Stephen Maier

It is Thursday, October 1, 2009, and the summer-like weather is waning away. Autumn is but a week old yet it feels as though summer left us months ago. My focus this afternoon is on scents in the woods. However, Diane Ackerman notes in her book, Smell, that human dependence on the sense of smell diminished when humans emerged from the water and grew upright, and when “vision and hearing became more important for survival.” Smell is no longer as vital a function for us to survive, so I approach my assignment somewhat skeptically. The cold is going to hinder my capability of smelling, but I will sniff through it. It is about 50°F and overcast with a firm breeze.

I enter the West Clark Woods at 2:20 p.m. at the same spot as my last visit here nearly two weeks ago, September 19^th. It has become a familiar exit from the fast-paced college life and an entry to a pacifying, carefree, natural world. Upon first glance, it appears not much has changed. So I walk down the hill to the water to investigate. During my descent I notice something different. I crouch down to determine if my instincts are correct, and judging by the smell emitted from this substance, I believe it is feces, just as I had suspected. It looks much nicer in a clump on the forest floor than smeared beneath the soles of my sneakers, so in this moment I am happy. I continue down to the water’s edge and find that the water level has risen significantly over the past two weeks. The New England Asters near the banks are no longer growing, but the multitude of asters about ten feet offshore is still very colorful. The yellow birch living on the island is no longer colorful like it had been before, for its leaves have all “fall-en.” I look up above me to see if anything else has fully shed its leaves, but it appears that this particular birch is the only tree totally naked. Nearly all of the yellow birches around me, which were green two weeks ago, are half green-half yellow conjuring up a comparison to lemon-lime Gatorade. There is one mussel wood, the only non-hemlock or birch in the vicinity, with tough, gray bark and its green leaves have mostly changed to orange.

There are two large beds of rocks at the site. One sits in a shallow pool of water slightly uphill and northeast of the wetland. It is full of quartzite rocks, all similar to the next, with three phyillite rocks mixed in. It appears that these rocks were moved together by some weather, or they were dumped at this particular location in this odd but unique formation. The other patch of rocks forms an outline to what looks to be a downhill stream or outlet of running water. These rocks, also quartzite, align linearly and lead me to believe that water from the grazing land outside of the woods runs downhill looking for a place to settle and uses this line as its path to the wetland at the bottom of the hill. The wetland must be sourced by precipitation running from higher elevation, such as the top of Stone Hill. I find a path cut through the brush and follow it in search of an outlet for this water. It leads to a different bank of the wetland, this time looking from the north. However, I can’t find an escape route for the water so I surmise this must be its final resting place. The most curious feature of this idle water is it’s surprising lack of odor. All other standing water I have ever seen also smelled.

The cold air has the scent of autumn. It brings along that crisp, fresh smell that always comes with the fall season. I break a branch off a yellow birch tree and inhale the scent emitted from its interior. It is a smell that brings me back to my childhood, sitting at an Italian restaurant with my family and washing down a piece of my father’s chicken parmesan with a mouthful of birch beer. There isn’t much else permeating the air. The smells of the wild are more for the animals than for humans. Humans emit pheromones for humans and I am alone in the woods, so I smell the crisp air and the birch, but not much else. I exit the woods at 3:25 p.m. with a final breath of fresh forest air.