North Shore Morning

There's a lot going on at Sawtooth Mountain Elementary School! This week, WTIP Youth Radio Project producers Sterling Anderson and Kara Ramey bring us the latest school news.

There are a lot of ways climate change stands to affect Lake Superior. There's the reduction in ice cover, rising lake temperatures, the increase in storminess and declining water levels. But it’s not just the lake itself that stands to be impacted by the changing climate. The rising temperatures and increase in severe weather events are altering the ecology in the Lake Superior watershed, and  changing the way of life for all living things in the region.

Do you remember learning how to type? Like most adults, learning to type occurred sometime in high school. Not any more. Jane Gellner, Cook County Schools computer and business teacher, discusses middle school keyboarding class in this week’s Cook County Middle School News.

The northland begins chapter 12 of the year 2012, and most everyone is engulfed with holiday celebration aspirations. We at Wildersmith are no exception, as greenery and trinkets of personal significance are gradually taking their place around the house.
 
The winter wonderland that commenced on Thanksgiving night lasted about 10 days and many of us thought that winter had set in. However, the Hallmark card scenery took a big hit last weekend with a nasty warm-up.
 
Guess it’s Mother Nature’s prerogative to giveth and taketh away. The meltdown grew progressively worse with steady warmth extending into several days. The ensuing shrinkage has left places all over the forest with the dismal dirty look of snow in urban America, yuck! Plus, grooming of the cross-country ski trail system had just got under way and now will have to be put on hold, stymieing that activity for early enthusiasts.
 
While warm-ups do happen in these parts, the sad commentary is that when freezing cold returns, the remaining wet slushy snow will turn my driveway into a nightmarish icy chute. It makes me shudder just thinking about slip-sliding my vehicle down the drive into its normal parking place. This is a test of serious winter driving skill in spite of sanding applications. Even more serious is my being able to keep upright and off my tush as I navigate the hilly passage many times daily.
 
It’s not unusual up this way to experience many consecutive winter days when the temp never approaches the plus side of zero. The current episode of warmth was obviously not of the bitter cold variety. Last weekend displayed an unusual temperature phenomenon that I cannot recall having observed before. The mercury reading on our Wildersmith digital struck 32 1/2 degrees on Saturday morning and stayed that way for over 24 consecutive hours before finally budging downward late Sunday afternoon. No wonder we were so drippy around here.
 
A call from a fellow down at the west end of Gunflint Lake at Cross River Lodge advised me of another observation that usually occurs with the spring transition. With the Gunflint Gal still being almost totally liquid, he was seeing chunks of ice float by his locale. I’m guessing these mini-bergs were coming from a warm weather break-up of the icy edges along Cross River, and entering the lake where the river dumps in.
 
I’m thinking that the Gunflint Gal is about ready to take on her winter coat. The quiet west end bay has already skimmed over; we just need some consecutive zero nights with calm air. Meanwhile the territory needs its winter attire freshened up with haste!
 
The animal kingdom around here has added some returnees of winters past. Although I have not seen them, tracking evidence indicates that white tails are coming back to the yard. The late November deep snow apparently struck a memory that they might find some easier browsing down here along the Mile O Pine.
 
Two pine martens have also punched the feeding recall button and are now making daily rounds to the trough on our deck, after months of being missing in action. It is amazing how those poultry poachers seem to remember a good thing!
 
And of course, I experience an attack of the birds (mostly excited chickadees) whenever late day seed time rolls around. I’m such a good guy!
 
Keep on hangin’ on, and savor the fleeting spirit of the season!

Airdate: December 7, 2012

A few weeks ago, the Cook County News Herald ran a picture of the so-called “Lady of the Lake” statue that used to be a prominent feature on Brule Lake. It brought back a lot of memories for me. When I was a young child, I used to spend weeks at a time on Brule Lake with Vi and Ken Osman, who owned a beautiful cabin on the far west end of Brule. The Osmans retired to Brule Lake around 1955.  They had married late in life and had no children, so they adopted me as kind of a surrogate grandchild.
 
As we fished and commuted across Brule Lake, we would see the “Lady of the Lake” statue, as it was visible from miles away. I remember that the Osmans were casually dismissive of the statue. When I commented on its beauty, Ken detoured the boat so we could see it close up. It was actually a crude and frankly ugly statue, amateurishly constructed from cement and chicken wire. It was one of many life lessons that I learned from the Osmans.  Sometimes things that look beautiful from a distance are actually quite ugly when you see them close up. 
 
A few years later, I had a conversation about the statue with Art Osman, Ken’s younger brother.  It turned out that Art had helped construct the statue in 1942. Art said that when most people asked him about the statue, he told them that it was an Indian maiden, built to watch over the lake. That was probably the basic truth of the matter, but Art told me that it was also part of an elaborate practical joke. 
 
Art was part of a group of friends from Rochester were regular visitors to a private island resort on Brule Lake.  One of the friends had recently married. I remember Art’s description of the new bride vividly because it was the first time I heard the expression “battle axe.” Art said that the groom’s fishing buddies warned him that his new wife would forbid him from going on the annual fishing trip.  Sure enough, the first year after the marriage, the groom was not able to attend, due to some other circumstance, not wifely prohibition. The joke was that the statue was built as a caricature of the young bride, who Art described as a large and imposing woman. The following year, when the friend did arrive for the fishing trip, the group pointed to the statue and said, “Look, your wife is watching you!”
 
Art said that they never expected the statue to survive more than a few years. He commented that they had built it around a dead cedar stump and he guessed that the stump was what gave it an unexpectedly long life.  After Brule Lake was included in the BWCA Wilderness, the presence of the statue became mildly controversial, with some people calling for its removal and some hoping it would be allowed to remain. The Forest Service decided to leave the statue and let it deteriorate on its own. Apparently, that decision didn’t sit well with some people, because someone thoroughly and carefully removed the statue a short time later. All trace of concrete was removed and the site was returned to a natural state.
 
My mom, Mary Alice Hansen, the unofficial West End historian, is publishing a little history of the statue in the paper this week and compiling a longer history of it for the Cook County Historical Society.
 
The whole statue story is kind of a metaphor for the history of Brule Lake. It is pretty well documented that Bob Marshall, one of the early architects of the national wilderness system, fought hard to keep development off Brule Lake and make it a wilderness lake. Almost literally on his deathbed, Marshall expressed regret that he had “lost” Brule Lake.  He can rest easy now, though, as Brule Lake is now the largest lake completely within the BWCA Wilderness, with no development except the canoe landing and a small Forest Service cabin just outside the wilderness boundary.
 
After all my bragging last week about the heavy blanket of beautiful snow that we had on the ground and in the trees, Mother Nature struck us low with warm and wet weather that left us with a mere 4 inches of hard, crusty snow. The driveway and paths are treacherous mine fields of ice patches that can take you down in a heartbeat, and the ground is iron hard, bringing to mind the old song lyric, “It don’t hurt you when you fall boys, only when you land.”

Deane Morrison is a science writer at the University of Minnesota, where she authors the Minnesota Starwatch column. In this edition of Northern Sky, Deane explains what stands out in the sky this December (Perseus & Algol, a waning crescent moon, and the Geminid meteor shower) and the latest in astronomy news (the discovery of ice on Mercury and the findings of the first soil analysis from NASA's Mars rover, Curiosity).

Read this month's Starwatch column.

There's so much going on at Sawtooth Mountain Elementary! This week on School News, Sterling Anderson and Kara Ramey of WTIP's Youth Radio Project bring you up to date on what's happening with Sawtooth students.

Finally, the great northern express pulled through our Gunflint station, better late than never! Mother Nature must have tired of hearing me whine, as the old gal made our happy Thanksgiving celebration even more blessed with a late night dose of something to brag about.
 
“The weather outside was frightful, but the next morning, was so delightful” when Trail residents awoke to a winter wonderland. The surprising winter storm dumped several inches of wet heavy fluff that coated every extremity in the forest with marshmallow mounds. The accumulation around Wildersmith was some 6 to 8 inches, and was probably more in the upper elevations through the Mid-trail snow zone.
 
The first real winter effort of the season was complicated with strong winds that caused considerable blowing and drifting in open areas, downed many limbs and dealt some areas brief power outages. Travel was hazardous and the Trail has now been tabbed for winter driving caution.
 
All in all, the opening weekend of our holiday season in border country was much like it should be for late November. And if the initial storm wasn’t enough, about another third of a foot was delivered in the darkness of last Saturday night.
 
So the moose and I are smiling with the beginning of holiday cheer, in hope that there will be much more moisture to come. Area lakes need a lot of replenishing come meltdown time next spring, and this was a good first start.
 
The making of ice has resumed on most lakes, but for the larger bodies in the upper Trail region the wind has kept them thrashing in spite of a couple single-digit nights. While the thermometers at Wildersmith are not official recording stations, we did have our first night of nothing on the mercury column. Yes, it was zero with a hope of many more to come. We need some bitter cold to freeze out the growing tick population that is so annoying and detrimental to our moose herd, let alone we humans.
 
The Mile O’ Pine, probably like most other backcountry roads, is nearly enclosed in an archway of bent over, snow-laden trees.  Many of the immature saplings are almost touching the road surface, creating a lacy tunnel of crystal.
 
This has made for difficult vehicular passage. Thus, yours truly has spent a good number of hours walking the road to relieve hundreds of stressed trunks and branches from their burden. I’m sure that if these woodsy citizens could talk, they’d be twanging joyously as they spring back skyward.
 
A couple days before the big weather changeover, I was outside doing a few chores when I heard the sound of voices. It was late afternoon, near sunset, and since the Smiths are the only residents on the Mile O Pine for the best part of the next seven months, to hear conversation was unusual.
 
Thinking it was maybe a late, southbound flock of Canadian honkers, I stopped still and gazed to the heavens, but there was none. The chatter continued, and suddenly I tuned in to some yelping coming from down the lakeshore to the west. The yelping soon turned to howls.
 
Apparently the Gunflint/Loon lake wolf pack was out and about, and they decided to practice a bit of north woods harmonizing. This went on for only a few moments, but it was such a cool time to be in touch with nature through a choral rendition that I would simply title “North Woods Nocturne No. 1.” How exhilarating!
 
It’s most intriguing how in tune critters are with atmospheric happenings. With the species in a state of decline in this part of the country and their being prone to wander, scarcely any evening grosbeaks are seen stopping by at Wildersmith anymore.
 
A few of the beautiful birds in dark brown to almost black and gold (I call them Iowa Hawkeye birds) made a sudden stopover for a little sustenance. They were here at the sunflower seed cafeteria for only a few short hours, and then gone. I think they were just passing through on their way to who knows where.
 
It could be theorized they might have been trying to keep ahead of old man winter as he was bearing down on the area, unbeknownst to the Wildersmith two. If that was the case, I should have been paying more attention to the situation, and I’d have surmised that a storm was brewing. Whatever the reason for this brief visit, the colorful bird was a joyful change of scenery from the norm.
 
Meanwhile, our frosty new landscaping has buried food sources for the winged flock, so we have an excess of hungry avians. Talk about air traffic congestion. Further, we have a better picture of our nocturnal visitors, with evidence of many four-legged beings who’ve been tracking though the snowy yard. Everything is so enchanting now that it ’tis the season.
 
Keep on hangin’ on, and savor the beauty of wilderness winter!

Airdate: November 30, 2012

I recently received word about the death of Peg Morris.  Peg and her partner, Ed Landin, were Cook County residents for many years. They started out with a cabin between Grand Marais and Lutsen while they operated a resort on Lake Superior just outside Two Harbors.  In 1994, they sold the resort, moved full-time to Cook County and were very active members of the community until they moved away in 2002.
 
Peg was a remarkable woman, with many talents.  She was a biologist by training and became a well-respected employee of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. While living in Cook County, Peg served on the Governor’s Commission on the BWCA Wilderness, the Arrowhead Regional Development Commission, Minnesota Resort Association, and both the Cook County and Arrowhead Library Boards.  She was a founding board member and eventually chairperson of the Northeast Initiative Fund, which later changed its name to the Northland Foundation. Peg was also a licensed bird rehabilitator and nursed many injured birds back to health.  I remember her delighted description of recovering wild birds flying around inside her house.
 
Peg changed my life when she called me back in the early ‘90s asking if I would consider serving on the Northland Foundation board of trustees. Before I could start making excuses, she said, “Serving on the Northland board has been the most fulfilling thing I’ve done in my life.” That stopped me in my tracks, because Peg had done many, many interesting things in her life. I agreed to serve and Peg was absolutely right about what a great experience it is. I will be forever grateful to her for steering my life in that direction.
 
Peg died back in September, after struggling with a mysterious and progressive brain and nerve degeneration for many years. It was never fully diagnosed, and while it robbed her of speech and muscle control, her eyes made it clear that she knew what was going on around her. She was 64 years old. 
 
Grand Marais State Bank in Tofte has several seasonal initiatives going on. I previously mentioned their “giving tree” where you can donate gift items to be placed under the tree in the bank lobby and they will be distributed to local families who can use a little extra holiday cheer this year.  They are also acting as a collection point for the Cook County Food Shelf. If you donate a food item between now and the middle of December, your name will be entered in a drawing for a $50 gift certificate. And finally, if you open a new checking or savings account during the holiday season, the bank will donate $5 to the Salvation Army Red Kettle collection effort. Thanks to Nancy Christenson and her great crew for their generous work.
 
The big news from here in the backwoods is that we’ve received more than 16 inches of snow since Thanksgiving.  When I tell people in town about this, they frankly give me a skeptical look. All I can say is, hop in your car and see for yourself. The first 11 inches that came on Thanksgiving night was wet, so every tree is just loaded with snow. Our little 6K ski trail here at Sawbill is open and in excellent condition. As a bonus, the snow on the trees makes every view down the trail look like a Currier and Ives Christmas card. While Sawbill Lake has been at least partially frozen for a couple of weeks, the heavy snow on top of thin ice has made lake travel sketchy and uncertain. Best to stay off the ice for a little while longer.
 
We’re off to a good start on my favorite season, and my hope is that this is truly the arrival of winter and the holiday season will be snowy, fun and joyful.

Airdate: November 29, 2012

The state of MN requires record of all immunizations. Have your children received all of their shots? In this edition of Cook County Middle School News, school nurse Kay Borud discusses the tracking of immunization records.