‘The Duck Quacked Back’ – Lavender Writer Terrance Griep Blunders Through a Winter Wonderland

I’ve always had trouble with phrases like “explore the forest’s trails” — I suppose it’s a Writer Thing. So often, the well-intended sellers of wild spaces talk of exploration as the purpose of outdoor hiking … but to my mind, explorers are the ones who came first, who blazed the trails then paved the ways: Ferdinand Magellan, Amelia Earhart, Captain James Tiberius Kirk, boldly going where no he, she or they have gone before.

When you explore southern South America, you find the Straits of Magellan; when you explore the airways over the Atlantic, you discover northern Northern Ireland; and when you explore the final frontier, you discover Qo’noS. And everyone who wades through your wake is … well, a follower.

The reason these thoughts were sailing through the empty, horizonless oceans of my mind was that I had concluded that my life and my midsection had gotten a little too soft, perhaps more than a little too soft, so it was time for a self-challenge: I would pick one of Minnesota’s state parks for my first-ever visit to any of them, and I would spend a day hiking her snowy trails.

Before leaping feet-first into the forest, I’d indulge in a camperful of natural/unnatural research. That would mean watching outdoor-themed YouTube videos. I’d come up with a plan before the actual hike — which path, what to bring, what not to bring — and “MacGyver” myself out of situations not addressed by YouTube experts.

This was in early March 2025, still technically winter, when Snow Miser and Heat Miser seemingly settle the daily weather report via coin toss. Might I hike through snow, through rain, through sun or some other part of the mail carrier’s motto? That’s just more challenge to manage, bay-bay.

When I arrived at the Minnesota State Park — I’m withholding the name to protect the innocent and the ignorant alike — the future dominated my thoughts: nearby obligations, both personal and professional, sat invisibly above my head like patient vultures. 

“Why am I doing this?” I muttered. “I’ve got way too much work waiting at home.” 

One inarguable advantage of winter hiking is a lack of bugs … but sometimes, it seems, we bring our own. The midday sky darkened as I wended my way through the serpentine driveway, the black clouds elbowing past the grey clouds in order to get a better look at the self-challenger they were about to torment.

I parked in the parking lot. When I locked the driver’s side door of my vehicle, I noticed it was being assailed by ivory crystal bombs, tiny and fat. 

“Of course it’s snowing,” I sighed. 

I knew immediately that I had under-dressed for the occasion. 

“Three dozen YouTube videos, but not a single weather report,” I thought. “Well played, sport.”

A few peanut brittle footsteps delivered me to brown signs scarred with yellow letters and arrows: “To Hiking Camping, To Swimming Beach, To Shelter.” Since “solo” was the primary goal, I had supposed during the planning stages that not too many of my fellow creatures would splash around the ice just adjacent to the Swimming Beach, so the Swimming Beach was my hopefully lonesome destination.

My self-image as some sort of athlete endured a fast erosion when the ground, seeing how much fun the sky was having beating me up, decided to join in. Up this ridge, down that ridge, sometimes abetted by well-worn timber board stairways and bridges, often appearing as a punchline in a caveman’s joke.

And still, all I could think of was the work waiting for me at home.

Finally, I arrived at the Swimming Beach, needing and seeking and using a bench. If anyone had been there to witness my arrival, they would have said that I slumped into that brown embrace with a grateful grunt. But there was no one, no one at all, just sleeping, leafless trees, fresh snow, old snow and a murmuring liquid gloom that, during warmer months, was called “a river.”

My watch — I left all digital devices inside my car — told me it was 3:13 p.m. 

“Fine,” I thought, “you did it. Now get back to town and get your work done.”

And that’s when I heard it, a sound I recognized instantly, despite not having experienced it in decades: it was the sound of my ears ringing, a city life reality so constant that it went generally unnoticed. And with that perpetual “zing-zhing-zing” edited out? Silence, the perfect silence that only winter woods can provide. I listened, first to verify the vacuum of noise, then to appreciate it, then to bask in it.

After a few minutes of this eyes-open meditation, a duck paddled through the half-frozen river, at first randomly, then with purpose. It was a little, grey thing in the big, grey water, and it gave me a look that said, “That’s my bench, you pink-skinned baboon.” I gave it a sample of my fairly effective duck call, and, after it recovered its anatine wits, the duck quacked back. It started to paddle away, its yass-queen point totally vindicated via especially wiggling tail feathers. But when I again made my duck call, it turned back and vocalized, determined not to let me have the last quack.

After a while, my duck foil got bored and waddled away as if wearing high heels over its webbed feet. I checked my watch: “7:45 p.m.,” it said. I had been sitting at the Swimming Beach singing like a waterfowl for three and a half hours. The sun had set, and I hadn’t even noticed.

Back at the car, I brushed away the up-letting flakes from the driver’s side window, and reflected there I saw an all-new creature staring back, a reborn ghost happily covered in ectoplasmic dandruff. Having completely forgotten about whatever was bothering me when I arrived, I realized that the wild space sellers had been right all along.

When you explore southern South America, you find the Straits of Magellan; when you explore the airways over the Atlantic, you discover northern Northern Ireland; and when you explore the final frontier, you discover Qo’noS. But when you explore the winter woods of Minnesota, what you discover is yourself.

dnr.state.mn.us/state_parks/index.html