My Story: The Power of the Call of a Loon

Ruth Ann Rhodes, a former nurse, tells the story of the time she first heard the call of a loon and returned to the campground for more than a decade to feel the restorative power of nature.

(Editor’s Note: This is another in our ongoing series, My Story, in which we ask Hinesburg residents to tell a story about a photograph meaningful in their lives. Ruth Ann Rhodes, a native of Parma, Ohio, was a nurse for 50 years for a pediatric practice, then with the VNA and finally with the UVM Medical Center. She moved here in 1978. Her husband, Christopher Rhodes, died in 2020. The interview for the story — and the editing of the audio (with Rhodes’ approval) — was done by Chelsea Burton, a former Record intern, through a grant from the UVM Center for Community news.)

Loons. I love loons, and I didn't discover loons until I came to Vermont. We happened to start camping after years of doing some camping early on, but once three kids arrived, it was harder to camp. So after the kids left, we were with empty-nest syndrome, so we decided to try camping again. We chose Labor Day weekend.

I worked with a bunch of young people who were camping a lot. I asked where we could find campgrounds that would still be open that you didn't have reservations for, and one of my friends said that off Route 74 outside of Ticonderoga, she had friends who had a campground that was never full and said most of the campgrounds around there at least have an overflow section.

So we took our tent and sleeping bags, packed a cooler and went down 74, route 74 outside of Ticonderoga, looking for campgrounds. The first one we came to was Chilson and it was on Putnam Pond. So we drove down to this beautiful little pond. The only thing they had left was an overflow area and mainly for RVs, but they had an open spot that we could pitch our tent in.

So we ended up pitching our little 8x10 tent next to two big trailers, one that had push out rooms and we just, well, it looked so funny to see these two big campers in our little tiny tent. But we discovered they had canoes for rent and we rented a canoe. And that night you could hear the loons and they were just so hauntingly beautiful.

And before we did several years of camping in that campground. And then my husband said they had nine remote sites and he really wanted to do remote camping. Not something I thought I would ever want to do coming from the suburbs of the Midwest, but after a winter of two months of no running water, I decided maybe I could live without running water for a week.

So we had to load everything up in a canoe and paddle out a mile to the campground. And once we're out there, we saw a beaver, we saw the loons, we saw the geese. It was just a wonderful, wonderful vacation. There was no phone service, so there were no phones, which is great for a triage nurse on vacation. And no computers, because my husband had a big tendency to spend his evenings on the computer. And no TV. So it was really getting back to nature and it was lovely.

And on our last day of the campground, there were four loons that were there early in the morning and they were swimming in a circle right outside where our canoe was moored.

And we just had this lovely picture, sort of like they were saying goodbye at the end of the season to us, and we found ourselves returning to the remote sites for about 10 years. It was just beautiful and just taught me the restorative nature of being in the outdoors.