North Shore Morning

Deane Morrison is a science writer at the University of Minnesota, where she authors the Minnesota Starwatch column.

In the second two weeks of September, there's a lot going on in both the morning and the evening skies. In this edition, Deane explains some of the things to check out during this time.

Read this month's Starwatch column.

            Folks are humming that September song as Mother Nature appears to have surrendered her hot, grouchy attitude. Last weekend found the upper Trail both cooled and dampened down. It was about time, too!
            A couple rain episodes leading up to and including part of the long Labor Day holiday tallied nearly 1 3/4 inches in the Wildersmith gauge. The heavenly dousing couldn’t have come at a more opportune time for our brittle woods.
As it was, plenty of thunder and lightning accompanied the moisture deposit. The spirits of stormy illumination put on a brilliant, but dangerous display over borderland waters. We sure hope those natural fireworks didn’t strike and ignite some unwanted incendiary activity. Residents are keeping their fingers crossed that such didn’t happen. Guess we’ll know in a few days.
The coolness ushered in on the first day of this new month was quite refreshing after the sultry last part of August. Cooling conditions were such last Sunday evening that I actually saw puffs of breath while out doing some early evening grilling. Now this is what the north woods should be about.
The frozen cream and pie event at Chik-Wauk last Sunday was held amidst all kinds of weather. Nevertheless, many guests showed up to celebrate a culinary happening. In fact, the variety of pastry delights matched the mosaic of atmospheric formations throughout the busy afternoon.
Many thanks to members of the Gunflint Community for their contributions of help in making this event a sweet sensation!
During one of the few blue-sky moments at our end of the Trail festivities, an unexpected guest buzzed in to check out the colorful serving table line-up. Just a few of us worker bees witnessed the aerial episode. It was so spontaneous that it caught most by surprise, and even had some doing a “did you see that” double take.
Guess the assembly of vivid fruit wedges caught a hungry hummingbird’s eye. The tiny ruby throat dove in and momentarily hovered over a decadent piece of cherry-cranberry pie.
It was however, able to resist a sampling, which was not the case for a couple hundred humans. In a blink of an eye, the inquisitive hummer apparently decided “paradise found” could be gained elsewhere and soared off to parts unknown. Meanwhile, we astonished observers were left humming about the incident.
With a week of September under our belts, the “wild rice/harvest moon” is sprouting in the heavens. A sense of “Dagwagin” (fall in Ojibwe lore) is in the air.
If one can gain any insight from the squirrel intensity for harvest and subsequent storage around our yard, perhaps we should expect a winter that might be early and harsh.
 I’ve never seen such a vigorous cutting of white cedar seed clusters in any of my previous autumn seasons. If all those morsels are going to get salted away, there’s going to be some worn out rodents by the time our earth turns hard with frost.
A gal from over on Hungry Jack Lake tells that a late hatching of loon babies in her locale finds them in a hurry-up maturation mode. They are also assuming considerably more independence from the parents than might be expected for being such tardy arrivals.
Actions of these two species would make one wonder if members of our wild neighborhood might have inklings that the “Mom” in charge of things up here might have a winter surprise up her sleeve.
Checking back into my atmospheric journaling of a couple years ago, our Wildersmith neighborhood recorded snow and sleet to cover the ground briefly on Sept. 14. And we had midday snow showers on Sept. 22 in 2012, while a few years earlier the Hungry Jack/mid-Trail area got some four inches of snow on Sept. 30. Anything can happen, we shall see!
Leaf Peepers had better be getting up this way soon. The rainbow of autumn colors is about to burst on our granite hillsides. One might even see a bruno or two as they depart their nesting places around picked-over blueberry patches in search of winter quarters. It’s spectacular time in Gunflint Country, don’t miss it!
Keep on hangin’ on, and savor the “change and parting.”

{photo courtesy of Homer Edward Price via Wikimedia Commons}

These aquatic creatures look like something from a science fiction movie. In this edition of North Woods Naturalist, WTIP’s Jay Andersen talks with naturalist Chel Andersen about moss animals.

Cook County Anishinaabe language and culture teacher Tom Jack is from Lake of the Woods in Ontario. In this segment, he speaks with producer Staci Drouillard about his personal experience with the Residential School System in Canada and how that experience has shaped his view of education and teaching. He also explains the role that the Anishinaabe language plays in defining both historical and modern educational concepts.

I was surprised to receive a call from the Duluth News Tribune last weekend, asking me to comment on the permanent closing of Satellite’s Country Inn restaurant in Schroeder.  I don’t get out much in the summer, so I hadn’t noticed that the landmark café had not opened this summer. 
 
Marion McKeever and her family have been operating the restaurant and cabin business since 1980.  The McKeevers are famous for their well drilling business, but back in the ‘80s they also operated a satellite TV business, so they just carried the business name over to the café and cabins.
 
Over the years, many locals and visitors enjoyed the family atmosphere and the good food at Satellite’s.  It always felt more like you were in Marion’s home than in a restaurant. That personal touch that comes from a Ma & Pa-style business is largely lost in the United States now, as corporate business models inexorably take over.  The small café and independent corner store are slowly going the way of the small family farm.  The new model may be more efficient, but the loss of community connections is a sad thing to witness.
 
Marion says that she is still open to organizing the wonderful fish cake fundraiser that she does every year for the Birch Grove Foundation. The cabin rental business is still going strong as well. Only the food service part of the business is closing.
 
The McKeever family is very well respected in the community and they have made countless contributions over the years.  Hopefully, Marion will now have some time for some well-deserved relaxation and fun.
 
By now, everyone knows that Highway 61 will be under construction in eastern Lake County for most of the next year. But you may not know that Highway 1 between Ely and the North Shore will be closed off and on this fall.  Detours will be provided whenever a section is closed, but some of the detours will be fairly inconvenient and routed on gravel roads, so plan accordingly if you are headed up to Ely.
 
Our Congressman, Rick Nolan, was in town this week for a fundraiser hosted by Dennis Rysdahl at Surfside Resort in Tofte. Nolan talked for about an hour and a half to a good-sized group of local citizens.  He commented that it’s hard to be a member of a Congress that is best known for doing nothing.  He noted that the current Congress enjoys approval ratings that are lower than the Communist Party and root canal. 
 
Nolen previously served in Congress back in the 1970s. His 34-year hiatus is the longest in the history of the institution.  He noted that during his first hitch, the House of Representatives held more than 5,000 committee meetings per year, where legislation was debated, refined, and eventually brought to the floor of the house for a vote.  This year, they only will have around 500 committee meetings.
 
In spite of the gridlock on the big issues, Congressman Nolan has managed to pass some significant local and regional bills, including funding of Great Lakes infrastructure and clearing some red tape for Cirrus Design in Duluth, allowing them to add almost 200 good jobs in the last year.
 
Nolan is pretty disgusted with the influence of money on the current Congress. He’s working hard to institute reforms that would allow our legislators to start working on the people’s business again and be free from the continuous fund raising that characterizes today’s Congress.
 
I’ve been to a lot of political fundraisers in my time, but I have to say that the food at the Surfside Resort was the best I’ve ever had.  The influence of well-known Chef Judi Barsness was immediately evident.  Judi is back at the Bluefin Bay family of resorts after many years of running her own restaurant in Grand Marais.  She is working part time for the next two years, consulting, revamping the menu, and generally lending her amazing skills to the Bluefin eateries.  We are all the beneficiaries of this arrangement.
 
What is the deal this year with lost dogs in the wilderness?  Over the Labor Day weekend, we had this summer’s third dog, and the third collie-type dog, run away from its owner during a thunderstorm. 
 
The first was a collie lost on Brule Lake that was returned to its owner after several days.  That story made statewide news.  The second was a border collie that survived alone in the wilderness for two weeks before being lured into a campsite, captured and returned to his grateful owners.  The latest was a sheltie collie named Cloud that was found on a portage, brought here to Sawbill, and returned to her grateful and relieved owner about 24 hours after she ran off into the wilderness.
 
Apparently, collies really don’t like lightning and thunder – who knew?
 
For WTIP, this is Bill Hansen with the West End News.

note on photo:  Moments after this picture was taken, Cloud was joyously reunited with her favorite human.

In this interview, WTIP's Carah Thomas talks with guitarist Michael Lipton of the West Virginia-based band "The Carpenter Ants." The band is headlining on Saturday night of  WTIP's 2013 Radio Waves Music Festival, September 6-8, at the Grand Marais Recreation Park and Campground.  

More information about the festival is available online at www.wtip.org, under Events.

Welcome back to Magnetic North where the flannel sheets are ready for use - on both my bed and the tomato plants. For despite the record-breaking heat of late - 97 degrees at the State Fair on Aug. 25 - we are not fooled. It is folly not to plan for frost in the waning days of August…even if it is 90 degrees in the shade at the farm.
 
Truth be told, a fierce winter is in our future. The predictions for it are piling up like zucchini in the fridge. And I’m not just talking Farmer’s Almanac here. Heck no. Yesterday I found a nearly solid black wooly bear caterpillar on the chicken coop stoop. Only a few tufts of brown fuzz on the creature. And, as we know, the wider the brown band on the wooly bear, the milder the winter. A skinny band means a nasty winter. And no band at all.....well, you get the picture. And it’s white and windy.
 
But I’m ready. My woodpile is neatly stacked for and I’m in the process of laying in a generous store of books. Stacking them like logs on the hearth, on top of the chest freezer and virtually on any other available space, including the bathroom and back seat of my car. They say that burning wood warms you twice: Once while splitting and stacking it, next while basking in its cozy heat. Well, laying in the winter reading does much the same thing. Only different.
 
In culling our lifetime collection of good reads, I’ve sweated biscuits. And not just because of the temperature.  Letting go of half of my wildflower guides and cookbooks was agony. Each seemed to call out to be kept. And the ones I’d hardly looked at fairly shrieked, “Philistine! You’ll be sorry you gave me up!”
 
But Paul always said that when you haven’t touched a thing for three whole years, it is time to give it up. Of course, that only applied to MY things, not his. Thus, the ice fishing spear and tackle boxes filled with ancient gee-gaws and gimcracks untouched for a quarter century remain in the hunt room. When I would remind him of that, he would counter with, “Some things are just nice to have,” or “I’m saving those for the grandkids.”
 
Beyond a few things, though, Paul was no hoarder. But I have felt like one by hanging onto many of our books. Only a few were bad choices to begin with – “Sewing for House Chickens” comes to mind instantly - so the ones I intend parting with are not only valuable but are not embarrassing to put up for sale. 
 
The historical books written by David McCullough, and Bill Moyers on theology for example: Brilliant and compelling reads, yet I doubt that I’ll want to dive back into them as I do with any of the T.S. Eliot books I’ve stacked to reread this winter. Then there are my cookbooks. Sadly, I have succumbed to the lazy cook’s resource, Google, when wondering what to do with my bounty of fresh veggies. Sentiment alone counts in choosing the keepers.
 
And so, while I will keep my duct-taped Betty Crocker’s ode to Jello and canned condensed soup, dear old chop-until-you-drop Dean Ornish will go. I can find potfuls of healthy recipes online, but the soup-stained pages of Betty’s book abound with memories. 
 
So too the Norwegian Christmas recipes booklet, from which I made Paul’s favorite, Risengrot, or rice porridge. A simple dish that requires only several hours of stirring off and on to produce a fragrant concoction to spoon into bowls, sprinkled generously with sugar and cinnamon, then topped with a pat of butter and a dash of heavy cream. Norwegian custom had it that whosoever got an almond in their bowl would have their wish granted. Being British and not given to chance, I made sure that both Paul and I had an almond with each and every bowl. My wish was always for the caloric content of the dish to be cut in half.
 
My current favorite cookbook is The Pie Place cookbook. And NO, not just because Paul and I are in it! I am working my way through making a recipe a week. They are all so good and easy to do. I’ll admit that we did spend so many good times at the old and new restaurant that the Pie Place family has a special place in my heart. It was always where Paul wanted to go. Unless of course he was hankering for a Blue Water strawberry malt and grilled cheese sandwich, which he persistently called “girl cheese.”  His old childhood buddy Supe (for Superman) Lundsten called it that, he always reminded me. And by saying that, Paul usually started spinning one of his famous yarns about growing up in Excelsior on the shores of Lake Minnetonka and all of the kids and situations he encountered.
 
Food, recipes, stained and torn cookbook pages... all of these conjure up times past, people loved and places in the heart. Even the way people eat their food feeds memory: For me, the first bite into corn on the cob brings a clear picture of my missionary aunt Nellie on summer visits to our cottage in Ocean City, New Jersey when I was little. Nellie could talk a blue streak even as she stripped the corn off the cob, which traversed her mouth like a typewriter roll as she carried on about her latest shell treasures found at the beach. As for watermelon, it calls to mind Nellie’s tobacco-chewing husband, Clayton, as rough as she was polished, who could send one shiny black melon seed from his lips, up and over our porch railing, clearing the lawn and sidewalk and landing in the street. Mother was always terrified he’d land one in a passing car. And I always prayed he would.
 
Foods that feed memory satisfy more than mere hunger. They fill me with gratitude. Make me laugh, even.  And best of all, they’re calorie free.
But back to the coming winter and my wooly bear sighting. So taken aback was I when examining the little blackguard, that I decided to find out just how accurate predictions based on his fuzz color were.
 
And I am sorry to say, they seem to be - if not bang-on, pretty darned good.
Back in the 1950s  one C.H. Curran, curator of insects at the American Museum of Natural History, tested and confirmed - sort of - that the little larval stage of the Isabella tiger moth has an 80 percent accuracy in predicting the severity of winter. And so I am thinking that I had better put in a call for yet more maple and birch logs. Beyond that, perhaps it would be prudent to add to my stack of books as I cull: Say, cull two, buy one new? 
 
I’ll stock up on rice too. Ditto butter and cinnamon and almonds. After all, one can’t be too cautious in this part of the world. For as a very wise young man told my visiting grandson this summer, “The wilderness can be harsh, dude.”

(Photo by Tony Fischer Photography via Flikr)

It’s a jungle out here!  As I commence keying this weeks’ Gunflint news, our once cool summer paradise is in the midst of tropical sweltering.  And, the situation is not one bit acceptable with many of us folks who are into insulated boots and parkas.
           
How hot has it been? It’s so hot that I’m seeing very little of the critters in the “wild neighborhood. They are seemingly more adept at letting us know its’ too hot for much of any activity, than that contemporary media sensationalism called “heat index.”
 
It seems nonsensical that things have been dumbed down to the point that Americans have to be told it’s hot out. In my generation as a kid, we never had to be told it was dangerously hot, you just knew it! 
           
I know that this unbearable spell will pass, but our bragging about what a wonderful summer it has been is being stifled. One thing for sure is conditions as they have been recently, makes one have an even deeper appreciation for times when the breathe freezes right in front of your face. For yours truly, I can always get warmer but have trouble ever getting cool enough during these miserable times.
           
Our circumstance on much needed precipitation has not improved by even the slightest since we last met on the radio waves. Our parched forest floor remains bone dry.

Edginess is mounting throughout the Gunflint corridor with governing agencies reluctant to invoke critical burning bans. It seems like they should be in the active mode instead of waiting to react until after wildfire erupts from some careless human action.
           
Every rain forecast over the past two weeks has been ninety-nine and nine tenths percent wrong in these parts. The only moisture in the Wildersmith rain gauge since we last met, measured only .02 inches.

Weather forecasting is not a pure science, but the process looks to be much like playing major league baseball, one can perform at the ten to thirty percent level and still get paid. Most other professions would call that a failure and send you packing. Those prognosticators would perhaps come out right more often if they were forecasting an eighty percent chance of no moisture as opposed to their usual twenty percent chance of precipitation. An eighty percent chance at anything is always more exciting than twenty! Enough soap boxing!
           
The downward spiral of our lake level on the Gunflint Gal is ongoing. Our contributing watershed creeks and streams are bone dry.

Up the Trail near the Seagull Guard Station that splendid little waterfall feeding Larch Creek was spilling nary a drop as I drove past a while back. Pretty sad!
 
Meanwhile, as lake level surfaces evaporate into oblivion, the temperature of our waters has reversed its downward trend of a few weeks ago, spiking back up into the low seventies. In the absence of artificially conditioned air for most back country residences, folks have gone back into lake dipping for temporary relief along with those “whirly gig” things from yesteryear, called fans.

And if the sweating misery isn’t enough, the hot spell has raised the ire of a new generation of “skeeters.”  Any disturbance of earth around the yard has brought out several other obnoxious buzzing critters too. It seems like you just can’t win sometimes. Oh for a good freeze!

As summer gives us a harsh dose of reality, our last weekend of month eight and the vacation season is fading before our eyes. To celebrate our Labor Day holiday and kick-off a final family fling before the return to school, a cool treat can be found at the end of the Trail on Sunday.

The annual ice cream and pie social sponsored by the Gunflint Trail Historical Society takes place this Sunday, September 1st at the Chik-Wauk Museum site. Serving hours are from 11:00am to 4:00 pm.

The featured fare will be homemade pie, prepared and donated by area pastry artisans, and of course, a sweet scoop of north woods coolness. Everyone’s invited out to the “land of sky blue waters” for the launching of our fall season. I’ve already discovered some “gold in them thar hills!  So come on along!

Keep on hangin’ on and savor a “September Song.”

Colleen Evans, who graduated from Silver Bay’s William Kelley High School in 1996, has joined the Duluth Clinic as the only gynecologic cancer specialist in northern Minnesota.
 
After growing up in Silver Bay, Dr. Evans got her medical degree at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine in Maine, served her residency in obstetrics and gynecology, then took part in a fellowship in gynecologic oncology at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.
 
Dr. Evans chose to return to northern Minnesota for the outdoor and seasonal lifestyle, but also for the opportunity to offer treatment to women with gynecological cancer much closer to their homes.  Until now, women seeking this type of treatment had to travel to the Twin Cities or Rochester, which made an already distressing illness all the worse.
 
It’s always great to see another successful North Shore kid return to the area.
 
The Cook County Go Team is a group of more than 20 community leaders who have been working for more than a year to analyze the Cook County economy and identify its strengths and weaknesses.  After a ton of work, the group has produced a vision for the future and a list of economic development issues that they believe should be the focus for Cook County’s government and business community.
 
As part of its work, the Go Team commissioned a detailed analysis of Cook County’s economy and conducted opinion surveys with residents and business owners.  The reports from these efforts can be found online at: gocookcounty.blogspot.com. 
 
On Thursday, Sept. 5, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Birch Grove Community Center, members of the Go Team will present their findings and recommendations to the West End Community.  In classic West End style, the meeting also includes a wood fired pizza bake, organized by the Birch Grove Foundation.  For a small donation, you will be provided with pizza dough, sauce and cheese.  You bring your own toppings.  If you want to participate in the pizza bake, email Patty Nordahl at [email protected] so she will know how much dough to make.
 
It should be an interesting and lively discussion, so bring your vision for the future of Cook County to share.  As always, you can get full details on the event by contacting WTIP.
 
We had a visit this week from Arby Arbogust and Joy (Arbogust) Powell.  They are the grandchildren of George Arbogust, who brought his family to Cook County in 1932, during the depths of the depression and built, from scratch, Sawbill Lodge, which became one of the premier resorts in Minnesota. 
 
Hedge Arbogust, Arby and Joy’s father, was 15 years old when his family moved here.  He attended local schools and spent his summers renting boats, building cabins and guiding guests at Sawbill Lodge.  He joined the Air Force for World War II and ended up making a full career in the service. 
 
The Arbogust family all left the county during the war years, except for their stepmother, Jean Arbogust.  Jean became better known by her name from her second marriage, Jean Raiken. She continued to run Sawbill Lodge until the 1960s, was a long-time Cook County Commissioner, unsuccessfully ran for the legislature and eventually retired in Tofte.  Sawbill Lodge was sold to the Forest Service, torn down and returned to nature in 1981.
 
The modern day Arbogusts, who now hail from Texas, grew up hearing many stories from that incredible time in their father’s life.  His family’s story is a classic American tale of carving a thriving business, literally out of the raw wilderness.  For years, they have talked about coming to Sawbill for a visit, so this year, Joy’s daughter, Meredith, made it happen. 
 
They visited Solbakken Resort in Lutsen, where the main Sawbill Lodge building is preserved, along with some of the original furniture and fixtures.  Then they came up to Sawbill for a tour of the old lodge site.  I was able to place them in positions to look at the exact scene that they had being seeing in pictures for their whole lives. 
 
Back in the ‘30s, the Arbogust family was well liked and respected in Cook County.  They were known as being honest, hard working and very innovative entrepreneurs.  After having spent a few hours with the current generations of Arbogusts, I can report that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  It was fun to hear them tell their late father’s stories, still vibrant after all these years.

Deane Morrison is a science writer at the University of Minnesota, where she authors the Minnesota Starwatch column.

The last days of August and the first days of September are full of activity that you need no more than binoculars - or even just a clear sky - to see. In this edition of Northern Sky, Deane gives us the lowdown and what's worth catching, including a thin crescent moon which points us to Venus, Saturn and Spica, in Virgo. You can also catch the "beehive" star cluster.

Read this month's Starwatch column.