West End News: April 16

It’s no surprise that the recent heat wave has jump-started the waterfall season.  In every nook and cranny of the West End, all you have to do is stand still when the wind is calm and you can hear running water – either the intimate gurgle of a rivulet a few feet away or the distant roar of a river in flood.
 
Visit Cook County, our most excellent county-wide tourism promotion organization, has been working diligently for the last two years to let the rest of the world know what we locals have known all along: late April and early May is the best season for waterfalls.
 
Now, a map showing waterfall viewing locations is available, thanks to the VCC’s talented marketing team.  The map locates seven easily accessed waterfalls in the West End alone.  Hiking to visit waterfalls makes a great free time activity for locals and visitors alike.
 
In my opinion, the waterfall season has the potential to be very popular, similar to what we experience during the fall color season.  Many years ago, the fall color season was a very quiet time in the West End.  In the ‘50s and ‘60s many resorts closed for the season on Labor Day.  Someone at the Forest Service District Office in Tofte had the idea to print a map of the local back roads that were good for viewing the fall colors.  They gave whimsical names to the routes and put up simple roadside map boxes to dispense the simple maps.  The rest, as they say, is history.
 
The biggest problem with Cook County’s tourism-based economy is the extreme drop in visitors in the early spring and late fall.  It makes a lot of sense to promote the unusual beauty of those seasons enjoyed by locals but unknown to visitors.  If we can combine the unique natural events with fun music, food and art - all the better.
 
Filling the resorts in April and November will contribute to rising wages, housing stability, family health and a whole list of other benefits.
 
The Cook County Local Energy Project has a good deal for homeowners who are considering home improvement this summer.  Their Residential Energy Efficiency Program is accepting new customers in the month of April.
 
If you sign up for the program, you will receive a home energy audit before you start work on your home.  The audit will be followed by clear suggestions on how to effectively lower your energy bills through home improvements.  After the construction is complete, another audit is completed to document the savings.  You pay for the audits and improvements, but once the improvements are done, you receive a rebate for the cost of the audits.
 
Not only is this a good deal up front, but also it’s the gift that keeps on giving, keeping hard-earned money in your pocket year after year after year.  That is money that you can use to take a vacation to Florida during the February cold snap a few years from now.
 
For more details, contact Virginia Danfelt by email.  The address is [email protected].
 
I recommend reading an interesting article published this week in the online news website Minnpost.  The author is John Gappa, who is a well-known and well-respected corporate chief financial officer in Minnesota.  He provides an analysis of the risk/benefit ratio for the proposed PolyMet precious metal mine in the Lake Superior watershed near Ely.
 
Usually, I’d rather have a root canal than read a financial risk analysis, but Gappa makes a strong case that Minnesotans are carrying the bulk of the financial risk, with very little return for that risk.  Read it and decide for yourself.  You can find the article online at Minnpost.com.
 
I would like to add my voice to the chorus of condolences on the passing of retired teacher, Wayne Hansen, in Silver Bay.  I didn’t know Wayne personally, but by all accounts he was an engaged and beloved teacher and community member in Silver Bay for more than 50 years.
 
Here at Sawbill, we’ve begun our annual ritual of daily ice measurements on Sawbill Lake.  The first measurement was made on Monday and came in at 25.5” of fairly solid ice.  In just 24 hours the measurement dropped to 21” with the ice being noticeably softer.  By Wednesday, the 15th, the ice had “floated up” which is the phenomenon when the porous ice sheet detaches from shore and is literally floating on top of the water.  Usually, the ice goes out within two weeks of floating up.
 
Thankfully for the general mental health of all West End residents, it looks like spring will arrive at more or less the normal time this year.  If it had been another very late spring like the past two years, we would be in need of community wide group therapy.