St. Croix 360 founder Greg Seitz is currently artist-in-residence at Pine Needles, a historic cabin on the St. Croix River owned by the Science Museum of Minnesota. While Greg is using this time to focus on writing a book, he will share occasional updates like the one below.

The river is different every time I look at it. The light, the breeze, the water, the wildlife, and the seemingly self-contained stream that shapes everything around it. I have been at Pine Needles a few days now and am trying to observe and experience the St. Croix in every way I can, as a way to ground myself in this place. Only by being rooted here can I look upstream and down, to the 100 miles of river above here, the 30 miles below, to the thousands of miles of rivers and creeks that join to form the St. Croix. All of that is the territory of my book, which seeks to extend this rootedness to a broad region.

My first morning, I take the canoe out. It’s a little Old Town solo canoe, chained up at the edge of the water, requiring a little scramble down steep slopes to reach it. The river banks are lush, tall grasses bending toward the water, some ironweed and swamp milkweed flowers popping from the greenery. The summer has been both wet and warm, and the vegetation shows it, growing to occupy every slice of sunlight, to catch the rain, to live and reproduce.

I have done a lot of paddling in tandem canoes, and a lot in solo kayaks, but rarely if ever have I paddled a true solo canoe. I quickly realize I like it a lot. I’m comfortable sitting on the low seat with my legs folded under me, or braced against the hull and gunwales. I have plenty of room in front of me for my camera and other gear. I’m up higher than in a kayak and have a good view. This comes in useful as I explore the nearby backwaters, peering through vegetation to see hidden openings, trying to probe the farthest reaches of navigable water. Drawing just a couple inches, the canoe is easily pushed through shallows with thick reeds and rushes growing. The water is relatively high after some recent rain, and will probably slowly drop off the next two weeks, so now is the time to explore.

I do not see another person but I am not alone. There are several eastern phoebes, a flycatching bird, alternately perched on branches at water’s edge and sallying out to snatch some bug invisible to my eyes. An osprey wheels above the other end of a marsh, up to osprey business, before it disappears through a gap in the floodplain forest behind it. A kingfisher chatters as it flies from tree to tree, and a green heron swoops along close to the water until it lands on a jumble of driftwood. A mourning dove preens itself in the upper branches of a dead maple.

Drifting down a channel toward a backwater, I am surprised by an old friend, the prothonotary warbler, which pops up out of a tangle of driftwood. It seemed I had interrupted its foraging. It hopped around near me for a minute, seeming not just unafraid but friendly or at least curious. While I have ample chances to photograph it, and it seems very close, it always manages to keep a twig between us, which either blocks it or interferes with my camera’s autofocus. I just watch it like it watches me, then the bird continues on its way down the shoreline. I think this is the latest in the year I’ve seen prothonotaries, though it’s still very much the bird’s preferred nesting habitat.

I stay on the river longer than I planned, luxuriating in this ridiculous opportunity to do nothing but be here for two weeks. Eventually my urge to write overcomes the magnetic pull of the river, and I paddle back to the cabin.

While Pine Needles is a serene and slow-moving place, it is also the setting for focus and creativity combining to result in productivity. My fellow residents inspire me. There is a red squirrel (or more than one) that visits the bluff a couple times each day, patrolling territory, scouting for resources. There are dragonflies that rarely stop flying, either defending their breeding grounds or hunting aerial insects. There are hummingbirds that spend much of the afternoon visiting the bright orange tiger lilies growing on the edge of the cliff. Eastern phoebe works the bluffline, too, chasing after

Butterflies frequently pass through, too, looking for nectar or doing whatever it is that butterflies do all day.

This is the season of abundance, but it has the slightest twinge of memory that it won’t last forever. There is plenty to eat now, but the days are already 40 minutes shorter than on the solstice. Babies of many species are growing toward maturity, and migration is on many minds. It’s time to get strong, build up reserves, finish the reproductive cycle for another year.

There is no hurry or urgency, but just because living is easy now is no reason to get complacent. I have work to do, too, and am glad to be part of this wild web of life.