#24-14 Time Travel with Trees
In which the E@L experiences chrono-displacement in a primeval cypress swamp
I recently became a time traveler. Not the kind of time travel that you read about in fantasy novels. In most of those, someone revisits a specific time in the past defined by customs, clothing, machinery, and cultural ideas that are recognizable. But what if we could travel back in time without any of the cultural baggage associated with it? I believe we can, because I have.
Milling Around
My time travel began in a millpond, one created originally by a dam to provide power for a grist mill or sawmill. Paddling (or rather pedaling) my kayak with other like-minded kayakers, we set off to explore the margins of Trap Pond, in its eponymous Delaware State Park. As we progressed southward, the open waters of the north end soon became dotted with isolated bald cypress trees, growing up out of the water like sentinels on the edge of civilization, warning us that we were entering a zone of timelessness.
Bald cypress, Taxodium distichum, is an oddity among trees. Unlike most conifers, it is deciduous, losing its greenery during winter, and growing new needle-like leaves each spring. In the fall, it sheds round, golf-ball-sized cones covered with scales. Each of the scales covers seeds that are a prime food source for squirrels, which redistribute them as they forage. Bald cypress trees prosper in wet, swampy soils where many other trees will not grow. Consequently, bald cypress wood is rot-resistant, making it highly desirable for flooring and caskets, as well as fence posts and pilings that are exposed to water. Collectively, the trees form a distinct type of habitat, the cypress swamp, that is unique to the southeastern United States. The Wikipedia page for bald cypress includes a photo taken in Trap Pond, making it literally the poster-child for bald cypress swamps.
Bald cypress are also unique in producing “cypress knees”, outgrowths of the roots or trunk that project upward into the air. Previously, these were thought to help absorb oxygen, because the trees often live in oxygen-deprived swampy soils, but more recently they are thought to act like buttresses that help support the trees.
It is not a large tree, growing to heights of about 100 feet, and trunk diameters of 3-6 feet. But it is one of the longest-lived trees in North America. Many live to 500 years or more. Some of the oldest bald cypress trees have been dated from 1500 to over 2700 years of age and began their life anywhere from 300 to 600 years BCE. As you would expect for such an old tree, they grow at a glacial pace. In all respects, this tree clearly deserves the epithet of primeval.
Up a Creek without a Peddle
Beneath this canopy of overhanging archaean dendrology, we paddled our kayaks to the southern margin of the pond, where we expected to find a creek feeding into the pond from the forest, but the water level was about a foot below normal (due both to a dry season, and recent modifications to the dam at the north end of the lake), so we soon began running aground. My kayak uses pedals and a system of flapping fins for propulsion, which don’t work in water less than one foot deep. I can fold them up, but they still protrude a few inches below the hull. I can also pull the entire pedal system up into the boat but need to do it before I run out of depth. Seeing we were entering shallow water, I did just that.
A few hardy souls ventured into the shallow water between the trees, but either became grounded or found themselves at a dead end. Some of us managed to squeeze through a narrow spot in the vegetation back into the open pond. At this point, the mouth of the creek appeared on my left and I headed into it, expecting other kayakers to follow. But unbeknownst to me, none followed my lead, opting to stay in the pond instead.
The creek became a narrow rivulet between tightly packed tall cypress trees. Trees grew from the water, all through the swampy upland, and right to the creek edge. With my pedals inboard, I used my paddle to continue traveling up the creek, following its twists and turns into the dark, overhanging forest. At some points the creek was no wider than my paddle. Where the creek formed branches that wound off into other parts of the forest, small arrows painted on boards pointed me upstream along the main branch. Low-hanging branches and stumps that had fallen into the creek created obstacles requiring negotiation. After about thirty minutes, I stopped paddling and glided to a halt.
Time Out of Mind
The creek became a conduit through time, transporting me from my position on the linear time scale to a primeval swamp millions of years ago at some other location in non-linear time-space. I was all alone in the forest, surrounded by large cypress trees that were centuries old. Their upward protruding knees appeared as if ghosts of trees-long-past, reaching out to grasp desperately for life.
Closing my eyes, I absorbed the rhythm, sounds, and smells of the swamp. My heartbeat slowed as I became aware of forest sounds: a bird chirping in the distance, a squirrel scrambling up a trunk, methane bubbles percolating upward from the creek bottom. My concerns (money, time, responsibility) evaporated, and my mind came to rest solely on the present time-space as registered by my senses: the green trees, the brown water, the clear air, sounds of the forest, the gentle brush of wind on my cheek, the smell of decaying vegetation. Animals and plants here are the same as those that lived here a thousand years ago. The confluence of all these sensations imbued in me a sense of what life was like in this environment for millennia before humans existed. My senses were simply inadequate to determine my location in time; whether I was now, or then. Time has no purchase here; civilization has no footprint. I could stay for an hour, a day, an eon, become a part of the swamp.
I would not have been surprised to see the long neck and head of an apatosaurus sticking out from between the trees. Even less surprising would have been an alligator. They are common in Florida, and due to climate change, have been seen as far north as North Carolina and Virginia. Alligators would be perfectly at home here in the cypress swamp.
Moments like this remind us that there is a world of nature outside of our homes, our businesses, our lives, and our daily routines. Here, nature continues, unobstructed and uninhibited by human intervention. Left to its own devices, the pond and the cypress swamp would eventually silt in and evolve to a climax community of hardwood trees. But the dam is maintained to keep the pond full; a trail winds around it, and a footbridge crosses this same creek somewhere up around the next bend. Human intervention maintains the timelessness of this forest for now.
Making Ripples
Coming out of my reverie, I realized it was time to return. Slowly, I worked my way back down the creek, around each bend, avoiding snags, logs, and shallow spots. As I came around a corner, I saw it. A large brown body slid effortlessly out from behind a tree into the water a few feet in front of me. I couldn’t stop quickly enough, and the sound of my paddle hitting the water alerted it to my presence. Its black nose and eyes came up to meet mine and it was as astonished at my presence as I was at it. It was a river otter, about three feet long, and it submerged sinuously into the water, as noiseless and effortless as if it were part of the creek. I remained still and quiet, waiting to see what it would do.
The North American river otter (Lontra canadensis) was once hunted almost to extinction for its fur. Its presence here is a sign of success in returning this small parcel of land to its ancestral ecological status. Otters are highly territorial and have been known to attack humans, but I think it highly unlikely here and now. I expect to see it pop up in the creek ahead of me, and a few minutes later, it surfaces silently about fifty yards behind me and swims sleekly around the bend, leaving only a small surface ripple in its wake.
As I paddle further down the creek, the cypress trees become less dense, opening up as I enter the pond again. Seeing no other humans, I wonder if I am still inhabiting ancient-forest time or if I have returned to the now-time. That question is answered as I come around the bend and see the other kayakers far ahead at the launch ramp.
Great blue herons and double crested cormorants watch me suspiciously from their perches atop cypress trees as I paddle slowly beneath their overhanging branches. The sights and sounds of the primeval forest fade to memory.
I realize now, that time travel doesn’t require a sophisticated machine that spins and beeps and flashes, like they do in science fiction stories. It simply requires immersing ourselves in a natural environment without anthropogenic devices or distractions and opening ourselves to all the sensory information available.
Like the otter, my visit has left only a ripple in the fabric of time, which expends its energy spreading outward in concentric circles, finally dissipating along the shoreline and leaving no trace of my passage.
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I especially enjoyed the "Time Out of Mind" section.