In the three years since our first introduction, I have walked this loop of Deer Creek more than one hundred times. Its rich macroinvertebrate habitat constitutes a liquid western border to what is otherwise a vibrant sea of green. The elegant bowing of vine maple marks the entrance to an understory blanketed with Oregon grape and salal. Douglas fir, red alder, and western red cedar tower in their reach for the sky.

I have seen things grow here; bud, flower and fruit here. I have seen them struggle here, die here, and then — in what seems to be inexplicable — revitalize here. And at every one of their stages, I have witnessed a willing recipient seeking shelter or sustenance. Possibly, they have witnessed the same in me. It is a beautiful complexity; each physical circumlocution I walk is done in proximity to creatures engaged in their own cyclical process of budding and dormancy. And yet it is these very cycles for which I am here.

Once weekly for the last three years I have walked this loop to take note of the changes occurring within it. Every data set builds upon the last in what has become an ongoing anthology of this land’s phenological stories. Phenology (the study of cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena, especially in relation to climate and plant and animal life) engages us in perceiving nature’s calendar; an attuning to the cyclical and seasonal phenomena that surround us all of the time. As the seasons change, so too do flora and fauna shift in their appearance and behaviors. At each juncture, I find myself in eager anticipation of each season’s transience — what new arrival will present itself this week? As the season crests into fall, I am reminded of bountiful summer berries and the languid heat of August nights. Replaced with the pattering of rain, summer’s fruits have all but withered now — the land heeding to the oncoming ripeness of apples, the emergence of chanterelles along the forest floor, and the swell of the Skagit river as she welcomes the arrival of coho salmon.

Week to week, month to month, this land speaks volumes. Yet, in aligning chapters of one year to the next, these narratives entwine at a much grander scale. What do we learn if we notice longer durations of shorter blooming seasons or a never-diminishing snowpack? What do these overlapping observations communicate about nature’s cycles? In a world that frequently bends toward haste, phenology demands languidity. Phenology is a process of observance, of intimacy, of knowing. It is relationship. And like all relationships, it requires our care.

Pyramid Peak is embellished in this season’s first snow and I am reminded of distant cycles that affect our here and now. At high elevations in the Cascades, whitebark pine and Clark’s nutcracker exist in what scientists refer to as obligate mutualism; together, they are dependent on each other for survival. Simultaneously, both are keystone species — organisms that hold the ecosystem together and without which the landscape would gravely change.

Unlike other trees, whitebark pine is not a wind-dispersed species. Rather, it produces sizable, highly nutritive seeds that rely upon the Clark’s nutcracker to scatter. In tandem, these seeds serve as a crucial food source to Clark’s nutcrackers. Many of these seeds are forgotten in caches that then germinate into another year’s trees. But their mutualism is not lost purely on one another. Other species of plants and animals benefit from their relationship for subsistence, be it through food, shelter, or nesting.

Functioning as nurse logs for other conifers to root, whitebark pine nurtures life in what would otherwise be an inhospitable alpine environment. Their tolerance for harsh climates further secures snowpack and regulates snowmelt, both of which reduce erosion, stabilize soil, and regulate downstream flow. However, as our planet’s climate shifts, the high alpine is becoming increasingly susceptible to disease. Whitebark pine is swiftly collapsing from infections of blister rust, and with it ushering in dangerous implications for Clark’s nutcracker.

Other evergreen conifers provide similar nesting and nourishment structures for the creatures in their habitat. And, akin to the interdependence of whitebark pine and Clark’s nutcracker, other conifers also seek assistance from creatures for seed dispersal and microbial soil enrichment. Consequently, to what degree are these relationships in seemingly separate ecosystems dependent upon or influenced by that of the other? As the climate shifts, Douglas fir forests are increasingly important as secondary habitat for Clark’s nutcracker; yet is this from preference or necessity? As whitebark pine contends with its own survival, what impact trickles into the reliability of Deer Creek’s flow? Where do we as humans find ourselves within this web?

Photo by John F. Williams

Photo by John F. Williams

These plants, the spider and the web that weave them together, the black bear as he saunters through, the lazuli buntings perched above, they know this land. They are sustained by this land — not merely by the neighbors in their own community, but by natural systems cycling at a significant distance. They know the transference of sunlight across the sky, the essential thirst for rain, and the threat imposed if insufficiently prepared for winter.

We do not innately love what we do not know, yet loving and knowing too become cycles — of engaging, of committing, of falling off course and beginning again. When we quiet ourselves enough, temper ourselves to engage, we too may know the land. We too may realize that these cycles equally comprise us. May extending kinship to our ecosystems, as greatly as to their cycles, become the compass that guides our relationships; relationships as nascent as the dawn.

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