Each night at 8 p.m., when my dog hears humans howling across Second Valley, he bangs the Vietnamese gong in our living room with his paws and starts barking. He’s an enthusiastic participant in a chorus that began as a show of thanks to first responders during the pandemic but has evolved into an enduring Inverness ritual.
Long after similar displays of gratitude were abandoned elsewhere, the Inverness howl persists, carried on by a happy group of howlers who find joy in unleashing their inner canine. Kate Munger initiates the sessions by banging a Balinese gong that hangs on the deck of her home at the top of Madrone Avenue, where she lives with her husband, Jim Fox, the Inverness fire chief.
“I think as a culture, we are yearning for connection and ritual and ways to acknowledge our humanness. That’s why I ring the gong and that’s why I sing,” said Ms. Munger, who founded a group that sings at the bedsides of the terminally ill.
After her tenth strike rings out, Ms. Munger initiates the howling and others join in. It starts as a jubilant chorus and fades after a few minutes, when the last participant lets out a final yelp. Every now and then, real coyotes join in.
The group of human howlers is not large, but it’s dedicated. Its numbers ebb and flow, rising during summer when more people are around, peaking at perhaps a couple dozen. It’s an exceedingly rare night when Ms. Munger doesn’t hear at least one person respond to her howl.
Among the more fervent howlers is Nick Kline, who considers the ritual a highlight of his day and a fundamental element of Inverness culture. “Every day at 8 p.m.—in the dark, in the rain, in the storms—devoted howlers continue to lend their voices to the nightly ritual,” said Mr. Kline, an environmental consultant who has been coming to Inverness since he was a kid and he moved out in 2019.
Mr. Kline sets an alarm for 7:59 p.m. so he can set himself up to better hear and appreciate the howls and deliver his own without having to rush.
Similar rituals took place nationwide during the pandemic. People banged pots and pans and cheered for the first responders who put themselves at risk to protect the health of others. In New York City, the howl received robust publicity, and it wasn’t long afterwards that Ms. Munger returned from a choir trip to New Zealand, just missing a lockdown that would have prevented her from re-entering the U.S.
“I got home on March 17, 2020, with one hour to spare,” she recalled. “I heard what was happening in New York City, and within days of getting home, I just started ringing the gong.”
She never suspected the howlers would still be at it. “I’m heartened and delighted,” she said. “I just love to go out there and listen to everybody releasing that joy.”
Ms. Munger sets her alarm for 7:57 p.m. to give herself a few minutes to prepare. Mr. Fox sets a backup alarm for 8 p.m. He often strikes the gong but does not partake in the howling.
“I don’t think I howl particularly well, and it hurts my throat,” the fire chief said. “I have a poorly formed howl.”
Elegant or rough, the howls are audible from Rachel Dinno’s home on Highland Way. During the pandemic, she recruited several neighbors to participate in the nightly ritual. “The howl became, for me, a way of connecting with others,” said Ms. Dinno, who spent her career working with land conservation organizations. “It was a way of saying, ‘Is anyone out there?’”
The ritual was an excellent antidote to isolation, said Ms. Dinno’s husband, Jess Taylor. “We were all holed up in our houses, and this was a way for everyone to shout, ‘I’m here!’” he said.
Their neighbor Bob Simon joined them on a recent evening for a vigorous howl from their balcony, which looks out at Tomales Bay and Black Mountain.
“I hate to admit this, but when I first heard the howling, I thought it was coyotes,” confessed Mr. Simon, a retired Army paratrooper and base jumper. “I was wondering, why do the coyotes always do this at 8 o’clock?”
After Ms. Dinno broke the news that the howlers were human, Mr. Simon eagerly joined in. Ms. Dinno said she sometimes enters a meditative state before the howl. “When I know that eight o’clock is coming, I just sit outside and just listen to the sound of silence,” she said.
Many howlers say they can recognize individual howls, even though they don’t always know from whose larynx they erupt.
“Each howler has a unique call,” Mr. Kline said. “Some are short and business-like, others are long and hit a few different notes, and some are more playful and wild.”
What began as a way of expressing gratitude and solidarity during the pandemic has evolved into something more profound, he explained in an email to the Light.
“The howl represents our solidarity against challenges big and small, our love for the local ecosystem, including its danger and beauty, our kinship with our animal neighbors, our wildness, our mortal existence, the passage of time, another day concluded, another night begun, and so much more that can’t be captured in words,” he wrote.
Above all, he added, the howl unites us: “While we are loners in some ways, we are also part of a pack living our lives in this special place that we love so much.”