North Shore Weekend

Superior National Forest Update – June 13, 2019
 
Hi, my name is Lillie Oravetz, and I’m a seasonal naturalist working this summer with the Superior National Forest, and this is the National Forest Update – information on all sorts of things for people visiting the Forest.
 
The reason I’m here this week is that this is the start of our summer Resort Naturalist Programs.  The Superior has been providing naturalist programs with the cooperation of area resorts and businesses since the 1980s.  Currently, the program is cooperatively funded by the Forest Service and Visit Cook County.  The programs themselves are given at several of the resorts along the shore as well as at Hedstrom’s Lumber Mill, Sawbill Campground, and the Grand Marais Municipal Campground.  Although programs are given at specific host resorts, they are open to everyone:  people staying at the resort, people staying elsewhere, local residents – all are welcome.  There’s a wide variety of topics from bogs to stars to bears and everything in between.
 
Campfire programs start at 7:30 and generally last from one to two hours, and morning programs usually start at either 10 or 10:30.  A complete schedule can be found on our website, on the Visit Cook County website, at Forest Service offices and the Grand Marais Visitor Information Center, or at any of the participating resorts.  These are all fun programs with something for people both young and old, so we hope to see you at a campfire or on a hike soon!

As our roads continue to firm up, travel has gotten easier.  Our road system is in good shape right now, although on some of the more heavily traveled roads there can be some areas of washboarding.  You can expect to encounter logging trucks on the Tofte District along the Trappers Lake Road, the Perent Lake Road, The Grade, Cook County 27, and Cook County 8.  On the Gunflint District, trucks will be using the Lima Grade, the South Brule Road, the Greenwood Road, the Firebox Road, Blueberry Road, Cascade River Road, Pike Lake Road, and Cook County 7.
 
Our spring prescription burning has been completed.  There are still two summer burns planned for later in July - as always, weather depending.  People need to continue to be diligent with campfires, particularly in the Seagull area which has not received as much rain recently as other areas.  Make sure always that any fire is dead out and cool to the touch before you leave the area.
 
If you have a hummingbird feeder, you may notice that in the next few weeks, fewer birds will be visiting.  While hummers need to tank up on sugary nectar for the energy needed to migrate, they need more protein to successfully lay eggs and raise chicks.  That means that right now, the birds are concentrating more on eating insects than on visiting your feeder.  You’ll still have hummers, but they won’t be visiting as often as earlier in the spring.  With fewer birds and warmer temperatures, it is easy for the sugar water in feeders to go bad.  Change the sugar water at least once a week, and whenever you see cloudiness in the water.  Feed a three to one mix of water to sugar, and don’t add any color to the mix.
 
Be sure to look for a naturalist program schedule!  This weekend includes programs at the campfire ring at Cascade Lodge and Chateau LeVeaux on Friday and at Sawbill Lake Campground and Bluefin Bay on Saturday.  We hope to see you there!  Until next week, this has been Lillie Oravetz with the National Forest Update.
 

Wildersmith on the Gunflint     by     Fred Smith          June 14, 2019    
 
It seems unimaginable, but our north woods universe is at the half-way mark of month six. In a couple days the full “Strawberry Moon” (Ode’imini Giizis) will be lighting up our lives. While by the time we next meet, we’ll also be celebrating the solstice of summer.                                                                      

It’s just impossible to think we will be seeing our longest period of sun time next Friday, and then the slow trek in an opposite direction begins. Guess we can be thankful this astronomical happening is barely noticeable, but then again, based on how rapidly June’s first half went by, is it really as passive as it seems?                                                                                                                                                    
So next weekend we can call it summer and the territory got a warm-up preview for a couple days last week. From this old guy’s point of view, that hot stuff got under my skin pretty quick.                                                                                                                                                                                     

The heat was enough to spurn some new blooming in the yard though and this is good. Forget-me-nots, Columbine and wild strawberry petals popped out overnight as well as a few blossoms on the Honeycrisp tree. Up and down back country roads both Pin Cherry and Juneberry flowers have burst onto the scene mimicking a look of branch coated flakes from a season past.                                                                                                                                                                      

The only thing to temper enjoyment of our floral color exhibit was the big warm-up brought on the first real influx of “Skeeters.” Coupled with their nipping black fly cousins and other un-named irritating pests, life outside of netting hasn’t been the most comfortable. June being designated the month of the “Strawberry Moon” by our Ojibwe neighbors, a gal down in the mid-Trail area has labeled “June, as bug month”, appropriate to say the least.                   

Another note on creepy things has many folks complaining about unusual high numbers of those big black ants. All this unpleasantness however will pass and the beauty of many other aspects of life in wild territory will get us through this time of welts and itching.                                                                           

Plenty of moose sightings have been brought to my attention over the past week including my own observation of long eared juvenile in a Trailside swamp. Another lady from over on Wash-out Road had the “heebie jeebies” scared out of her recently when one stumbled out from the woods in front of her vehicle. Then the obstinate beast proceeded to not allow her passage by taking its half the road out of the middle.                                                                                         

Meanwhile, a couple down the road report a cross-fox has been making nightly visits for trail cam photo ops. And the Smith’s experienced a first bear sighting along the upper Trail in the past few days. Another report from the director at Chik-Wauk tells of and uncomfortable meeting with an upper Trail cinnamon Bruno who’s been hanging around several places.                 

A birthing announcement came from the same gal at the Museum Campus on June 6 with the Loon egg hatching, just one egg I’m told. Apparently the new family was doing well after they vacated the nest platform until breaking news four days later revealed the parents were heard calling and more recently observed swimming around without baby being on board.     
 
When it appeared the Loon’s had won this natural survival encounter to extend a new generation into being, another element of creation (likely an Eagle) had a sad, but final say in the predator/prey scheme of things.                                                                                                                                                    
Speaking of an eagle, this segues right into the first Nature Center Sunday program of the season on the Chik-Wauk Campus. The program will begin at 2:00pm with a special presentation on Minnesota’s Raptors. Chris Tolman will be the presenter and is said to have some live raptors as part of her program. Admission to this birds of prey event is free, but donations of programming appreciation are accepted.                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
Threatening skies and rain didn’t squelch excitement for the annual shrimp boil last Sunday. If you didn’t make it, you missed another great sampling of southern cuisine in the North Country setting.                                                                                                                                               
Thanks to the Schloot’s from Cross River Lodge for putting together yet another scrumptious feed. Kudos is also extended to the GTHS and the Volunteer Fire Department for the organizational details along with Voyageur Brewing Co. and many Gunflint Community bakers for their contributions to the bake sale part of the event’s festivities.                                                                                                        

For WTIP, this is Wildersmith, on the Gunflint Trail, where every day is great, as the Gunflint Community celebrates each and every one.
 

NORTHERN SKY
by  Deane Morrison
June 8-21 2019
 
In the second two weeks of June, planets and stars are on the move. But the sun seems to be standing still, as it always does for about two months around each solstice, a word that literally means “sun standing still.” The summer solstice arrives at 10:54 a.m. on Friday, the 21st. At that moment, the sun will be over the Tropic of Cancer, and an observer in space would see the Earth lighted from the Antarctic Circle up to the North Pole, then beyond to the Arctic Circle on the dark side of our planet.
 
In the west, Mercury has popped into the evening sky. Mercury never gets very high, but if you look at nightfall from night to night, with binoculars if necessary, you may be able to see it climb away from the west-northwestern horizon. It heads straight for Mars, which is extremely dim, and on the 18th it passes only about half a moon width above the red planet. Above and to the right of the planets are the Gemini twins Pollux, the brighter one, and Castor. After their close encounter, Mars and Mercury go their separate ways. And all these objects get lost in the sunset by the end of June.
 
On the 10th, we lap Jupiter in the orbital race. At this moment Jupiter is said to be at opposition, because it’s on the opposite side of Earth from the sun and thus opposite the sun in the sky. At opposition, an outer planet rises around sunset and stays up all night. Jupiter is a brilliant beacon, and it rises in the southeast right behind the constellation Scorpius. The scorpion’s heart is Antares, a gigantic red star a little below and west of Jupiter. Saturn follows Jupiter into the sky by about two hours.
 
The evening of the 15th, a bright waxing moon appears between and above Jupiter and Antares. The evening of the 18th, a bright waning moon rises right below Saturn. For the next several days, Jupiter and Saturn get to shine against a darker sky at nightfall because the moon rises later each night while they rise earlier.
 
In the east, look for the Summer Triangle of bright stars. The brightest is Vega, in the constellation Lyra, the lyre of the mythical Greek musician Orpheus. With binoculars you can easily see the parallelogram of stars that outline the body of the lyre. Vega is only about 25 light-years away, and it has a great claim to fame, thanks to Earth’s habit of wobbling on its axis like a top. This wobbling makes the North Pole point to different stars in sequence as it traces out a circle every 26,000 years. The North Pole now points toward Polaris, but once it pointed toward Vega, and in about 12,000 more years, Vega will again be the north star.
 
When the sky gets dark, Vega and Jupiter form a big, bright triangle with the brilliant star Arcturus, in Bootes, the herdsman. Arcturus is west of Vega and marginally brighter. Grab a star map and look between Vega and Arcturus. Next to Vega is the upside-down form of Hercules, and next to Hercules is a semicircle of stars called Corona Borealis, the northern crown.
 
The night of the 16th to 17th, the moon takes a low trajectory across the night sky and reaches fullness at 3:31 a.m. The low trajectory happens because a full moon is always opposite the sun in the sky. Therefore, when we’re this close to the summer solstice and our hemisphere is tilting strongly toward the sun, it must also tilt away from a full moon, leaving it low in the sky. 
 
 
Deane Morrison writes the Minnesota Starwatch column for the University of Minnesota’s Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics.
 

Backpacking 101 - Michelle Schroeder
June 4, 2019

Backpacking 101 with Michelle Schroeder is a monthly feature on WTIP’s North Shore Morning.
Michelle owns Backpack the Trails LLC and has been an outdoor enthusiast for 40+ years.

WTIP's North Shore Morning host, Brian Neil talks with Michelle about preparing for hiking / backpacking during this transitional time of year.
 

Superior National Forest Update – May 31, 2019
 
Hi, this is Steve Robertsen, interpretation and education specialist on the Superior National Forest, and this is the National Forest Update, information for visitors to the Forest.  It is the start of June, and summer is upon us at last, so I think we should all be visitors to the Forest this week!

As you head out into the Forest, there are still a few lingering effects of spring.  While weight restrictions are being lifted from many roads, they are still in force on others.  The Lake and Cook County websites have up to date lists on which of the county roads are open to large trucks.  As the weight restrictions end, hauling for timber sales is beginning.  Watch for possible hauling in the Trapper’s Lake Road area and in the areas of the Greenwood, Firebox, and Blueberry Roads, as conditions allow.

“As conditions allow” is a phrase that applies to the prescribed burns happening on the Forest as well.  We’d love to be able to give people lots of advance notice and precise dates on prescribed fires, but it is more important to burn on days when the weather is just right – and nature just isn’t that predictable.  You can find out about planned prescribed fire by clicking on the “Prescribed Fire Information” link on our home page, then on the “Current Year’s Plans” link.  Notices on burns will be tweeted out and posted on our Facebook page as they happen.  Active fires, both prescribed burns and wildfires, can be followed on the national incident information site called InciWeb.  We have links to that as well, or just search for

InciWeb:  “I-N-C-I Web”.  If your travels in the Forest take you near a burn underway, please follow posted information and be extra careful about vehicles and people on the road.  Smoke may restrict sight, so drive carefully.  It is good to bypass these areas entirely if possible.

Birds are doing everything right now.  Some are migrating through, some are setting up nests, and some are feeding chicks.  Peregrine falcons nesting in the cliffs along the shore are in that last stage – feeding chicks.  These nests are pretty closely monitored both by people and by the peregrines themselves who will loudly call and even swoop down at people who get a bit too close.  Peregrines were gone from the North Shore due to DDT until the peregrine falcon reintroduction program in the 1980s brought them back.  It has been a very successful program, and you can now often see these amazing birds as you travel on Hwy 61.  Diving at speeds which have been clocked at over 224 miles per hour, they are the fastest animal around.  We watched a peregrine take a gull over the lake once, and it is pretty incredible to see them in action.  I’m not sure the gull agreed.

Wilderness rangers have begun summer patrols through the Boundary Waters.  They will be working to clear and maintain portages, take care of campsites, and help people traveling in the wilderness.  They also get to pick up litter, which, they are happy to report, has been decreasing over the years.  You can help on this one by following the simple rule of ‘Pack it in, pack it out’ during your wilderness travels – or for that matter, your travels anywhere.  Remember, don’t burn trash in campfires, and don’t dispose of trash in latrine pits.  Just pack it all out.  On a less happy note, the wilderness rangers also report the return of the black flies.  It’s getting to be time to find the head net again.

It should be a lovely early summer week this week, so ignore the black flies and take advantage of it by heading out into the woods. 

Enjoy the Forest, and until next week, this has been Steve Robertsen with the National Forest Update.
 

NORTHERN SKY  by Deane Morrison
 
During the last week of May, the moon wanes away in the morning sky, starting with the last quarter phase on Sunday, the 26th. Last time, I mentioned that the quarter phases are good for moon watching because that’s when lunar features like craters stand out in sharpest relief. So on the 26th, you may want to grab your binoculars again. One small caveat: In Grand Marais, the moon doesn’t rise that day until 2:09 a.m., which may be somewhat inconvenient. On the other hand, if you’re a night owl, the last quarter phase gives you the best chance to explore the part of the moon that isn’t visible at first quarter phase.
 
If you are up at that hour, you’ll see the Summer Triangle of bright stars above the moon as it rises in the east-southeast, plus Jupiter—the brightest dot—in the south and Saturn to the lower left of Jupiter. But you don’t have to wait till the middle of the night to see those planets. Earth is about to lap them in the race around the sun, and they’re rising earlier every night. We lap Jupiter on June 10, and by the end of the first week in June, Jupiter will up in the southeast by 10 p.m. Saturn follows Jupiter by about two hours. Just west of Jupiter is the red star Antares, the heart of Scorpius.
 
You might want to try watching Jupiter from night to night. Earth is already starting to lap it, and this makes it moves westward against the backdrop of stars. If you grab those binoculars again, you may detect Jupiter inching westward with respect to several rather dim stars that are near the planet.  
 
And back to the moon for a second. As it wanes, it rises later every morning. If you’re up around 4:30 on June 1 and you have a clear view of the eastern horizon, you may see a very old and thin crescent rising to the lower right of Venus. Moonrise on June 1 is at 4:27 a.m., which is scarcely half an hour before sunrise, so both the moon and Venus will be awash in the sun’s foreglow. 
 
In the evening sky, Spica, the brightest star in Virgo, the maiden, is in the south at nightfall, well below the brilliant star Arcturus. Spica’s not all that bright, but then it’s about 260 light-years away. It’s not a single star, but at least two big ones that orbit each other very closely. Only 11 million miles apart, which is about one-fourth the distance of Mercury from the sun. The strong gravity between these two stars has pulled each of them out into an egg shape, and it’s thought that they spin around like two gigantic eggs with their narrow ends pointed at each other. And they spin really fast: It takes them only four days. This would be incredible to watch if we could get close and look down on these stars.
 
In the west, Mars is resisting being swallowed by the sun as Earth leaves it behind. Mars is as dim as it gets, but have a look around 40 minutes after sunset on June 4. Mercury will be very low in the west-northwest, a young crescent moon will be just to the left of it, and Mars will be almost directly above the moon. Above Mars, the Gemini twins Pollux, the brighter, and Castor are dropping as they make their seasonal exit from the evening sky. This year they’ll leave in the company of Mars and Mercury.
 
Deane Morrison writes the Minnesota Starwatch column for the University of Minnesota’s Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics.
 

NORTHERN SKY  by  Deane Morrison                May11-24, 2019

 
Here in mid-May, we have two planets that are fairly bright and busy moving into prime viewing position. Those planets are Jupiter and Saturn, and they’re rising in the southeast earlier every day, but still pretty late. Jupiter makes it up before midnight, but Saturn doesn’t; it follows Jupiter around two hours later. You can also see them in the predawn sky, say 4 to 4:30 a.m. Jupiter is the brightest thing after the moon, and Saturn the next brightest thing to the east of Jupiter.
 
The planets are about 27 degrees apart, which isn’t very far. Not coincidentally, Earth is getting ready to lap both of them in the race around the sun. Jupiter on June 10, Saturn on July 9. When we lap an outer planet, it’s up all night, which is ideal for viewing. However, summer’s coming, our hemisphere is tilting away from the night sky, and the sun has stolen a big chunk of it. Right now, we can only see Jupiter and/or Saturn very late in the evening or ridiculously early in the morning.
 
On top of that, between May 11 and 24, the period this broadcast covers, the moon will be big and bright enough to wash out a lot of the stars that form a backdrop for the planets.
 
Well, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Let’s look at what the moon can do for us. The evening of the 11th, it’ll be at first quarter phase. This is a good time to pull out your binoculars or small telescope and have a look at the moon. During quarter phases, the moon is 90 degrees from the sun, and lunar features, like craters, appear in sharp relief. Just east of the moon, you’ll see Regulus, the brightest star in Leo, the lion. Regulus is the dot in a backward question mark of stars called the Sickle, which outlines the lion’s head.
 
A night or two later, on the 12th or 13th, the moon will have moved farther east in Leo. The lunar features will still stand out, and a famous one will now be lighted. That’s the Tycho crater, which was named after the great Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, who died in 1601 at age 54. The crater is near the south pole of the moon and is about 53 miles across. It’s remarkable for the long bright lines radiating from it; these are where material was thrown during the collision with whatever space rock came along and gouged out the crater. The crater has been estimated to be about 100 million years old, which is young for a lunar feature.
 
Between the 15th and 16th of May, the moon passes between Spica, the only reasonably bright star in Virgo, and brilliant Arcturus, in Bootes, the herdsman. Spica will be below the moon, and much closer to it than Arcturus.
 
May’s full moon rises over Grand Marais at 8:27 on the evening of the 18th. It crosses the night sky above Antares, the red heart of Scorpius. Over the next several days, the waning moon sweeps past Antares, then Jupiter and Saturn.
 
In the north, the Big Dipper hangs more or less upside down at nightfall. The two stars at the far end of its bowl—that is, farthest from the handle—point down to Polaris, the North Star. Flanking Polaris, but closer to the horizon, are two bright stars. On the left is Capella, in Auriga, the charioteer, and to the right is Vega, the brightest of the Summer Triangle of bright stars. And if you follow the curve of the Big Dipper’s handle, it’ll take you to Arcturus again.
 
Deane Morrison writes the Minnesota Starwatch column for the U of M’s Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics.
 

Recent snow along the North Shore may have put sping on a brief hold, but, soon enough springtime weather will be upon us.

WTIP's CJ Heithoff spoke with naturalist Chel Anderson about everything that changes in the spring in this edition of North Woods Naturalist.

NORTHERN SKY  by Deane Morrison
April 27-May 10 2019

Here we are again, moving from April into May, and the winter stars are disappearing in the west. But they’re not all gone yet. Case in point, a little while ago, a friend asked me about a couple of bright stars he had seen in the west around nine thirty the night before. Both were about the same distance above the horizon. So I took a good guess, and went out that night, and sure enough, what had caught his eye was the winter stars Procyon, in Canis Minor, the little dog, and Capella, in Auriga, the charioteer. Right now these two stars are getting ready to set for the season. If you haven’t seen them but you’d like to, go outside as soon as the sky gets dark, and you should see two bright stars not far above the western horizon. Procyon is on the left, Capella on the right. Above and between them are the Gemini twins, Pollux, that’s the brighter twin, and Castor.

This winter I’ve talked about all these stars except Capella. It’s a beautiful star, and when it’s low in the sky, Earth’s atmosphere often acts like a prism and makes it twinkle red and green. From the latitude of Grand Marais, it’s a circumpolar star. That is, it travels in a circle around the Pole Star, Polaris, and never sets, although in summer it gets a little too low to see very well. The stars of the Big and Little Dippers are also circumpolar. If you could follow a circumpolar star all day long, you’d see it complete one circle around Polaris every day. And if you noted its position at the same time every night for a year, you’d see it circle Polaris then, too.

Capella is also a multistar system. It has a close pair of big yellow stars, both a lot brighter than the sun and with about 2.5 times its mass. It also has a pair of little red dwarf stars orbiting the big yellow stars at a distance of about 10,000 times the distance of Earth to the sun.
The name Capella refers to the “little female goat” that the charioteer is carrying. Below Capella you may be able to make out three fainter stars that form a narrow triangle. These are called the Kids.

On May 7, Capella will be part of a string of objects lined up diagonally from lower left to upper right at nightfall, but not much longer afterward. Starting at the lower left end, we have Betelgeuse, in Orion; then a young crescent moon; then Mars, and finally Capella. On the evening of May 9, a heftier crescent moon will be between Procyon and Pollux.

And speaking of evenings, sundown on April 30 marks the beginning of the astronomically based Celtic holiday called Beltane. It was one of four cross-quarter days falling midway between an equinox and a solstice. Beltane marked the end of the dark half of the old Celtic year. The dark half began at Halloween, when all the evil spirits were set loose upon the world to vex humankind for the next six months. And that made sense; winter is the time when hunger, cold and diseases like flu run rampant. But when the end of April rolled around, things changed. At sundown on April 30, the nasty spirits came out for a last fling. Then, at sunrise on May 1, the party was over, and the spirits were again banished until sundown on October 31. The night of April 30 is also called Walpurgis night, but only because May 1 is associated with St. Walpurga, who had nothing whatsoever to do with any of this.
 

It's the time of year when the birds start singing away.  WTIP's CJ Heithoff talks with naturalist Chel Anderson about the physiology behind bird songs in this edition of North Woods Naturalist.