North Shore Weekend

The Flute Reed River is located on the North Shore of Lake Superior in Hovland, Minnesota. Once a week, Rick Schubert, who owns a cabin in Hovland, walks from his home down to the river, where he takes a reading on how much sediment is in the water. He's been doing this for the past few years, since helping start the Flute Reed River Partnership, an organization dedicated to educating themselves about the river and helping make it healthier. In this edition of the Lake Superior Project, we speak with Rick about his volunteer work on the Flute Reed, and why it is important to the health of Lake Superior.

Milt Powell grew up on the Canadian side of Saganaga Lake where he lived with his family on what was once known as "Powell's Bay."  In this segment, he tells the story of his Uncle Frank Powell's acquisition of an airplane, his father's experience as a Wilderness Ranger at Quetico Provincial Park and how the wilderness designation affected him personally. Milt's wife Alice Powell also shares a story about when Jack Powell came to town for the first time in 40 years.

The Gunflint Territory is in celebration mode this weekend.  The solstice of summer” marks the first happy event today (the 21^st), and a full “strawberry moon” (Ode’imini Giizis in Ojibwe) closes down (Sunday the 23^rd) what will surely be a festive few days in the north country.
           
Visitors galore are trekking up the Trail. Caravans of traffic, either toting or pulling some variety of watercraft, are pouring into the hundreds of favorite rest and relaxation venues. It’s tourist season and folks in those business ventures are going crazy with exuberance at their return.
           
Weather conditions over the past seven have been on the delightful side, pleasantly cool at night and tolerably warm during the daylight hours. The area around Wildersmith even got an unexpected half-inch snippet of rain last Sunday evening.  Thus, the crunchy dry forest floor has been temporarily relieved of fire danger, but more precipitation is welcome.
           
The Smiths’ neighborhood has remained void of visiting bears for another week. However, those buzzing carnivore visitors are making life in the forest pretty miserable.  One has to feel sympathetic for any being with blood in their veins as those biting/stinging varmints must number in the bazillions right now.
 
I watched recently as a cloud of bugs was tormenting a squirrel during its breakfast at our deck-side feeder. This feisty rodent seemed near the end of its wits while trying to eat just one seed and at the same time fend off the ravenous, unforgiving pests. It was sad, but also a bit humorous, as it swished its tail like a helicopter prop and occasionally jumped up in the air like a jack-in-the-box to clear the air around itself.

And if the airborne biters aren’t bad enough, those creepy ticks are so thick at ground level they can almost trip you. The insect critters are at us from all directions right now!

Speaking of yet another northern animal oddity, this one took place under water. A friend hooked onto a good-sized lake trout from his dock not long ago. The ensuing battle to land the big hog took some time, and just as it was in sight near his dock, an unknown being came streaking through the water in an apparent attack on his catch.

The attacker must have quickly assessed that the “attackee” was too big a bite to handle, and veered on by. Thinking it was maybe a huge northern pike, this fisherman was surprised when the sub-surface jet popped up out of the water a few feet away from his thrashing finny.  It turns out this was another well-meaning Gunflint fisherman: one of our local loons. By the way the trout measured in at some 34 inches, wow!
           
As thousands of visitors are coming up the byway to celebrate the wonders of our natural world, the Gunflint community gathered last week to honor some of its own. At the grand opening of the newly developed fire department facilities, nearly 250 friends and residents came together in recognition of the hard work of many dedicated people.
           
Folks were in awe of the new Schaap Mid-Trail Community Center and adjacent fire and rescue equipment storage facility. The viewing opportunity turned out to be a great social meeting as well. Friends both seasonal and year-round conversed about the past winters goings-on and were treated to some fine north woods dining under the big top.
           
A big thanks to the event organizers, provision donors and a great group of cooks and servers. And of course, congrats and thanks to the dedicated planners, design people, fund raisers, financial supporters and construction trades people that made this dream come alive!
           
A dismal past Monday morning blossomed into another sparkling midday up at the Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Center. The fifth annual fish fry fundraiser brought in over 100 folks for the big shore lunch event on the Sag Lake front bay.
 
A huge thanks to all the Gunflint Trail Historical Society Volunteers who pitched in for the site set-up and to prepare/serve the fixins’. Kudos also go to Gunflint Lodge Guide Dennis Todd for providing the fish, as well as the staff at the Lodge for providing the rest of the menu items. Listeners not in attendance missed out on a great day and scrumptious food!
           
Keep on hangin’ on, and savor wonders in the land of sky blue waters!

{photo via wikimedia commons courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service}

On a snowy April night, a crowd of about one hundred gathered at the Cascade Lodge and Pub in Lutsen to hear local musicians pay tribute to the late drummer and vocalist for The Band, Levon Helm.

Planning is in full swing for the famous Tofte Fourth of July celebration.  The big news this year is that the fireworks will be on Friday, July 5, rather than on the Fourth.  This will allow fireworks fans to catch the fireworks in Grand Marais on the Fourth and then Tofte’s spectacular show on the fifth. 
 
The rest of the celebration will be on Thursday, July 4, around the Tofte Park and firehall, starting at 11 a.m. and ending at 5 p.m.  The parade, which is always a highlight, will start at 2 p.m.  There will be a dunk tank again this year with the proceeds going to the dunkee’s charity of choice.  If you’d like to be dunked and raise some money for your favorite cause, call Dorrie at 370-0518 for a time slot.
 
Another change in this year’s Tofte Fourth of July, is that all the children’s activities will be at the Birch Grove Community Center.  The balloon toss and bouncy house will be set up there.  The Birch Grove Foundation will be serving wood-fired breakfast pizza starting at 8 a.m. until all the pizza is eaten.
 
The Town of Lutsen is hosting an open house at their spanking new Town Hall and Fire Hall on Monday, June 24 from 5:30 until 8 p.m.  Fireman’s chili and tours will be offered, along with the chance to meet the dedicated volunteers from the Lutsen Fire Department and Rescue Squad.
 
The community of Finland was surprised to receive a state grant recently that paid off the remaining quarter of a million dollar debt owed on the Clair Nelson Community Center in Finland.  Representative David Dill was able to obtain the grant from excess taconite tax money that came available due to better than anticipated taconite production last year. 
 
The Clair Nelson Community Center, named after the late Lake County Commissioner Clair Nelson, is a wonderful new facility that is paying big dividends to the Finland community.  Thanks are due to Rep. Dill, along with congratulations to all the volunteers who have worked so hard to make it a reality.
 
Andie Peterson, author, award winning teacher, former mayor and all around renaissance woman, just completed a 10-year term as the president of the Schroeder Area Historical Society.  She was acknowledged at the recent annual meeting, where more than 70 members enjoyed a delicious ham dinner.  Andie will be staying on the board, so her wisdom won’t be lost to the organization.  Congratulations to Linda Lamb, who was elected to be the new president.
 
The next upcoming event at the Cross River Heritage Center is a Vintage Tea on Saturday, June 29 at 1 p.m.  Everyone is welcome and is being asked to bring a vintage or historic item to share with everyone.  I can guarantee that many great stories will be told.  For more information about the Schroeder Historical Society and the Cross River Heritage Center, call Susan at 663-7706.
 
I recently caught wind that the Human Development Center in Grand Marais is offering new mental health services for young children.  Cecilia Bloomquist is currently being trained to offer therapy for children from 2 to 6 years to help with disruptive behavior.  The therapy is evidence based and includes training for the parents.  Appointments can be made now and she will start providing the service when her training is complete in a couple of weeks.
 
This is a great new service being offered to our community, because research clearly shows that young children with mental health problems can often be treated very effectively.  Early treatment can prevent serious problems later in life.
 
Cecilia, who is a clinical social worker, also is offering in-home mental health diagnostic assessments for children ages 0 to 5.  You can reach her at the Human Development Center by calling 387-9444.
 
In my humble opinion, the day that the dragonflies emerge should be a county-wide holiday.  The dragonflies emerged in force this week and the black flies were gone within a day or two. 
 
Back in the ‘60s, my dad actually researched the possiblity of raising dragonflies in tanks and adjusting their environment to get them to hatch early. This was right after local resorts were forced to stop spraying their properties with DDT fog.  It turns out that the dragonfly life cycle is complicated and probably impossible to manupulate.  It was a good thought, but as we seem to learn over and over again, it’s not wise to mess with nature.
 
For WTIP, this is Bill Hansen with the West End News.

{photo by Molly Breslin}

The Trail folk are rounding out week two with the “Neebing (summer) Express” bearing down on the territory.  By next time we meet over the airwaves, our skinny spring will give way to the warm season solstice.
           
This final column for the spring season 2013 finds the atmosphere along the upper Trail remaining on the cool side. In fact the Smiths have even cranked up the woodstove a couple times since June took over. However, remembering how stifling it could be, there are no complaints coming from this resident of the woods in regard to coolness.
 
Once again the rain gods have forgotten border country, but on the favorable side of the ledger several spectacular sunny days were logged. On a less desirable side of things, fire danger is again on the upswing, and back country roads are choking in dust.
 
The sugar maples have been the last to unfurl their summer tokens in our neighborhood, thus completing the leaf-out process. With that, our summer camouflage is in place and things that we have been looking at for months are now obscured in many textures of green.

The gushing spring meltdown has rapidly given way to mere trickles in most streams. Due to the absence of rain over the watershed, and the slowdown of these sustaining lifelines, I’ve noticed the first drop in the lake level on the Gunflint. The same may already be happening on other area lakes too. The Gunflint Gal looks to have dropped about four inches from its high mark of a couple weeks ago.

The lake water is warming, although slowly. A check of the reading at the Wildersmith dock as of last Sunday showed a cool but improved 50 degrees. This is still not close to be inviting for a dip, so lake users should be cruising on the side of caution.
Since nearly all aspects of normal have been tardy with our spring, it is not unexpected that the black fly season has come late too. I don’t know this to be the case scientifically, but the cool weather must have them miffed. They’re always nasty, but they seem angrier than usual.

With these black fly nasties being one of the three ingredients for a good blueberry crop, it would seem that we might have another booming crop with a little more warmth and much needed rain.
 
The reconnaissance crew of mosquitoes has done their pre-season investigating and has called in their troops as well. So now it’s all about survival of the smartest. In these parts, I’m the “sultan of swat.” August can’t come soon enough!

With the frequency of moose observations along the byway on the decline, it was a real treat to catch one in a Trail-side pond during a recent jaunt. The big old gal was quite content to allow photo ops as she munched on swamp bottom tenders.

There was no accompanying calf that could be seen, and with her nonchalant approach to us nosy observers, one would think that she must have been childless. This becomes even more unsettling with the recent news from DNR researchers in regard to the alarming death rate among this year’s calf crop.

On the other hand, the bear population is reported to be immense with an estimated 12,000 in northeastern Minnesota. Not long ago, I heard about the sighting of a momma and her triplets How about that for a ready-made family?

The abundance of these brunos may also be a factor in the moose calf demise, but that is all part of nature’s plan. It’s us humans that must eliminate some of our unsavory practices to remove the part we may be playing in the moose decline equation.  

Happily, I have to report that the area “Teddys” have not made an appearance in the Wildersmith neighborhood, yet. Guess the folks down shore to the west must be keeping them occupied.

Another reminder that the fish fry at Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Center takes place this coming Monday, the 17^th, at noon.  Plan to get out there early to take in the beauty of the surroundings, tour through the museum and savor the smell of fried “Missouri Walleyes,” potatoes and the trimmings along the shores of Sag Lake’s front bay.

Then one month to the day later, the annual Gunflint Trail canoe races take center stage. Planning is full speed ahead. Members of the Gunflint community are needed once more to step up with their volunteerism for the event. Please say yes when called upon, we need you!

Keep on hangin’ on, and savor the beauty of our northern woods!
 
(Above "trail cam" photo by Debbie Benedict and Jim Raml) 
 

This “Moments in Time” features author and ethno-historian Tim Cochrane.  He spoke at the Cook County Historical Society storytelling event "Stories You've Never Heard and Good Ones to Hear Again," March 9th, 2013 at the Arrowhead Center for the Arts in Grand Marais.

When we started the Lake Superior Project at the beginning of 2012, one of the most common subjects to come up besides issues facing the lake was funding for restoration projects. In 2009, President Obama established the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, allocating $475 million to projects around restoring the health of the Great Lakes. It's hard to find a project around Lake Superior health that isn't connected to the GLRI in some way. In this edition of the Lake Superior Project, we speak with Cameron Davis, senior advisor to the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Great Lakes issues, about the GLRI and the latest news that the White House has committed to another five years of funding for the Initiative.

It's time for the West End to play another round of Jerk the Merc!  For many years now, North Shore Mining in Silver Bay has offered to collect and properly dispose of mercury-containing devices and waste electronics.  This year you can drop off your devices, bulbs and electronics at John's Sanitary Service, 15 Golf Course Road in Silver Bay on Tuesday, June 11 between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m.
 
Mercury-containing devices include fluorescent bulbs, tilt switches, mercury thermometers, gas appliance safety shutoffs and, of course, any elemental mercury that you might have laying around from an old-fashioned chemistry set.
 
Waste electronics include circuit boards, computers, printers, stereos (but no speakers please), cell phones, computer monitors, TVs and microwaves.  The service is free and is open to individuals, households, small businesses and non-profits.  However, TVs, monitors and microwaves are limited to just two of each per household or business.
 
My hat is off to North Shore Mining Company for their annual commitment to keeping our environment free of toxic chemicals.  Once again, the drop-off is at John's Sanitary Service, in Silver Bay, on Tuesday, June 11 between 9 and 2.  You can call Jenny at 226-6231 for more information, or, as always, you can contact WTIP for full information.
 
I'm glad to hear the Cook County Board of Commissioners is moving toward hiring a county administrator.  The joke that I've been making is that the county already has a county administrator… and it's a combination of Janet Simonen and Auditor Brady Powers.  As with all good jokes, there is an element of truth in it, as Janet and Brady often go above and beyond the call of duty to help the county run more efficiently.  Janet's pending retirement is the perfect time to bring on a professional administrator.
 
Few people remember that Cook County briefly had a county administrator back in the '80s and it was an overall positive experience.  Since then, running a county has become exponentially more complex, and the days when the commissioners could act as their own administrator are past.  I hope the commissioners will hire a well-qualified and experienced administrator, because a good county administrator will save and earn far more money than the cost of their salary.
 
As a side benefit, it will make the job of being a county commissioner slightly less impossible and may cause a larger pool of candidates to consider running for office.  This is always a good thing in a representative democratic system.
 
One of my favorite news organizations is an online magazine called MinnPost.  Published by former Star Tribune publisher Joel Kramer, it employs some of Minnesota's best journalists writing about state politics, arts and culture, education, health care and more. 
 
Right now, I recommend a very interesting piece headlined "The Next New Economy," by Jessica Conrad, who is described in her bio as a "content manager" for another web publication called OnTheCommons.org.  Conrad paints a compelling picture of a future that she refers to as the "sharing economy."
 
She supports her prediction by describing a handful of businesses that are already successful in helping people share resources, like the popular NiceRide bike sharing program in Minneapolis.  She also mentions ZipCar, which is a fast-growing car sharing company, and Netflix, which started as a DVD sharing service but now is a streaming movie and TV service. There is a long list of sharing based companies that entrepreneurs are starting using the relatively new tools of smart phones and social networks. One that caught my eye is Sophia, which is an education sharing service.
 
I find this interesting in light of the soon-to-arrive broadband service here in Cook County.  If I were a young entrepreneur who wanted to live in the most beautiful part of the state, I'd be thinking about what sorts of services might spring up here once broadband and 4G phone service are widely available. 
 
I'd love to think up the next big thing myself, but I can never think of a great business idea until right after some else tells me about it.  As soon as the idea is out of their mouth, I say to myself, "I could have thought of that!"  I have thought about having a fleet of canoes that people could rent for BWCA Wilderness canoe trips, but it turns out someone else had thought of that one a long time ago.
 
All joking aside, Jessica Conrad points out in her MinnPost article that Forbes Magazine estimates that people will earn $3.5 billion in the sharing economy this year, with a growth rate over last year of 25 percent.  She goes on to note that in a world where the population is expected to reach 9 billion by mid-century, with the supply of natural resources dwindling, it seems obvious that we'll all have to own less, share more and find ways to cut the huge amount of waste that we now produce.
 
As recently as a few years ago, it was no news to see a moose on the Sawbill Trail.  Now, it has become a rare treat.  I saw a two-year-old bull on my way to town this week, right by the Honeymoon Trail intersection.  Not only was he a cute guy with tiny nubs of antler smaller than his ears, but he also had the classic woebegone look of an adolescent who has recently been rejected by his previously loving mother.  His expression said, as plainly as if he was talking, "I'm lonely, my feelings are hurt and now there is a big pickup truck looking at me and I don't know what to do!"  He finally ambled off down the Honeymoon Trail, where I'm sure that the school of hard knocks will soon turn him into a confident and sturdy adult moose.