Driftless or bust
Recently, I visited Wildcat Mountain State Park to take some photographs and video for our Facebook page and website. During this visit I wanted to shoot some mid-summer scenes from the observation point located in the park. If you have not been, it is a breath-taking view overlooking the Kickapoo River Valley- no shortage of photo ops at this location for sure.
Every once in a while, I get lucky and a story presents itself unexpectedly. This was one of those times. As I was walking down the steps to observation point, I noticed a couple enjoying the view. The woman turned around, looked at me, and in the most warm and cheerful tone, greeted me. Immediately, I thought to myself, ‘feels like a story’.
The couple were Jim and Constance Hassett from De Pere, Wisconsin. The story, well, is how they came to visit the Driftless. See, Jim’s wife was kind of the catalyst for their visit. “I was driven here, both figuratively and literally by my wife. She visited the Driftless ten years ago and she loved the place. I had never been to the Driftless area, and I just figured, well I might as well see what she's been talking about all these years. So that's why I'm here- to see if she's exaggerating and she's not, it's beautiful, just beautiful,” Jim said.
Constance’s first visit was an adventure not too far fetched from Hollywood. Constance and her friend, found themselves feeling a bit like actresses Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis in the movie “Thelma and Louise”, as she put it. The two, wearing babushkas and sunglasses as they drove in a Miata thirty miles outside of De Pere, found themselves miserable. “I was holding my suitcase in my lap in the car. We quickly realized this was not going to work, so we drove back and got her van,” she said laughing.
After a quick switch into a more comfortable mode of transportation, they headed out to the Driftless. Over the next three days, Constance and her friend drove around aimlessly. “I have about 500 pictures of our travels, and I felt like the energy here was so incredible. We were here (observation point) in fall, it was the last week in September, and in that time, we visited here a windstorm came up. In our picture we took, my hair is like flying around, the winds must have been about 20 miles an hour,” she said motioning her hands in circles.
Constance said they stayed on a farm that gave them a unique perspective of the culture and history of the region. “The people running the farm were from Europe. They taught us how bartering goes on, the political tensions, the way people get around, the rules and laws of the area, and the amazing geography. The Driftless area has such extraordinary landscapes!” Constance exclaimed. Ever since, she has been going on and on about the energy and beauty of the Driftless area to Jim.
While in Portage, Wisconsin for a friends memorial, Constance said, “Jim we are so close to the Driftless, let’s just do this”. The couple loaded up, set Google maps for the Driftless area (of course with a route not containing highways), and away they went.
When asked what stands out about the Driftless, Jim replied, “It’s very peaceful and quiet here, I appreciate that. Even living in a little town like De Pere, it gets too noisy at times, the peace and quiet here lets me just relax and let go.”
Constance sees the Driftless through a different perspective. As an artist, she said, “how do you capture such beauty in a painting?” Jim chimed in saying, “I was telling my wife about all the different shades of green that the trees have. I told her ‘You're a marvelous painter’ because she is, but she can't quite capture the various tones and hues of the trees. It's the grasses and the cloud cover and such, it's just impossible to capture photographically or on canvas. You just have to see it for yourself, because you get the depth, the dimension, the bulk, and size of the trees. Each tree has his own little own space. It's fascinating to see how trees look next to each other, even though they may be the same variety. Their colors and shapes are different, with each one influenced by the way it grows from the weather, in the sun, and other external forces like lightning or wind.”
I mentioned that coming to the Driftless, especially if you have never been, is almost like coming into a totally different world, and that it was amazing to me that it is right here in Wisconsin. Jim agreed and mentioned that he and Constance have lived outside of Wisconsin and acknowledged that they love the changes in weather and seasons. “I love the change of weather,” he said. “Even though I hate the hot and I hate the cold, but I will put up with either one to get a day like this. There are so many days like this with the sun out and a little breeze blowing,” Jim said smiling.
What Jim finds interesting is the way farms and the nature have found a way to coexist, pointing out it’s nice how farmers have been able to carve out a niche, yet leave so much wild growing around them.
Recalling her first adventure to the Driftless, Constance said what brought her in the first place was a book she read by David Rhodes titled Driftless. She said reading it was like pure poetry. “It did this, the Driftless, justice, to want in your heart and soul to come here, and that's what brought me here. I belong to a book club and I always pick Wisconsin authors. This book just blew me away. I just, I couldn't imagine that such a place existed in Wisconsin, the way he described it here. I think what painting or photography can't do is capture the vastness. As a painter, a majority of my work are landscapes, I can’t capture this vastness,” she said humbly.
