North Shore Weekend

Birch Grove Community Center was hopping on Tuesday night when 88 people showed up for the Democratic Farmer Labor Party caucus night. In Cook County as a whole, 462 Democrats participated in their party caucus. I’ve attended the caucuses pretty reliably for my whole adult life and I’m pretty  sure that this year set the all time participation record. It even beat 2008, when Senator Barack Obama was causing a lot of interest in the presidential race.
 
I couldn’t find specific numbers for the four Republican precincts in the West End, but county wide, 109 Republicans participated in their caucuses. Best guess is somewhere between 30 and 40 West Enders caucused with the Republicans, which is also a very good turnout.
 
One of the most interesting outcomes on the Democratic side was a resolution opposing the sulfide mining in Minnesota that passed easily in the precincts from the North Shore all the way through the greater Ely area. New polls are showing growing resistance to this new form of mining across the northland and around the state. The resolutions were careful to distinguish the difference between mining sulfide ores and the existing taconite mining, which is supported by the DFL Party.
 
The Birch Grove Community Center sure is looking busy and successful these days. It was great to see it bursting with happy and engaged community members, cheerfully engaged in making their community and country a better place for all.
 
As always, it was fun to see the students’ artwork on the walls. One especially eye-catching display featured the students work in a slide show displayed on computer tablets mounted on a hallway bulletin board.
 
Birch Grove Community School Board member, Sara Somnis called to tell me about ten computer tablets that were recently purchased for students to use. This is part of a major trend in education as sophisticated learning apps are becoming cheap and commonplace. This trend works especially well for small, but highly motivated rural schools like Birch Grove. Sara also reported that new laptops were purchased for each teacher, making their work easier and more efficient.
 
Birch Grove is selling its old desktop computers and accessories to community members. So far the sale has raised more than $600, which will be used to buy more tablets. Much equipment remains to be sold, so if you’re looking for an old, but serviceable desktop computer, or other computer furniture and equipment, call Caroline at Birch Grove to schedule a shopping trip.
 
In a not-unrelated item, remember that the annual meetings for the Townships of Lutsen, Tofte and Schroeder are on Tuesday, March 8. Voting stations at the town halls are open from 5 until 8 pm with the annual business meeting starting right away at 8. 
 
Township annual meetings are the essence of the old saying that “the world is run by those who show up.” The annual budget and the priorities for the coming year are literally proposed and voted up or down by the residents who attend the meeting.  It’s also a great way to meet your neighbors and eat a few cookies together.
 
I urge everyone to attend their township annual meeting and I especially urge all to vote in favor of significant township investment from all three towns in the Birch Grove Community School and the Birch Grove Community Center. In my opinion, it is money very well spent and provides tremendous benefit to the entire West End.
 
Word is out the Cascade River is in great shape for skiing. You can hike up past the falls from the highway to ski up the river, or you can get dropped off at the Pike Lake Road Bridge and ski down to the highway. My sources said the trail is solid, smooth and well broken for both ski and snowshoe travel.
 
The Temperance River is also looking good. When we get into the warm/cold-night cycle next week, it is likely to develop a good crust, which will make it an ideal track for skate skiers. Of course, any time you travel on a river you should travel in a group, stay alert for hazards and carry rescue ropes and dry clothing.
 
My motto is, “When the river skiing is good, drop everything and go!” I doubt that anyone ever lay on their deathbed and regretted too many river skis. It’s just one of the perks to living in the beautiful and ever-changing West End.
 

(Photo courtesy of Cascade Property Rentals)

Rain and freezing temperatures can dramatically change the nature of the snow pack. WTIP’s Jay Andersen talks with naturalist Chel Anderson about the hard crust on the snow moon.

(Photo by Creag on Flickr)

Cook County adventurers Dave and Amy Freeman are spending a year in the wilderness. On a regular basis they’ll be sharing some of their experiences traveling the BWCAW.

(Photo courtesy of Dave and Amy's Facebook page)

Sunny tells us about a recent unusual visitor to her Back Yard.

Sunny has lived off-grid in rural Lake County for the past 17 years and is a regular commentator on WTIP. Here she shares what's been happening in Sunny's Back Yard.

(Photo by Dwayne Ewers on Flickr)

Welcome back to Magnetic North, where the resident goats, chickens, ducks, bunnies, et al. are as baffled by our on-again-off-again, winter as are we all.

The recent rain/sleet/snow of late made chores a sloppy mess, but the result was unexpected bliss. Until this series of events, the snow base was just a little too soft for me to enjoy my daily and nightly kick sled rides up and down the driveway, and more importantly, the use of the sled to hold feed and water buckets on the twice daily chore runs. Now, however, the frozen hard layer exists and I am once more slip-slidin’ away through the winter.

My favorite time to ride is between the hours of 10 p.m. and midnight. Think aurora borealis. Or stars so numerous and visible that it looks like the sky is dusted with powdered sugar. Or, as was the case just two nights ago, a full moon turning the new-fallen snowflakes into diamonds. Diamonds that painted the meadow and the backs of my mittens and flew up around the rungs of my sled as I sailed silent as a soft owl.

Tis the stuff of dreams, unless you are my daughter living in L.A. hearing this and demanding to know if I have my phone in my parka pocket while I am swanning about in the dead of night on a sled(!!!!) in the middle of “nowhere.” The answer is “yes, dear.” Ahhh, the sweetness of payback for all those nights when she was in high school and blowing through her curfew. Life is really, really, really good sometimes, isn’t it?

On a more somber note, not all at the farm has been moonbeams and chuckles. This weekend I tried in vain to doctor my majestic rooster, Mr. Fancy. A ridiculously fluffy blue-grey ball of sweetness, Fancy came to me as a “free, rare and exotic mystery chick” with my yearly Murray McMurray chick order. For “free” read “rooster.” So if anyone is averse to crowing, don’t bite on this offer. Only once in the 25 years of ordering have I been sorry that I went for the freebie and that was when I got a nasty little piece of business called a “game cock.” But Fancy was the best. Protective of his hens, always showing them the choicest morsels of food before partaking himself and posing strutting his stuff like a rock star when kids came to visit the farm.

I will miss him. And no, I will not take the mystery chick this spring. Fancy was just too great a rooster to top. Plus, I still have a crazy little bantam rooster crowing his head off!

It is snowing again today and I have new straw to throw into the coop and barn - the critter equivalent of starry snowflakes for us. Paul used to call it “putting on the clean sheets,” and that’s just what it is. The goats stand in the doorway to the barn as I break up the bales of golden straw, covering up the old and hardened bottom layer. Bosco, my big buff colored cashmere wether, likes to get in there with me, employing his handsome horns to lift up the flakes of straw, rearranging them as he sees fit. The others just baa a bit, eager to see if there might be some tasty bits in the bedding.

Over in the coop, though, the job is much simpler. I just take off the baling twine and let the hens tear the big bale apart. This is akin to a day at the Alpine Slide to a chicken. Scratching, flinging straw, and generally wearing themselves out rearranging all the flakes. By evening chores, the floor of the coop has been transformed into one cozy comforter of golden straw with the hens up on their roosts gazing down on their handiwork. Spent, but happy.

And so, as we head toward the spring equinox, just weeks and more hours of daylight from now, all is well at the farm. Come rain or snow. Sad farewells and remembered joys. Winter gives me the time and space to sort and piece together these things. Winter and the solitude of life at the end of a gravel road 14 miles from town and two miles uphill from the big lake. What scares some, suits me just fine. As it does, I imagine, most of you listening right now,

        
Boy how time flies! Seems as though February just arrived and already we’re bidding her farewell. The February log book has passed two details since we last met on WTIP. The first marked the second full month of winter while the other was the Ojibwe, full “sucker moon.” With that, we take aim at March.

The area experienced more up and down seasonal character over the last week. The Wildersmith neighborhood went from bitter subzero to a drippy freezing mark and back, over about 72 hours of weekend number three.

During the time of our bouncing thermometer, we had flurries, sleet, freezing drizzle, snow pellets, rain, drizzle and fog, then more snow. With exception of hail, the Gunflint way pretty much got everything “Mother Nature” could offer in terms of precipitation. Ending the unusual wet weather onslaught, new snow refreshed and replaced what was lost to the near 50 degree temperature swing. 

The maddening thing about a February meltdown is what it does to roads, drive ways, and walking paths. The grit of dry snow makes moving about tolerable for most of the cold season, but when a couple warm days interrupt, making the snow soft and slick, getting around in the upright position and keeping one’s vehicle between the snow banks is nightmarish.   

So my driveway and the Mile O Pine have an icy sheen now hidden by new fluff, making navigation troublesome at best. As to my pedestrian efforts, our slick under-footing is slowing me down to a mere creeping, which is even slower than my normal old-timer pace. In short, it’s slow-going around here and will most likely remain this way until the onset of “mud season.” 

Winter activities took a hit as well. Cross country ski trails turned to mush and the slush on our already gooey lake ice was surely made worse than ever for snowmobile traffic. Now that we’ve returned to a colder side, ski trails are crusty and slick. It will take a lot of extra work to grind up the frozen layer and redress.  Groomers are busy fixing things so gliding conditions should be back to normal soon.

Meanwhile, heading into March, chances of an extended period of subzero are waning. Our slushy lake cover is likely to linger on with the insulating snow adding a dangerous cover to the water on ice status.

Difficult lake conditions make me wonder if the surfaces will be able to accommodate a couple coming events on the March calendar. On Sunday March 6, the Cook County Ridge Riders will be hosting their annual trout fishing derby here on Gunflint Lake. One week later, the “Dog Days of Winter” will be holding Sled Dog Derbies and Skijoring Races on Poplar Lake at Trail Center Lodge. Info on event status for the Trout Derby can be found by checking the CCSC Ridge Riders website, and for the “Dog Days” events see www.visitcookcounty.com.  

The weekend warm-up stimulated an enthusiastic gathering of local winged folk. Big ones and little ones of many colors energetically arrived and departed the seed trough. I happily obliged them with seeds, bread scraps, and leftover waffles. As would be expected, the blue jay gang fell in love with the waffle pieces, devouring them like a plague of locusts. 

A couple here-and-then-gone-again visitors, came back over the last week. Our transient pine martens have hit the feed rail again. 
When I ran out of poultry scraps, guess they took offense to only having sunflower seeds on the menu and thought they could do better elsewhere.

Since the Wildersmith “Colonel” has a replenished chicken cache, the cool critters seem content once more. Adding to discussion of the furry guests, it’s a good bet, if they are females, they’re fattening up for delivery of their next generation.   

Further, speaking of little ones, romance is wafting through the forest. It’s mating time for canine types in the woods. Fox, coyotes, and wolves have been in the mating mood these past few weeks. While on another note, bear cubs are probably crawling about their dens as momma catches her last winks of the slumber season.

This is Fred Smith, on the Trail at Wildersmith!  Happy Trails to you, Gunflint that is!

(photo by Mary & Dan via Flikr)
 

I was very excited to see a healthy looking cow moose on the road the other day. It seemed to have a thick winter coat and was not wearing a collar.  Why was I excited? Because I drive the back roads of the West End as much as anybody and I almost never see a moose anymore.
 
When our kids were in school, which was less than 10 years ago, we saw many moose – so many that the kids became blasé – barely willing to be roused from their reverie to take a look at even the most magnificent moose. It was so routine as to be bordering on boring.
 
Everyone knows that the moose are disappearing from Minnesota, but no one really seems to know why. In the last year, I’ve read conflicting expert opinions, including too many wolves, too many ticks, too much hot weather in the summer, not enough cold weather in the winter, climate change in general, over-hunting, habitat loss, viruses, not enough logging, too much logging and most recently, too many deer.
 
With all due respect to wildlife biologists, it really seems that nobody knows. And, none of the expert opinions strike me as being completely objective and non-political, no matter how well intentioned.
 
I certainly don’t claim to know what the problem is, but I’m beginning to suspect that it may be unknowable. It may be the case that the sheer complexity of a functioning ecosystem is beyond the ablility of the human brain to fully understand. In other words, life in the forests of northeastern Minnesota may be connected in so many subtle and intricate ways that it may not be possible to tease out the one, six or a dozen causes for moose population decline. It is at least possible that the there are hundreds, if not thousands of ecological relationships that can alter forest dynamics resulting in the simple fact that the moose can no longer survive here.
 
The moose are not the only species that is in flux during the last decade. All over the world, animal populations are declining or growing in unexpected ways. Even a casual observer here in the West End can tell you that there have been many changes over the last half century – literally dozens of species that used to be common and are now rare, and dozens more that were never seen here and are now common. It could be reasonable to conclude that whatever is causing this general trend may be causing the moose decline.
 
Switching from large wildlife to tiny wildlife, I was delighted to see a large outbreak of snow fleas this week. Snow fleas are tiny black insects that mysteriously appear on snowbanks in the middle of the winter.  They are called snow fleas because, although they are no larger than a speck of dust, they are prodigious jumpers. They appear in flocks, or perhaps swarms might be more accurate, and as you draw near to inspect them they jump so fast and far that they give the illusion of just abruptly disappearing.
 
I should point out that they are not actually fleas and do not bite. Their taxonomic name is Collembola, and while they are in the group that includes insects, they technically are not classified as insects. Their eyes are not proper compound eyes, their abdomen has fewer segments and some special extra appendages that insects don’t have. They are commonly known as springtails, due to a couple of appendages that look like tails that play a large role in their incredible jumping ability.
 
The sources I read are a little vague about why the snow fleas emerge on the surface of deep snow during warm late winter days. I feel like they are more common when the snowpack is deeper. It is a fact that they are cute and interesting, occupying one of the more unique ecological niches in the woods.
 
There is plenty of snow over the hill this year for the snowfleas and everyone else who enjoys snow. I measured 32” on the deck this morning. That is down a little since the rain we had last week.

Slush remains a serious impediment to travel on the lakes, at least in the Sawbill area. The slush has been bad all winter, but finally started to freeze up during the last cold snap. Sadly, just a day or two later the rain brought it back with a vengeance. It has been common this year to see camping parties head out on Sawbill Lake with full camping gear only to see them return a few hours later, get in their cars and leave.
 
Hopefully, the late winter cycle of freeze and thaw will soon create a crust on the lakes and rivers that will make travel a joy and the epic slush of 2016 an unpleasant memory.
 
 

Deane Morrison is a science writer at the University of Minnesota. She authors the Minnesota Starwatch column, and contributes to WTIP bi-weekly on the Monday North Shore Morning program through "Northern Sky," where she shares what's happening with stars, planets and more.

A full Snow Moon or Hunger Moon on February 22; Earth prepares to lap Jupiter on March 8; Scorpius, Saturn and Mars in the morning sky; and in news - cataclysmic events producing gravitational waves that we can now detect.

(constellation map by Torsten Bronger via Wikimedia Commons)

              
Following some “true north” cold, Gunflint conditions have turned somewhat southward once again. Before the turn-around, this neighborhood had a spell of January frigidity as Wildersmith experienced several days of bitter readings prior to emerging above zero last Sunday. 

On the precipitation side of the weather ledger, things were also on the minus side with the only snow happening of the horizontal variety. As strong winds ushered in the cold, loose snow was whisked off flat lake surfaces. Subsequently, the forest landscape was plastered with a hard coating of icy crystals. Hence, critters' trails around the yard were smoothed over as if a fresh snowfall had taken place. 

The bitter cold may have firmed up some of the slushy places on lakes away from shore lines, but plenty of the icy goop remains near shore on a number of lakes. Longtime residents living along Gunflint Lake indicate this is the worst slush they’ve ever seen. That in mind, this semi-winter has broken two records what with the latest “ice on” ever of January 4 and now this continuing slurry mire.  

Another consequence of this “El Nino” disaster is the lack of ice depth on big area lakes. A friend in my neighborhood was here angling over the Presidents' Day weekend, and reports Gunflint Lake ice measured at 17 inches. Normally right now, as winter begins its descent toward spring, we would be looking at two and a half to three feet of hard water. This oddity causes yet another instance of cold season weather lore trivium. 

Speaking of snow, in spite of what appears to be mediocre accumulations around here thus far, a healthy couple feet of the stuff had built up on the Wildersmith roof. Coupled with some early season freezing rain and sleet, ice damming character is becoming a problem along the eaves of our abode. Consequently, yours truly has been into housetop snow removal over the last few days. What a job!  Notwithstanding my passion for the white, I hope for a little reprieve from a new build up until sore muscles recuperate. 

Our “green thumb” neighbor from over on Loon Lake relayed spring tidings last week. She announced her first indoor plantings (bok choy) had sprouted. This may be more indicative of an early spring than “Punxsutawney Phil” or any other of his groundhog kin. Of course, it’s still a long ways until sprouts can be set out in the garden, but the happening alone makes people smile. 

During a quiet moment of outdoor observation last week, I was amused at the sight of a neighborhood squirrel munching sunflower seeds with posthaste. The red rodent was eating like there was no tomorrow, seed after seed, as fast as one could be picked up while casting away shells like they were coming from an automatic weapon.  

After watching this dining exercise for several moments, I decided to time the tiny fellow/gal to see how many kernels it might consume in a 60-second segment. There is probably not a category for this in Ripley’s “Believe it or not,” but for the record, 25 morsels were picked up, shelled, and devoured in a single minute.  I’d bet the “boys of summer” couldn’t come close to matching this. 

Perhaps readers and listeners think I have too much time on my hands, and maybe so, but I’m chalking it up as one more up north educational highlight. You know one has to keep their ear to the ground and eyes to the sky for any and all Gunflint Trail enlightenments. 

Lastly, but certainly not in the least of news for this week, listeners and website readers are reminded of this station''s first fund raising mission of this new year. The session for sustaining this North Country broadcast phenomena kicked off Thursday and runs through noontime this coming Monday.     

The theme of this membership drive is “Cabin Fever.” Regardless of where listeners reside, there is no need to feel the “fever” when you have WTIP at your beckon. The wonderful spirit of North Shore, and wilderness living, is brought to life every day through a dedicated staff and countless volunteers. 

However, costs of bringing this airwave effervescence to you does not come cheap, quality programming costs money. This is where supporting membership is so important! WTIP cannot continue to grow without the gracious support of its membership. Members, both renewing and first timers, have been great to step up in the past with their financial resources, and I hope all will do so again during the next few days.  

Don’t delay, give us a call at 387-1070 or 1-800-473-9847, or click and join at WTIP.org, or stop by the studios at 1712 West Highway 61. The folks at WTIP need you! 

This is Fred Smith, on the Trail at Wildersmith, keep the radio on and JOIN in the “Cabin Fever” fun!
 
 
{photo by Jon Large via Flickr}

Cook County adventurers Dave and Amy Freeman are spending a year in the wilderness. On a regular basis they’ll be sharing some of their experiences traveling the BWCAW.

(Photo courtesy of Dave and Amy's Facebook page)