In the first weeks of June, Wisconsin does not burst into summer — it leans into it. The days stretch softly at the edges, and the woods take on that particular green that only comes once a year, when everything feels new but already familiar.

Along the shadowed trails, the ferns uncurl with a deliberateness that puts human clocks to shame. Their fronds, still damp with the memory of May rains, reach quietly toward the filtered light. If you kneel and wait, you can almost hear them moving.

This is the season of wood thrushes and wood smoke, of creeks fat with spring’s melt and deer trails turning from muck to memory. It’s when you remember, suddenly, that Wisconsin is not something you drive across — it’s something you listen to.

Some say this is when the Sconster returns.

They don't mean it dramatically — not in the way of old monsters or fairy tales. They mean it the way you might mention a family of foxes you saw once and never again. Or the way your grandfather swore he heard something step where no man should be, back near the old pines, but didn’t press the issue.

You won’t find it by trying. But you might feel it — a presence as old as the land and just as quiet. A nudge of wind on the back of your neck when the woods are still. A feeling that you are being regarded not unkindly, from just beyond the edge of the clearing.

The Sconster is less a creature and more a question. One the land asks of those who walk it slowly, notice the trout lilies before they vanish, and take their coffee outside even when it's still too cold.

And so we go — not to hunt, not to find, but to be present. In that, we are closer than we think.

Photo by Benjamin Jameson on Unsplash