North Shore Morning

Deane Morrison is a science writer at the University of Minnesota. She authors the Minnesota Starwatch column, and in this segment, color is the theme. Venus and Jupiter draw closer to eachother this month, allowing us to better compare theirs, and the star Capella is prominent as well, which has a very special hue to check out. Antaries is another object to search for as January comes to a close, and Deane shares the latest news from NASA.

Read this month's Starwatch column by Deane.

Photo courtesy of Mouser Williams via Flickr.

Election filings for township officers are currently open. The township system of government in Minnesota is the closest form of government to actual people. It is truly where the rubber meets the road. As a former township officer, I won’t lie to you - it’s quite a bit of work and responsibility. On the other hand, it is crucial to our civil society that thoughtful, committed people fill these positions. The townships have a real impact on our lives. Service on a township board can be very fulfilling.

In contrast to hotly contested national, state and county elections, the township elections are really more of a confirmation of those willing to serve, especially the clerk position, which arguably requires the most work and brainpower. In township government, if the supervisors are the head, then the clerks are the heart of the town. I would like to take this opportunity to directly thank all the township officials for their service to the community.

One of the unique aspects of township government is the annual meeting. Everyone in town is invited to the annual meeting and many of the big decisions, including the annual budget, are made by a direct vote of the people present. This is a wonderful example of grassroots democracy in action. The meeting isn’t even chaired by the township board members. Anyone in the room can be selected to run the meeting.

Years ago, I was selected to run the annual meeting in Tofte, which is normally a pretty straightforward task of inviting motions, facilitating discussion and calling for votes. In this particular year, a township supervisor seat actually had two candidates. Steve Krueger, who had helped establish the township and served as supervisor for many years, was being challenged by a young whippersnapper, Tim Norman. The votes are cast throughout the day, just like any other election, but they are counted and the results announced in the evening during the annual meeting. This time, the election judges headed off to count the ballots and were gone for an unusually long time. When they returned, they announced that the election was a tie. Suddenly, my responsibilities as the meeting chair became more serious and complicated. After consulting with the candidates, it was agreed that the election would be decided by the flip of a coin. Steve Krueger won the flip, which seemed to please everyone, including Tim, who saw the close vote as an affirmation of Steve’s long service. In the next election, Steve chose not to run and Tim was easily elected. I was later told that flipping a coin was not the legal way to solve the problem, but nobody complained, so all was well.

Last week, my wife Cindy and daughter Clare talked me into walking out on Sawbill Lake late in the evening to howl for wolves. Sometimes, if wolves are close by, they will start howling in response to human howling. If nothing else, it’s good for a few laughs to see three adults standing in the dark howling like banshees. Cindy has an acknowledged knack for getting the wolves to answer, so we let her go first. But on this particular night, in spite of a full moon, we got nothing but silence in return. That night, just before dawn, a light dusting of snow fell. When we ventured outside early the next morning, we were surprised to see wolf tracks all over our property, including right up to both doors of the house, the doors to the store and all over the driveways. It appeared as though a large pack had come through and checked us out just before dawn. She may not have provoked them into howling the night before, but we’re giving Cindy full credit for calling them in.

We’ll be hearing a lot more about wolves this year as the state takes over responsibility for their management from the feds. Personally, I like having wolves around, even though they do present some danger to our pets. I hope the DNR’s determination to have a wolf hunting and trapping season won’t run them back to near extinction. Like all of the predators, I feel like they are more valuable to our economy loose in the woods than as a rug in someone’s den.

Lutsen native Jacob Schmidt and his band “Gentleman Hall” performed in December at Papa Charlie’s in Lutsen. We’ll hear in interview with Jacob taped backstage just before the performance.

In our broadcast area, we sit on one of the biggest resources in the world: Lake Superior. The lake means different things to different people, whether it's a spiritual connection, a source of income or a favorite place to fish. In this first segment, Voices from the Lake, we explore some of ways in which the big lake is significant to people.

This project is funded in part by the Coastal Zone Management Act, by NOAA’s Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management, in cooperation with Minnesota’s Lake Superior Coastal Program.

I was pleased to read that Tofte Township was moving ahead with plans for a new cell tower. The same article mentioned that a new cell tower is also being planned for Taconite Harbor. Hopefully, the two new towers will finally bring reliable cell service to the West End.

When I was in Africa last year, the village I visited had no electricity, no running water and most people were subsistence farmers living on less than $300 per year. But, they had excellent cell service, with a choice of three providers and good service everywhere. Almost everyone I met had a cell phone. They had to take them to a shop with a generator to have them charged and bought their minutes in small quantities on scratch-off paper slips, but they used them constantly, including a clever system of transferring money between people by cell phone. My African hosts were shocked to hear that I did not enjoy reliable cell service at home. They think of the United States as being technologically advanced and they also wondered how I could possibly live with the inconvenience of no cell service.

Seven or eight years ago, I had a chance to visit Norway House, Manitoba, a town about the same size of Grand Marais, located way up at the north end of Lake Winnipeg. Everyone in Norway House seemed to have a cell phone and used it frequently. Everyone seemed so comfortable and adept with cell phones that I was moved to ask how long they had enjoyed cell service. To my surprise they informed me that it had only been five months and they couldn’t imagine life without it.

Here at Sawbill we have a long-standing tradition of inviting our crewmembers back to enjoy the New Year’s holiday with us. We get a good crowd every year, mostly current crewmembers, but also a few who have moved on to what they call “the real world.” They are a very easy group to have for company because they have all lived here, so they just move back into their old rooms and pitch in with the cooking, cleaning and daily chores. They also entertain themselves, making music, playing games and especially playing outside. Every year, they adapt themselves to whatever the weather offers them. Some years it’s been ice fishing, other years it’s been skating, skiing, sledding, fox and hounds, snow cave building and even a polar plunge through the ice. This year the highlighted activity was broomball. They spent half a day shoveling and resurfacing a rink on the lake. The main game started late on New Year’s Eve and ended with champaign on the lake at the stroke of midnight. Cindy insisted that they all wear helmets for safety, so we scrounged every bike and ski helmet that we could find. We didn’t have enough, so one fire fighters helmet and one antique motorcycle helmet were pressed into action. The brooms were also a ragtag collection of whatever could be found. It would have been a strange sight for any passing fox or wolf to behold.

I was very distressed to observe the level of spending - and the effectiveness of that spending – by the so called super-PACs leading up to the recent Iowa caucuses. In a nutshell, the United States Supreme Court ruled on a case last year that now allows corporations to campaign independently for or against political candidates with no limit on spending and no disclosure on who is contributing to the campaign. Judging by the millions spent by super-PACs in Iowa, we are in for a barrage of negative advertising this election season, unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. In my opinion, this is a terrible development for American democracy. Already corrupt politicians now have a virtually unlimited source of money. Even honest politicians will be forced to play this big money game, making them beholden to the money, rather than their constituents. I don’t want to be cynical, but I can’t imagine that foreign governments and corporations, who now are prohibited by law from contributing to American campaigns, will abide by that law when they have an easy and untraceable conduit to pump money into our elections. In the face of this terrible decision, we are in real danger of losing the democracy that the founders dreamed of. History clearly tells us that the founders specifically wanted our public policies to be driven by the concept of one voter, one vote, rather than one dollar, one vote.

In this edition of the Gunflint Notebook, Steve delves into a story about his morning routine that’s anything but ordinary. Many people start their day with a jog, but not too many folks can say they’ve run with moose!

Deane Morrison is a science writer at the University of Minnesota. She authors the Minnesota Starwatch column, and in this segment, she explains exactly what there is to see in the night sky in January, and gives us something to mull over on these dark winter days.

Read this month's Starwatch column by Deane.

Photo courtesy of Glass_House via Flickr.

Vi Wonser and her husband Gordon operated Northern Cleaners & Laundry from 1947 to 1981 in downtown Grand Marais. In this editon of Moments in Time, Vi shares her memories of the business.

Photo courtesy of W.E. Vilmer via Wikimedia.

Deane Morrison is a science writer at the University of Minnesota. She authors the Minnesota Starwatch column, and in this segment, she talks about "a cosmic smirk" that will be visible this month, the story of Algol (known as the "demon star") and more!

Read this month's Starwatch column by Deane.

Photo courtesy of Mark Kilner via Flickr.

Today, I have two stories of local boys making good - both with West End connections.

This weekend, a big-time, national touring rock band called Gentlemen Hall will be appearing at Papa Charlie's nightclub at Lutsen Mountains. It will be a homecoming for the band's lead guitar player and singer, Jacob Schmidt. Jacob was born in Cook County, raised in Lutsen and graduated from Cook County High School before heading off to Boston to attend the prestigious Berklee School of Music. Jacob is the son of Carol Perkins from Lutsen and Jim Schmidt from Grand Marais. Jacob showed musical aptitude early in life and was an accomplished guitarist by the time he started high school. Jacob and his equally talented brother, Josh, were mentored by several older musicians in the area and quickly became popular performers in the region. While at Berklee, Jacob naturally played music with classmates and other musicians from the fertile Boston music scene. This led to the founding of Gentlemen Hall, followed by winning several awards, attracting a loyal fan base and a contract with a professional management company. The band is currently on a nationwide tour and some quick thinking by Lutsen Mountains marketing manager, Jim Vick, landed Jacob and his band mates at Papa Charlie's on Saturday, Dec. 17, starting at 9:30 p.m. Be there, or be square.

MinnPost, the excellent, statewide online newspaper, ran a feature story this week about the Johnson brothers, Colee, Skyler and Clay, from Hovland. The young men’s parents are Kathi and Rusty Johnson. They are also related to a number of West End residents including great aunt and uncle Carol and Ron Gervais from Tofte, aunt and uncle, Misty and Tim Schliep from Schroeder, and second cousins Terry Gervais and Cindy Hansen from Tofte - which makes them my second cousins by marriage. The MinnPost article is part of a year-long project called "Rural Minnesota: A Generation at the Crossroads" that explores the lives of young people and how their choices might be shaping the future of outstate Minnesota. The Johnsons are notable for being very young entrepreneurs, having started a firewood business while they were still kids to now owning their own general logging company. It is no surprise to anyone from Cook County that the writer highlighted how hard they work. The young men come from a long line of honest, hard-working people. Congratulations to the Johnson brothers on getting some well-deserved attention for their determination and grit. You can find the article by going to MinnPost.com and searching on the keywords Johnson Brothers.

Winter is unfolding in slow motion here at Sawbill. A couple of light snows have combined with the sparse existing snow cover, resulting in a scene that begins to approach the ideal for the holiday season. Lake travel by foot or ski is easy right now. The cold weather has formed over a foot of ice with no slush and the snow cover is just enough to give you a grip without having to do any serious trail breaking. We've had a couple of parties pass through on fishing expeditions in the wilderness. Neither group did well with the walleyes, but they enjoyed beautiful weather and scenery.

Last year, we had two albino chickadees that attended our feeders all winter long. The first one we noticed had a faint black spot on its tail and was a regular at our home feeder. The second one was almost pure white and fed exclusively at our office feeder, which is only 90 feet from the house. We never saw either bird at the opposite feeder, which answered the long-standing question about whether or not the chickadees feed from both feeders, or just one. We were hoping that our little albino buddies would return this season, but it's starting to look like that won't happen. A little research informs us that the average life span of a chickadee in the wild is two and a half years. The oldest chickadee ever documented was 11 years old. It makes sense that the white chickadees enjoy extra camouflage protection from predators in the winter, but stick out like sore thumbs once the snow melts. Nature is a harsh mistress at sometimes, but wonderful to observe in all her variety.