The Singing

Could we ever love and protect a wild place simply for the way it sounds?

It is still dark these mornings when I rise. With the Little Dipper safely “on the hard” for the season, I often sit with a cup of coffee in the dark, the memories of the boating season gone by rising like swirls of steam from my coffee mug. I breathe them in.

But today the serenity is shattered by the infernal “beep-beep-beep” of after-the-summer-season repair work taking place across the street at the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore headquarters (Bayfield’s old courthouse). I picture the Grinch holding his ears and decrying the “Noise, Noise, Noise, Noise!”

I slip a pair of headphones on, stream nature sounds, and am instantly back in the Islands aboard the Little Dipper, engine off, drifting silently along some quiet shore with only the murmur of waves and the soft morning calls of the gulls.

Not everyone can escape so easily. People jammed into our growing cities are exposed against their will to background noise levels topping 85 decibels and spiking to over 110 in the face of sirens wailing, subways rumbling, air traffic taking off, beeping horns, the hiss of air brakes and buses. It is a cacophony of clatter. And it takes its toll.

Not only does long-term exposure to constant noise threaten significant hearing loss over time, even short term exposure is enough to raise blood-pressure, increase stress levels, lessen the ability to concentrate, and disrupt healthy sleep patterns.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has long recognized the health risks of urban noise. Since 1972 WHO has declared noise as an official and significant “pollutant” and claimed that one in three Americans are regularly exposed to excessive noise. And yet the problem continues to worsen with “acceptable noise levels” surpassed in nearly every major city worldwide and few solutions in sight, or perhaps I should say within “hearing.”

And it is not just a problem for humans. Ornithologists have documented birds singing earlier in the day to avoid the background noise of rush hour traffic and singing louder just to be heard. Hibernating bears have shown signs of increased blood pressure and heart rates when blasting at quarries or the thumping of geologic testing occurs even a half-mile from their dens.

Our national parks should be havens of natural silence, an escape hatch from the blight of urban noise. Nearly three-quarters of those in a recent survey ranked “natural peace and quiet” as an important resource in our national park system. “Each national park has a unique soundscape,” says the NPS webpage on natural sounds. “The natural and cultural sounds in parks awaken a sense of wonder that connects us to the qualities that define these special places. They are part of a web of resources that the National Park Service protects.” The National Park Service has even made “soundscapes” a part of its popular Junior Ranger program.

What is the “soundscape” of the islands? Is it the waves, different musical notes in their boom against the cliffs and the way their fingers strum the slopes of a sandy beach, their slap against a boat hull? Is it the sounds of geese rising from a quiet cove, the harp-like pluckings and plinkings of water dripping deep in the throat of a sea cave? In winter could it be in the chimes of floe ice against the shore? In autumn, the click of leaves against the tent fly? All of it? There is music in these islands, singing.

The artist’s eye seeks out perfection in the jagged lines of a forested horizon or the colors of a cliff but could perfection also be hidden in the resonance of its sounds? Calls for protection of a wild place often speak of “scenic” values but what of “sonic” values? Can we hear beauty as well as see it? Our love of music proves that we can. We love songs about the lake. Could we love the songs of the lake just as much?

Could the sound of a loon be the background music of a memory?

Can the rumble of thunder in a rain squall become a keepsake?

Is the sweet strings of the wind through a White Pine enough to bring tears to your eyes?

As the world grows noisier and noisier, perhaps it is time, beyond time, for us to begin to understand and appreciate the importance of the way a wild place sounds, to hear its heartbeat in its song. If we could, someday it may be possible to set areas aside not just as buffers against the increasing clamor of the city but to save them for the way they sound. To save them simply for their singing.

I turn the headphones up against the constant “beep-beep-beeping” of the construction next door and let the sounds of the islands wash over me like a song.

— Jeff Rennicke

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