized super model, beautiful but largely lifeless. The park suffered severe pollution from acid deposition during the 1970s and 80s. The pH readings plummeted well below 5.0 in the most poorly buffered lakes. At its most lethal right after snow melt, this acidification killed the sport fish - northern pike, smallmouth bass, lake trout and the like. One trophic level after another collapsed as the food chain imploded, unraveling the web of life. With less organic matter in their waters, the lakes with the lowest pH levels actually appeared the most pristine, clear and sparkling, but in reality were the most biologically comatose and largely sterile.After stringent pollution abatement programs were implemented, pH numbers gradually rose and most lakes slowly reclaimed some semblance of life, at least enough life to support limited numbers of lake trout. But still we wondered. The pH readings for a few of the lakes along our intended route remained alarmingly low. The stocked return of lake trout was an encouraging sign, a biological milestone of partial restoration. But as Northcountry paddlers, our indicator species of continued recovery was the Common Loon, the red-eyed diver of myth and magic. For us and many others, it is the loon that is the living spirit and wild-wailing voice of the lake-country wilderness. It is the loon that is the everyday totem waiting across the portage, the everyday call of the wild.
Listening to loon calls float into the gathering dusk, like staring at the rhythmic pulsing of campfire flame, has a mesmerizing effect that transcends the usual ticking of time. The frequent sight and sound of loons are, at least to us, a necessary component of self-propelled Northcountry travel, even more important than chocolate pudding after a wet and wind-blown day. Northern lakes bereft of loons would be inanimate and lonely sheets of water, eerily empty and silent.
After pitching the plan to paddle Killarney to Page, who had been entranced by loon call and Canadian Shield lake country since our first Boundary Waters trip, I had to answer her two most pressing questions: how many and how long were the portages, and just how common was the Common Loon. I knew if loons and their wild calling were absent or rare, Page would not consider a canoe trip to Killarney no matter how beautiful its landscape of blue lakes and white LaCloche Range mountains might be. I wouldn't bother trying to overcome her objection. No point. No black-and-white waterbirds given the scientific binomial of Gavia immer, no Northcountry canoe trip to Killarney.
I called park staff on several occasions. "Are there loons? Are they common?" "Yes" and "fairly common in most lakes" were my double-checked answers. But still we wondered. Would we witness their peregrine-fast flight**, would we hear their tremolos, wails, yodels-three of the most stirring wild sounds in all of North America-as we had in northern Minnesota and other Canadian canoe parks such as Quetico and Algonquin?
Our misgivings turned out to be unwarranted; we spotted the dense-bodied divers on every lake. We encountered our first three, an adult with two fuzzy brown loonlings in tow, within 300 yards of our put-in point. Every lake had new beauty and more loons. We didn't have to wait until we were close enough to see color to call out Common Loon. The signature shape of their profile-dagger bill, large head and short thick neck, long sleek body often riding low in the water-was unmistakable even from a considerable distance. The same can be said for this waterfowl in flight. The loon's large and fast-flying silhouette-head straight out and slightly lower than the body, oversized feet straight back, flight profile slightly humpbacked-together with its short, stiff-winged, rapid-fire strokes are diagnostic at distances almost as far as you can see it.
Common Loons in groups from two to five regularly cruised past the rocky point at our first campsite on David Lake, feeding along the way. They often slipped their heads underwater to survey the other realm of their lives first, then dove with the supple ease of an otter. Their arching dives were so perfectly quick and fluid they scarcely left ripple-rings behind.
During the first three evenings loons sped by to the east at dusk, mostly solo, often tremoloing like drunken banshees on the wing. During the second evening, Sandhill Cranes frequently added their far-carrying garooo calls to the quavering loon laughter.
Day three, as we explored pockets of marsh jam-packed with pitcher plant, sundew, and bladderwort-familiar residents of our local canoeing paradise, Georgia's Okefenokee Swamp-we were lucky enough to spot a late-nesting loon. I saw something that didn't fit the pattern of marsh vegetation, something gray, rounded, and slightly shiny in a low tussock. I raised my binoculars to verify my first impression: a large turtle, shell still slightly wet in the sun. Wrong. Wrong Family, wrong Order, wrong Class.
My thumb and bird finger had focused on the back of a loon, body flattened, neck stretched low over the edge of the nest, head pointed toward the water. We snuck a couple of quick peeks, then paddled to the liftover at the beaver dam. We looked again from the dam; her periscope head was up and staring right at us (or him, both sexes incubate the eggs and feed the young). Later, as we paddled out the narrow passage back across the liftover, the loon was in the same position as before, body motionless as a shelved decoy, neck and head hung low out from and over the nest. As we would learn back home, the incubator had assumed what is known as the hangover posture, a position that both hides the head and allows the loon to slip silently into the water if the disturbance continues.
Nearly every evening we took a slow-paced paddle after the supper dishes were washed and the grub bag was hung high and safe. This was a sure-fire way to observe more loons and at least one or more otter, beaver, bear, or Red-breasted Merganser. One evening we were the agreeable recipients of a fly-by looning. We were gliding around the far end of an island when we spotted a brace of incoming loons, rocketing toward us at a descending slant, their blurred wings audibly ripping the air. (1) When the pair was directly overhead they strafed us with twin, high-decibel alarm calls, tremolos loud as full-blast rock n' roll.
Another evening a Common Loon popped to the surface about 20 feet to starboard of our stationary canoe. Riding high in the water-large head smooth and velvety black, eyes fierce and glinting red fire in the slanting sun-the bold diver graced us with a good long look at its exquisite breeding plumage before slowly quartering away. That close through binoculars, the loon's sunlit plumage appeared so precisely patterned that it looked like the stylized work of a graphic artist. With Gavia immer as unseen easel, evolution seemed to be seeking the maximum number of striking but functional black-and-white designs it could fit on one waterfowl. We spotted the inadvertent artistry of four: the white bars around the black throat (referred to as a necklace in bird books), the checkerboard back, and the curving black-and-white stripes on the sides of the breast breaking up into undulating rows of white dots on the black flank. On this particular loon, its head held high***, the lower set of vertical black-and-white bars on its neck appeared much more prominently than usually pictured in field guides. At that close range, on a large dagger-billed bird with fury-red eyes and wrestler-thick neck, the vertical barring looked far more like a medieval warrior's gorget than a woman's adornment.
Still another evening we watched, as we had in years past, the comical antics of a territorial loon chasing an intruder-in short, water-walking bursts-all around the middle of the lake and finally to the far shore. Right after hearing the commotion, we observed both birds in a defensive stance known as the penguin posture: standing up on the water, wings raised and held rigid, necks bowed so that their formidable bills were leveled directly at each other, a cocked and ready threat, an avian version of fencing's "on guard" position. Then, as we continued to drift in the light wind, the interloper flinched and began a skittering run across the water, closely trailed by the proprietor. Both birds tremoloed and splashed as they sprinted full-steam ahead-feet slapping the water, wings still upraised and rigid-with surprising speed for about 45 yards before they stopped.
The resident loon pulled up short, keeping the same safe, stare-down distance as before. The combatants resumed their territorial displays while the landholder politely waited for the outsider to run for its life again. They ran again and again at quick intervals-shorter sprint, longer, shorter again-splashing and tremoloing and producing an impressively large wake for a pair of ten-pound birds (if they were males). The landlord never tagged or touched the trespasser. Each time the owner stopped, both contenders immediately assumed the penguin posture, both appearing ready and willing to attack. But in reality their posturing and bill cocking were all bluster; their frantic races were rigged and staggered from the start. When the proprietor had herded the pretender close to the southern shore, after perhaps five or six minutes, they quit their manic running. Head held high, the victor and once again undisputed champion swam back to the deep water in the center of the lake.
We had witnessed a common behavior known as territorial chasing, an aggressive defense which can last up to ten to fifteen minutes and can be initiated by either sex. The act of treading water to a swirling froth in order to stand up is known as penguin dancing, the bird's most dramatic territorial display. The intruder invites attack by beginning a run; the defender dashes closely behind the intruder, which stops its run only when the defender slows down. What looks like innate good sportsmanship is nature's way of giving the challenger a genetically encoded way out. Early in the breeding season, when territories are at stake and hormone levels have topped off the tank, territorial imperatives can and do lead to injury or death from puncture wounds. But by August, with territories long sorted out and hormone levels waning toward increased sociability, chasing becomes more of a highly ritualized territorial display choreographed to prevent injury or death to either combatant, providing the imposter exhibits the required submissiveness.
Loons were with us every day, almost as constant as camp chores. They gave voice to Killarney's wilderness day and night. Despite the fact that we saw four bears, three of them up close, it was the Common Loon-the fast-flying, slow-wailing, splash-landing loon-that stitched our trip together from put-in to take-out and all the lakes, mountains, miles, and portages in between.
Gavia immer gave us, in concert with streak-of-fire meteors and the bright-night sprawl of stars, a magical-moment sendoff. After our final evening paddle, we walked out to a high shelving slab of glacier-planed granite, rock ready-made for star gazing. There, away from the blood whine back in camp, we sipped the last of our ritual rations while waiting for the long northern twilight to fade away.
The brilliant, star-stippled sky was cold-front clear and cloudless. The clarity and number of distant suns was a pleasing novelty to southerners from the humid, heavily populated Georgia Piedmont. Page's star chart mentioned that our last night was the beginning of the Perseid Meteor Shower, best seen, of course, from two to five a.m. By nine-thirty the Big Dipper was cradling a cupful of black tea out in front of us to the north. Vega, right overhead, and Arcturus to the west-celestial lighthouses guiding our eyes to nearby constellations-shone brightest amid the swarm of dimmer stars visible from our rocky perch. A little later the Corona Borealis filled out its circle with explosively fast streams of light. Straight out from the Big Dipper's cup steadfast Polaris stood post: the speck-of-light axle and pivot point of the sky-wide night wheel, the sailors' stay-at-home star of dead reckoning.
Sometime before eleven, shortly after our ninth tracer round of fire light shot past the Big Dipper's handle, a loon began to wail-loud, plaintive, long winded-the singular sound coming across the shiny black water from the wide southwestern part of Killarney Lake. The wails-disembodied, primeval-echoed across the starlit lake from the Pleistocene-better known then to woolly mammoth than man and woman. Alone on our rock, tired and a little tipsy and exhilarated beneath the immensity of the Ontario night, the evocative calls touched a hard-wired wildness still crouching within easy reach. The haunting wails swept our thoughts and feelings from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other, from beauty and joy all the way to sadness and death-dread.
After more than a dozen drawn-out, wolf-howl wails, the loon suddenly stopped. But before the night could reassert its silence, multiple loons answered with tremolo-laughter solace from the island-studded northeastern end of the lake. As the equally loud tremolos continued the best meteor yet-a long straight-line shot of ephemeral light, the Cherokee's "fire panther"-leapt across the sky.
The pulsing tremolos soon ceased. We laid back and closed our eyes. Then we slowly got to our feet and gave the Earth and star-sequined sky a standing ovation for the fire-panther and loon-music show.
Notes
* Scenic Killarney Provincial Park, with approximately 49,325 hectares (123,313 acres) to paddle and hike, is still relatively small for a Canadian canoe park.
** In a match race of straight-line speed, the peregrine might have difficulty keeping up with the loon.
*** The Common Loon that surfaced near our stationary canoe rode high in the water with its head held aloft, making itself appear larger, a sign of intended dominance. Loons signal submissiveness by making themselves smaller, riding lower in the water and tucking in their heads.
(1) The loon's heavy bones and biathlete musculature, which prove their worth underwater, are a considerable hindrance when it wants to takeoff and fly. Gavia immer's wings are exceptionally narrow and short in proportion to its body length and weight. Even with a maximum wingspan of up to 58 inches, the Common Loon still has a body weight disproportionately heavy for its wing surface. In his book, Birds of the World, Oliver Austin emphasized this fact by noting that loons have the "least wing surface in proportion to their body weight of any flying bird."
Genetic evolution overcame most of the loon's wing loading problem by applying two standard aeronautical solutions: create more lift, create more speed. While natural selection was busy building denser bones, it was also compensating by cambering the bird's wings to provide more lift and revving up its engine to provide more speed. Today's retooled model features a very rapid flap rate, blurring wing speed up to 265 beats per minute. Despite its inadequate wings, radar-monitored Common Loon migration flights average a straight-line speed of seventy-five mph. During 15-degree descents, this species streaks through the sky with the velocity of a good major-league fastball, up to ninety-five miles an hour.
During the breeding season (May-August), but especially from mid-May to mid-June, these high-volume vocalists play their parts in North America's loudest and largest musical: the renowned, way-off Broadway production known as the Nocturnal Chorus. During this time in the early nesting season, every suitable lake becomes a stage for Gavia immer's full repertoire of resounding calls, periodically projected with a frenzied frequency for most of the night from dusk till dawn. Directed by the wheeling constellations and the will toward continuance, this choral uproar usually warms up with wails, followed by an extravagant, landscape-scale a cappella concert of tremolos, duetting tremolos, yodels, more wails, more of everything until the air reverberates with a chaos of cries from the dark.
The Nocturnal Chorus is more commonly heard on lakes in close proximity or on larger lakes with multiple pairs of loons. The sparse but appreciative audience pays for the long-running show with portage, bug bite, and lost sleep. The silent ushers are the same old ones: map, compass, common sense. While the singing continues throughout the night, it frequently peaks at around two in the morning. There are no programs, no protocols for applause. Dusk pulls the curtains apart; dawn draws them to a close. There are absolutely no applause-driven encores after daylight. You can give Gavia immer a standing ovation, clap as loud and long as you like, but the Common Loons will not come back to curtsy or bow. The show doesn't run every night, so don't bother with reservations.
The function of this loud cacophony of loon music is unclear. It may aid in pair bonding and territorial reinforcement during nights when visual contact is limited, or it may allow for neighbor recognition. Whatever the reason, territorial chorusing still sweeps over great swaths of wild lake country, over thousands upon thousands of square miles. For instance, if you were camped on any loon-lucky lake within the 2.1-million acres of the contiguous Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness-Quetico Provincial Park (Minnesota-Ontario), loon calls would drench the darkness with overlapping ripple-rings of living, pulsing sound. The same thrilling magic, loon music surging at you from every lake within your circle of hearing, would also arise within Ontario's nearly 1.7-million-acre theater-in-the-all-around, Algonquin Provincial Park. In fact, this same surround-sound phenomenon, this throbbing assertion of life, fills the night with an ancient and utterly primeval force where ever wild lakes and nesting loons remain.
