“Can you feel it?” Jack asked. He stood rooted to the damp earthen path under the million-leaf canopy of the Alpenstock forest. The air thrummed with the ticks and clicks of living things, and the light, filtered through the prism of swaying greenery, cast an emerald sparkle over everything.

“Feel what?” I asked, afraid of the answer.

“Our loads lighten.”

I relaxed. He was in his element, a primordial forest on what was presumably once a glacial ice field. On an individual basis, Jack’s adjustments to his surroundings were minute: his eyes darkened a half shade, his voice rang an octave deeper, and his stride loped an inch, at most, longer. As a whole, however, it was like watching a salamander meld into a pebbled backdrop. His harmony with the environment seemed to suggest the restoration of a withheld sustenance. I thought about the way an indoor activity — shopping, for instance — dulled his eyes and slowed his pace, and I vowed to be more open to this off-the-grid passion of his.

When he pulled me in for a kiss so swift and as feral as our hinterland setting, my approval rating for our backcountry adventure climbed to the treetops.

“I feel lighter now,” I said into the steam of his still-nuzzling mouth, “but I don’t think it was the woods.”

“But it’s all — we’re all — interconnected,” he said, taking me by my shoulders. “I feel that here especially.”

I had to admit the place was teeming with energy, and as proof of Jack’s chain-of-life theory, a mosquito plunged his greedy proboscis into my calf. My swat at him and consequent stumble backward broke the intensity of the moment, but I took three things away from that instant in time: Jack’s rapport with this environment, the beautiful and mystical tapestry of life, and one big, honkin’ welt of a nasty skeeter bite.

An hour or so later, when we circled back to the park entrance, I noticed an area with a visitors’ center and what looked to be tepees and other simple structures; one, in particular, caught my eye.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“An interpretive center. School groups come here by the busloads. If I remember from my own fifth-grade field trip, this was once the site of a super-old — like prehistoric or something — Native American settlement. They’ve recreated what the site may have looked like.”

“Can we take a quick look?”

“Sure,” he said. “I love stuff like this.”

It was late afternoon; only an elderly couple and one park ranger remained. Fearing vistors’ hours were coming to an end, I made a beeline for what looked like a giant beehive.

“Leave it to you to head for the source of heat,” Jack said.

Though it wasn’t in use, I could see that the small bark-covered structure was, in fact, a working sauna. Its low profile and domed shape was similar to the savusauna I’d visited at Jinky’s grandmother’s place. A pile of rocks and logs and the remains of a fire were consistent with a hot-rock process of generating steam.

“Sorry, folks.” The ranger came up behind us, almost tumbling me out of my Timberlands. “We’re closing up for the day.”

“Do you use this for demonstrations?” I asked him.

“We have a staff member of Ojibwa descent who, on occasion, leads select researchers and small groups through a sweat lodge ceremony.”

“Cool,” I said.

“Actually, it’s pretty darn hot,” the ranger said, laughing at his own joke.

“It’d kill me,” Jack whispered into my ear with a shudder.

A few minutes later, as Jack and I pulled out of the parking lot, I cast a glance backward toward the sweat lodge. See you soon, I thought.