North Shore Weekend
- Saturday 7-10am
North Woods Naturalist: Snow Subnivean
-Chel Anderson is a botanist and plant ecologist and she joins us periodically to report on what she’s seeing in our woods and waters right now.
This project is supported in part by funding from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
Superior National Forest Update
-Education and Interpretation Specialist, Steve Robertsen gives us the Superior National Forest Update for early December.
North Woods Naturalist: Otters, beavers and muskrats
-Chel Anderson is a botanist and plant ecologist and she joins us periodically to report on what she’s seeing in our woods and waters right now.
This project is supported in part by funding from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
Trail Time - Life on the Gunflint Trail
-Trail Time
by Marcia Roepke
11-26-2021
We have had all kinds of weather on the Trail these past few weeks. It’s been cold and gray (in the 20s and below), it’s been sunny and warm (in the high 30s!) and yesterday we had a very memorable snowstorm. It had started the day before with a gray sky and several loud booming sounds. Lars and I didn’t know what the noise was; each time we heard it, one of us asked the other, “Did you hear that?” I kept checking the news, figuring that if something exploded certainly it would be reported. Or, I thought, maybe it was the noise of a dump truck bringing gravel up the Trail and the boom was the sound of it bouncing around, echoing off the lake and cliffs. It was a mystery. The next day there was a pretty little snowfall in the morning and then the wind started gusting, the snow started swirling, and I heard another boom. I think it was a thunder boom, which is what thunder in a snowstorm is called. The wind was gusting up to 45 mph; it was wild weather. And in the middle of it, I saw a flock of common redpolls cavorting straight into it. I felt their joy in the wild windy snowfall and it echoed inside me. If I could fly, I would have joined them.
We had planned an outdoor party for the day of the storm. We had several winter gatherings last year; grilling bratwursts and hot dogs over a fire; warming the sauna so people could use it as a warming house; drinking cocoa and mulled wine. It’s a great safe way for neighbors of all ages to be together during this pandemic. This year the younger neighbors’ play reminded us older folk that snow can be a toy and a playground. I don’t have many children around these days, and it lifted my heart to see how absolutely covered in snow a kid can get and still keep smiling from the joy of winter play.
We were throwing the party to celebrate Wolfenoot, a recently invented holiday. Three years ago a 7-year-old from New Zealand dreamed it up. He told his mom that the Spirit of the Wolf visits on November 23 and leaves small gifts around the house for people who love dogs and wolves and are kind to them. He said the holiday should be celebrated with the eating of meat and cake. I thought the wild weather was entirely appropriate for a day dedicated to the Wolf and the wolves who live with us, our companions, our dogs.
This year we celebrated Wolfenoot a few days early. We eat meat because that’s what wolves eat – some guests had a vegetarian version (after all, wolves eat blueberries, fish and grass as well as meat). We eat cake because that’s what 7-year-olds prefer above all other food. We celebrate both the wisdom of the wolf and the 7-year-old. We all trooped up a hill and ended the festivities by howling together into the swirling snow. And much later that night as I looked out a window, a waning moon lit the sparkling snow, making the night appear nearly as bright as day. It’s funny, people from other parts of the world often ask me, “How can you stand all that winter darkness?” Some nights I whisper my answer into the nocturnal landscape, “What darkness?”
We haven’t seen or heard of any wolves in our neighborhood recently, but we had a little canine visitor this week: a coyote. It stood under our bird feeder, chomping away happily on the fallen seeds. It didn’t see me. I made a small noise and it froze for a second, then started eating again. I made another noise as I was trying to take a picture and it padded away unhurriedly, its coloring a perfect match for blending into the snowy woods. I don’t see that many coyotes. I saw a young one along the Gunflint Trail a couple summers ago; and one year we got two pictures of an adult on our trail camera – going up a hill and then down again, this time with a snowshoe hare in its mouth. Up until then I hadn’t known they live this far north.
One of my favorite winter sightings is the northern flying squirrel, who also visits our feeder after dusk. I was walking toward our cabin one night when I saw what could have been a dead leaf or a bird’s nest in a birch tree, except I knew it was too big for a birch leaf and that nest wasn’t there yesterday! I stood still, the mystery object moved, and I could just make out the flying squirrel with its white underbelly, climbing quickly up the tree. Then it launched – thrillingly – right towards me! It headed my way for just a millisecond, four white legs and a head making a 5-pointed shape against the darkness, then it arched into a graceful 180-degree turn and sailed for a nearby fir, disappearing into the darkness. The precision of their flight always impresses me. The first time I saw one “fly” – glide, really – I mistook it for a Canada jay because of the similar way it seemed to be floating on the air. Then I thought, “It’s dark out. Canada jays don’t fly after dark.” And then I knew what I was seeing. I crept slowly and quietly over the snow to the birch where our feeder hangs, and there it was: with those strange big eyes and that lovely gray fur with white below. And then it scampered up the tree, jumped into the night sky, swooped toward a fir tree and was gone.
Flying squirrels, joyful redpolls, wildly swirling snow, good neighbors and the happiness of children in winter: these are some of the many things I am thankful for here on the Gunflint Trail.
If you’d like to learn more about Minnesota wolves, check out: https://www.voyageurswolfproject.org/
North Woods Naturalist: Record rainfall
-Chel Anderson is a botanist and plant ecologist and she joins us periodically to report on what she’s seeing in our woods and waters right now. In this edition of North Woods Naturalist, Chel tells us some of her latest observations following the widespread rain event last week.
This project is supported in part by funding from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
Trail Time - Life on the Gunflint Trail
-Trail Time
By Marcia Roepke
11-12-2021
As I write this I’m sitting indoors in a cozy spot looking out at the darkening sky. Snow is forecast tonight for the Gunflint Trail, and although I always think I’m ready for it, the changes that come with winter surprise me each year. I watch the skim of ice come and go on the smaller lakes and rivers as the cold weather ebbs and flows. And when the ice comes to stay, it’s accompanied by the winter song of the lakes as they groan and moan and roar and snap and make Star Wars light saber noises.
This time of year also brings back a lot of birds we haven’t seen since spring, chief among them being the juncos and snow buntings. I love it that the buntings leave their summer breeding grounds and fly to a warmer place to spend the winter – here! They breed in the far arctic tundra, with some birds traveling all the way to Greenland. While here they mainly eat seeds from grasses and weeds. I spot them each winter in their little flocks by the side of the road, flying up as cars approach, but yesterday was a special day. A bunting went for a walk with me. The little bird caught my attention when it was foraging in the dry leaves on the side of the gravel road. At first I only detected movement out of the corner of my eye. I had to stare for a while to finally discern the shape of a bird. It was so well-camouflaged, at first I thought it was a mouse or vole. It fluttered away, then landed and trotted up the road ahead of me with the staccato gait of a sandpiper. Whenever I walked too near, it flew further ahead, though sometimes it let me get surprisingly close. They are very beautiful birds with the subtlest of colorings: tawny browns, charcoal and palest white in this, their non-breeding season. The spots on their heads and cheeks are almost cinnamon colored. As soon as the bird’s back was toward me, its shape was invisible against the brown leaves and gravel, but then the bunting took wing, and there – right before it landed, was that telltale flash of white wing patches that merge into the white tail markings. And then – bip!— when it landed, it would nearly disappear again. I think it walked with me for a quarter of a mile or more. I never thought a snow bunting would be such an excellent walking companion.
We haven’t seen any signs of bears lately, so we put up one of our birdfeeders. I love birdfeeder season, aka winter, but if we hear of any bears in the area, we’ll remove feeders until the coast is clear. The chickadees found our feeder fast, and then the blue jays moved in, helping themselves to an astonishing amount of seed in one day. I spotted just one nuthatch in among the chickadees. When the snow is on the ground and we get another feeder up, this one with suet as well as seed, I expect to see a greater variety of birds. Last year we saw a Northern Shrike scoping out the activity at the feeder. I’d never seen one before. I know they deserve to eat as much as the little songbirds do, but the sight of one was like a bad character showing up at a party. Its arrival threw a pall over the joy of the gathering.
The birds are both great company and entertainment during this quiet time of the year. And the woods are so very quiet, even though it is deer hunting season. We don’t see many deer up here – we spot maybe one or two a year. But there was a spectacular deer kill on the frozen lake a few winters ago. Very little was left; most of it had been eaten and a few remaining bones were scattered around. A perfect outline of the deer had melted into the ice on the lake. In the deer-shaped silhouette, you could even see where the hair tufted out from the ears. There were prints all around from wolves, foxes and ravens. Kind of gruesome I guess but fascinating all the same.
We see far more foxes than wolves in the winter but we do see a fair amount of wolf tracks and scat when we’re out walking the backroads and trails. Last year we were getting regular visits at our cabin from a cross fox – they’re the same species as red foxes but have different coloring, appearing darker and grayer than red foxes. They have black legs and faces and a dark stripe running down the back and tail and another dark stripe across the shoulders. At first sighting I thought it was a gray fox, but my local wildlife expert, Levi the All-Knowing, set me straight with an excellent lecture on how to tell the difference.
Another species I love to spot in wintertime is actually a small evergreen fern: Common Polypody, also called rock fern or rock cap fern. It grows from Greenland through Canada and the northern US. It thrives in cool, moist woods. Its leaves are sometimes quite rounded and it has spots on the backside of the leaves; those are the spore-bearing organs. It has a prominent central vein and sometimes brown scales on the lower part of the stem. I can see a nice big patch of it from my writing desk. It forms a natural vertical garden outside my window, growing on a rocky north-facing cliff, in the company of soft velvety mosses.
Last week the Gunflint Trail was the perfect place to watch Northern Lights. It was the most spectacular aurora borealis display of my life. I’ve never seen such massive rapidly moving sheets of colored light. Almost the entire sky was actively pulsing -- you could even see it in the Southwest area of the sky. There were columns and pillars of light reaching to the heavens. The winter sky is one of the reasons I love it up here. We live with so much darkness during these winter months; it helps that occasionally we have the best seats to one of the best shows in the world.
You can watch a time lapse of the November 3rd to 4th aurora display on the Chik Wauk AllSky Camera page on Facebook or at Gunflinthistory.org Dark Sky Cam.
North Woods Naturalist: Lingering fall
-Chel Anderson is a botanist and plant ecologist and she joins us periodically to report on what she’s seeing in our woods and waters right now.
This project is supported in part by funding from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
North Woods Naturalist: Birds of Fall
-Chel Anderson is a botanist and plant ecologist and she joins us periodically to report on what she’s seeing in our woods and waters right now.
This project is supported in part by funding from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
Trail Time - A look at life on the Gunflint Trail
-Trail Time
10-29-2021
By Marcia Roepke
For a few weeks we were reveling in the sunny and mild fall weather on the Gunflint Trail. The temperatures of last few days, though, have been dipping into the 30s at night; we awaken to frost most mornings. While that lovely weather held, I assumed every canoe adventure was going to be the last one. And then we’d go on yet another canoe trip and I’d think, well, this one must be our last time out. But, nope! Wrong again! It was like the end of an unfamiliar symphony when you think it’s over but it continues with more notes and on and on to the true finale. I don’t mind being mistaken about the end of canoe season -- I can’t remember a time when I’ve more enjoyed being wrong.
This weather has allowed us a bit of leisure to prepare for winter. We’re ready but of course there is always more wood to split and kindling to make. Oh, and I still haven’t entirely sorted out the mitten, boot and hat situation. But the snow tires are on, the propane tank is full and we’ve got three cords of wood split and stacked. It’s been so nice to have a little breather!
On one of those lovely days, I paddled Lars around in our blue canoe while he fished for walleye. I guess the hook sank a little deep because he snagged a big northern – too big to haul into our canoe. It surfaced a bit, showing off a broad green-speckled back and then started dragging the boat around, a Minnesota version of a Nantucket sleigh ride. I admit I was relieved when the monster bit through the leader and escaped back into the depths. Our canoe is too small for that many teeth.
Our buddy Dharma Dave took us fishing on another sunny crisp day to show us his secret spot to catch what he calls “fish sticks” or brookies. There was a bit of a northeast wind and lively waves that kept me focused on paddling. That was followed by rocky landing spots that meant extra care getting in and out of the canoe. It’s one thing to get a little wet on a fine summer day, but another when the air temperature is hovering around 50 degrees. Ooh -- it was chilly in the shade, but so pretty with the sun sparkling on the water. We arrived at a silent, almost still lake – just enough breeze to gently push the canoe down the shore while we cast for brook trout. We took turns sticking a paddle in to gently rudder our way down the shore. I had zero luck with the fish, just some nibbles, but I had a wonderful time gazing at the shoreline, admiring the local beaver lodges, keeping my eyes open for moose or mink. High above Dharma Dave I saw a bald eagle circling in the clear blue sky as it rode the thermals up… up…up. A dragonfly, enjoying the sun and the warmth, perched on my bare arm for a few minutes. It had a red abdomen and amber wings, and looked a lot like the “royal coachmen” trout fly that Lars had tied many years ago. I think it was either a white-faced or a saffron-winged meadowhawk, a new insect for me. The dragonfly and I had a little staring contest before it jetted off. Something about the sunny, cool and quiet day made staring seem like a virtuous pastime.
It was lovely fishing on that peaceful fall day, enjoying the beauty of a northern lake and being in good company with people who enjoy both silence and conversation. Time seemd to stand still for a while, but the sun started sinking and it was only going to get colder. I was reluctant to leave, even though my feet were cold; both my back and my butt hurt from sitting in the canoe so long; and one finger was numb. As we were paddling out all I could think about was next year’s trout fishing. I think I’m hooked, even if the fish weren’t that day, not for me, anyway. Lars and Dave ended with nice little stringers to take home for dinner.
We drove home down the Trail with an almost-full moon rising above the Gunflint hills in a silvery sky-blue pink sky. Dharma Dave put it best:
“Filleting brook trout under a nearly full October moon, can you beat that?.. I think the pattern on their skin is sort of cosmic, like a map of the heavens, complete with a green-tinged twilight, red and yellow stars, blue and ringed planets, pearly nebulas, fins like solar flares. Try to see the universe within each living thing.”
The sky stayed clear for the rest of that night – the stars and the moon were utterly magical. I got up in the middle of the night to check for northern lights and meteors. The night sky was so exciting it was hard to go back to bed. Soon it will be that time of year when I haul out my winter sleeping bag and, come nightfall, park myself on a lawnchair to stare at the cosmos. Last year I was so star-struck, I mooned about during daylight hours with my head full of falling stars and constellations, just pining for the nighttime sky when I could continue my very important task of stargazing.
Gazing at dragonflies, gazing at stars, seeing the universe in a brook trout; it’s a pretty good life here on the Gunflint trail.
North Woods Naturalist: Fall changes
-Chel Anderson is a botanist and plant ecologist and she joins us periodically to report on what she’s seeing in our woods and waters right now.
This project is supported in part by funding from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.