Emily Brisse

. The loon is a mythic bird in Minnesota. Wood ducks float close to docks, accept bits of bread thrown from children's hands; Canadian geese walk single file down residential streets. But loons. They keep their distance. Occasionally you'll see them floating in the middle of a lake. Rarely — and magically — they will pop up fifteen feet from your canoe and stare with their red eyes for a few moments before diving back into their solitary worlds. But what you can count on in Minnesota — the land that claims these creatures as its state bird — is hearing them almost anytime you are on a quiet lake in the presence of the moon. And you'd never mistake it. Children don't ask their parents whose call that was. It's a sound that seems to rise out of the mist, even on a clear night. One that seems simultaneously desolate and binding and old. They are ghosts in a way, these birds. And you listen for them as you would movement in the backyard when you are home alone.  . Vid

Happy 4th of July!

Minnesota:   originally   the   name   of   the   river,   from   Dakota   (Siouan)   mnisota, literally,   "cloudy   water,   milky   water,"   from   mni     "river,   stream"  +  sota   "slightly   clouded." Just in case you were curious. :)