As Right as Rain

An ode to the miracle of water falling from the sky

It rained the other day. Not a biblical deluge, the kind that brings to mind arks, or the the legendary 2021 Texarkana, Texas storm when it literally rained fish (white bass to be specific). Not even the 8.52 inches in 12 hours that caused the Bayfield flood of July 1942, the one that rolled a rock the size of a Volkswagen through the downtown bakery.

No, this was just a gentle summer rain, barely enough to write its name, the “syllables of water” as poet Conrad Aiken called them, on the windshield of the Little Dipper in its slip at the marina. As such, it would hardly be worthy of comment in a place that gets an average of 34 inches of rain a year but it has been a dry spring in the Islands. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) tells us it is the second-driest May in the last 129 years on its National Integrated Drought Information System website, 2.693 inches below normal.

In the islands we don’t need a government agency to tell us it has been dry. Nature has its own “integrated information system” - the clatter of stones like dry bones on the beaches, the crinkle of grasses that sounds like flames, the silence of the frogs. It had gotten so bad that in addition to the usual “high fire danger” warnings, the National Park Service put out a reminder to follow strict bear country camping protocols in the park because the bears were hungry due to the effects of the drought on their natural food sources.

Although you don’t see many photos of rainy days in the postcard rack at the Bayfield shops or in the Chamber of Commerce brochures, some of us love the rain. I, for one, am a not-so-secret admirer of rainy days in the Apostle Islands. There is a rightness to the rain, a freshness to such days. This one in particular was a kind of cleansing of the sky after the endless days of smoke from the Canadian wildfires. I like the reflections in the puddles that form on the wooden slates of the docks at the marina, the way the knots slip easily as you untie the boat from the cleats. There is a coolness on the skin, an added sense of alertness knowingly pointing the bow out towards the big lake in the “bad weather” that drives so many other boaters to shore. I rarely go far in the rain, content to just boat out to some quiet bay, turn off the engine, and drift. It is a time to listen to the the music of the rain on the roof of the cuddy, see the squiggle of the droplets on the wind shield, the world outside gone abstract as if Salvador Dali himself had painted the islands.

Sometimes, when I remember, I bring my copy of Rain: A Natural & Cultural History by Cynthia Barnett. What better place to read about the weather obsession of Thomas Jefferson, our “founding forecaster” who measured every rain for more than 50 years at Monticello and often ended correspondence with a reference to local rainfall totals? The author tells of cultures which resorted to burning “witches” at the stake as an offering to stop the rain when there had been too much of it and of shooting cannons at the sky as if to punch holes in the clouds when there hadn’t been enough.

Barnett even sets the reader straight on the shape of raindrops - apparently we’ve had it wrong all these centuries. They are not the pointy-headed waterbags children draw on school water cycle posters. Because of the sculpting of air pressure, they fall more in the shape of a parachute, rounded at the top and pointed below as they hurtle towards the ground.

It seems the perfect book to read tucked into a quiet bay, the staccato tap dance of rain on the boat’s roof, hot coffee in hand. Until, that is, the author takes a turn into the science of climate change and the “rain bombs” that could occur with warmer ocean temperatures and changing weather patterns.

It is not that I want to stick my head in the sand (or in a rain puddle). There is a time and a place for delving into the science of climate change and its potential impact on rainfall distribution and timing and how that will influence everything from agriculture to where we live and how. But after a week of breathing in the smoke of those climate change-fueled Canadian wildfires, I am seeking a rebirth, a respite from the smoke and stress, and a reminder of the simple wonder of the rain. I want to feel the air being scrubbed clean with each raindrop, smell the wet rock scent of the cliff faces now streaked with water, see the ferns on shore going that life-affirming shade of green that spells out summer in its fronds.

I set the book aside and open the window of the cuddy cabin to feel the rain blow in but even that is not enough. So, I pull back the bimini and step out from under the hard top to let the rain fall straight out of the sky and onto my face. With my eyes closed, I remember a poem performed in the historical musical “Take It To The Lake” up at the Lake Superior Big Top Chautauqua:

ANOTHER MIRACLE

“You can hear by the rumble of thunder

That wagon loads of rain are rolling again

in the heavens.

Humans bitch and gripe … ‘Oh no, rain, rotten weather. We had plans!’

Underneath, the earth has a plan,

Accepts

Soaks it in, or rolls it in rivulets to the lake.

Another miracle just passed by

This is water falling from the sky!”

With the slight breeze that ushered in the rainclouds, a chop is beginning to build on the slate-gray back of the West Channel so I don’t stay for long. Without even drying the rain off of my face, I tuck back into the cabin, turn the Little Dipper back towards shore, the bow bouncing in the growing waves like a high-stepping child in new rubber boots zig-zagging to stomp in every puddle she can find, and laughing at each new splash. I keep the window open and all the way home I can taste the miracle of rain dripping on my lips.

— All photos by Jeff Rennicke.

For more writing and photography check out my website below and buy a copy of my book Jewels on the Water: Lake Superior’s Apostle Islands.