"High Lake" is the story of a place in Iowa once-wild. This essay is full of history, summer camp lore, frightful birds, and the strange beauty of what once was.

Of the chain of lakes wrapping around the Ingham woods, High Lake is the largest. This 467-acre field of water with its irregular shape and fluctuating depth proved to be quite an obstacle for the first European American explorers to navigate the woods I know and love. Historical records nearly two centuries old tell that Captain Allen and his men, including his hired guide, became so disoriented on their 1844 expedition that it took them two days to find their way out of the mess of groves, prairies, and waterways, finally ferrying across the straight between east and west Swan Lake a few miles to the north. It was this confusion that led Allen’s guide to say, “The grass of this country is tall and luxuriant…but the whole country is good for nothing expect for the seclusion and safety it affords to the numerous waterfowl that are hatched and grown in it.” I like to think that Captain Allen was referring to the place I call Bird Island.