West End News

Today, I have two stories of local boys making good - both with West End connections.

This weekend, a big-time, national touring rock band called Gentlemen Hall will be appearing at Papa Charlie's nightclub at Lutsen Mountains. It will be a homecoming for the band's lead guitar player and singer, Jacob Schmidt. Jacob was born in Cook County, raised in Lutsen and graduated from Cook County High School before heading off to Boston to attend the prestigious Berklee School of Music. Jacob is the son of Carol Perkins from Lutsen and Jim Schmidt from Grand Marais. Jacob showed musical aptitude early in life and was an accomplished guitarist by the time he started high school. Jacob and his equally talented brother, Josh, were mentored by several older musicians in the area and quickly became popular performers in the region. While at Berklee, Jacob naturally played music with classmates and other musicians from the fertile Boston music scene. This led to the founding of Gentlemen Hall, followed by winning several awards, attracting a loyal fan base and a contract with a professional management company. The band is currently on a nationwide tour and some quick thinking by Lutsen Mountains marketing manager, Jim Vick, landed Jacob and his band mates at Papa Charlie's on Saturday, Dec. 17, starting at 9:30 p.m. Be there, or be square.

MinnPost, the excellent, statewide online newspaper, ran a feature story this week about the Johnson brothers, Colee, Skyler and Clay, from Hovland. The young men’s parents are Kathi and Rusty Johnson. They are also related to a number of West End residents including great aunt and uncle Carol and Ron Gervais from Tofte, aunt and uncle, Misty and Tim Schliep from Schroeder, and second cousins Terry Gervais and Cindy Hansen from Tofte - which makes them my second cousins by marriage. The MinnPost article is part of a year-long project called "Rural Minnesota: A Generation at the Crossroads" that explores the lives of young people and how their choices might be shaping the future of outstate Minnesota. The Johnsons are notable for being very young entrepreneurs, having started a firewood business while they were still kids to now owning their own general logging company. It is no surprise to anyone from Cook County that the writer highlighted how hard they work. The young men come from a long line of honest, hard-working people. Congratulations to the Johnson brothers on getting some well-deserved attention for their determination and grit. You can find the article by going to MinnPost.com and searching on the keywords Johnson Brothers.

Winter is unfolding in slow motion here at Sawbill. A couple of light snows have combined with the sparse existing snow cover, resulting in a scene that begins to approach the ideal for the holiday season. Lake travel by foot or ski is easy right now. The cold weather has formed over a foot of ice with no slush and the snow cover is just enough to give you a grip without having to do any serious trail breaking. We've had a couple of parties pass through on fishing expeditions in the wilderness. Neither group did well with the walleyes, but they enjoyed beautiful weather and scenery.

Last year, we had two albino chickadees that attended our feeders all winter long. The first one we noticed had a faint black spot on its tail and was a regular at our home feeder. The second one was almost pure white and fed exclusively at our office feeder, which is only 90 feet from the house. We never saw either bird at the opposite feeder, which answered the long-standing question about whether or not the chickadees feed from both feeders, or just one. We were hoping that our little albino buddies would return this season, but it's starting to look like that won't happen. A little research informs us that the average life span of a chickadee in the wild is two and a half years. The oldest chickadee ever documented was 11 years old. It makes sense that the white chickadees enjoy extra camouflage protection from predators in the winter, but stick out like sore thumbs once the snow melts. Nature is a harsh mistress at sometimes, but wonderful to observe in all her variety.

 Mary Somnis sent me an email the other day, calling my attention to a local shopping initiative called “Made On The Range.” It is a website, madeontherange.com – just like it sounds with no spaces or punctuation – that lists dozens of companies that offer holiday goods and services and are based in northeastern Minnesota. The website eloquently says: “The people living in northeastern Minnesota have a long history of resourcefulness and personal innovation culminating in the design and creation of quality and interesting goods and services. This web site is a convenient one-stop-shop for these goods and services and serves as a direct portal to these companies.”

Mary Somnis is in charge of the tourism initiative at the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board. The IRRRB is a state agency that receives a production tax from the iron mining industry that it uses to develop and support a stable economy in northeastern Minnesota. It operates in parts of six counties, including all of Lake County and Cook County. Mary got her start in tourism promotion right here in Cook County where she served as the Executive Director of the Lutsen Tofte Tourism Association. She started at the LTTA as a secretary, but through hard work and talent, rose quickly to the executive position. During her tenure, the Lutsen Tofte Schroeder area led the state in tourism growth. After a few years at the LTTA, Mary was recruited for her current job at the IRRRB, where she has continued her success. She kept a property here in Cook County, which she visits frequently, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see her return permanently at some point.

Again, the local shopping website is madeontherange,com.

The snow cover, or lack there of, is becoming a common topic of conversation around the West End. Of course, most good West Enders are hoping for enough snow to enable their winter sport of choice – especially the snowmobilers and cross country skiers. The down hill skiers are lucky because the snowmaking at Lutsen Mountains Ski Area is well underway and downhill conditions are already excellent. At this writing there is a 12” to 24” base with six lifts operating. There are a number of improvements at the ski area this year, including a beginner’s terrain park on Ullr Mountain, a more advanced terrain park on Eagle Mountain and a boarder-cross course on Mystery Mountain where riders can race down the series of turns, jumps and drops. It’s great to have such a wonderful facility right here in the West End along with the extensive trail systems.

There are other concerns with the low or non-existent snow cover. In the past, when we’ve had little snow and cold temperatures, many people have had their septic systems freeze up. This is a particularly annoying phenomenon with ramifications that are better left unspoken. Local well driller, Bill McKeever, was quoted the other day saying that the wells he’s seeing are the lowest that he can remember. Another long-term worry is what the fire season will be like next year if we have a dry winter and/or spring. I remember reading somewhere that the total winter snowfall on the Superior National Forest in the winter of 1935/36 was 4 inches. 1936 was an epic year for forest fires. After the big Pagami Creek Fire this fall, we could do with a breather in 2012. But, we’re lucky enough to live in a big beautiful forest, so I guess we’ll have to learn to play with the cards that Mother Nature deals us.

We’ve been enjoying a lot of good animal sightings on the back roads recently. On Thanksgiving Day, we were headed over the river and through the woods when I spotted a group of at least four animals on the road up ahead. I quickly called Cindy’s attention to what I thought was a pack of wolves. Most of the critters leapt over the snow bank when they saw us coming, but one stayed on the road. Based on the way they moved, both Cindy and I started to doubt that they were wolves. We were able to get pretty close the remaining animal and it turned out to be a lynx. We were astounded to realize that we had just seen a pack of lynx. One of the cats was clearly bigger than the others, so we’re guessing that it was a family group, but lynx researchers have found that lynx occasionally hunt and travel in small groups. I went almost 30 years without seeing a lynx or a bobcat, but in the last decade I’ve seen several every year. It is good to have the big cats back in the neighborhood.

We’ve also been seeing many other animals as well as enjoying the best grouse hunting that I’ve seen around here in the last 50 years. All of this makes me wonder if we aren’t seeing some wildlife displacement from the huge Pagami Creek Fire. The research on what happens with wildlife during and immediately after large forest fires isn’t very complete, but it does seem to indicate that more animals either escape or survive a fire than you might think. It makes sense from an evolutionary point of view that wildlife that live in a fire-based ecosystem would have developed strategies to survive fire. It also seems like common sense that there isn’t much food for wildlife within the fire boundaries for a while, so most animals and birds would shift to unburned areas until next spring. This has got to play havoc with animal territories, especially in the areas just outside the fire perimeter. On the other hand, I know that sometimes common sense will lead you astray when it comes to wildlife biology, so I’d love to see more research done in this area.

Trapping season is in full swing in Minnesota, and every road in the West End is currently blanketed with traps. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of traps lining every road and logging road in the area. I have no moral objection to trapping. In fact I have great respect for the people who hike or snowshoe their trap lines deep in the forest, reading the sign and matching wits with their prey. I have less respect for what most trapping is nowadays, which seems to be driving around in a pickup truck and setting up a line of traps along the road to catch whatever happens to cross. Even this sort of low-skill trapping wouldn’t bother me, except that I feel strongly that the animals are more valuable to the local economy if they are left alive than they are on a rich person’s back in some remote, foreign city. Seeing wild animals in their natural habitat is a big part of what draws visitors to this area year-round. It also feels kind of intrusive to have people who don’t necessarily live in the West End suddenly blanketing our roads with smelly baits and traps that can be dangerous and even deadly to local pets. Many of us become attached to the animals we see regularly around our houses and it’s sad to see so many of them suddenly disappear at this time of year.

As with all natural resources, it’s important that we learn to accommodate each other and not intrude too heavily on other people’s chosen enjoyment of the resource.

Don’t forget about the Saturday, Dec. 3 open houses that are happening at every retailer in Tofte that is open at this time of year. They are, for the record, AmericInn Gift Shop, Birch Tree Gift Shop, Bluefin Gift Shop, Coho Café, Northshore Market, Tall Tale Yarn Shop, Tofte Holiday Station Store, Water’s Edge Trading and Waves of Superior Spa. In addition to some great local shopping, there will be treats, visits from Santa and roving carolers. M. J. Huggins is offering a free ornament making class at the yarn shop and Brian Olson is offering full service gas at Holiday. For those of you under the age of 40, full service gas means that someone will pump your gas for you and wash your windshield.

On Dec. 15, Water’s Edge Trading holds their annual men’s shopping night. It is designed for West End men to complete their holiday shopping in the least painful way possible. Beer and personal shopping advice are provided. It is by invitation, so call Water’s Edge if you’d like to participate. You can also call to provide hints to the man in your life, if you know he’s attending.

For WTIP, this is Bill Hansen with the West End News.

Last week, Sawbill Lake was almost frozen over. The official criterion for freeze-up is when the lake is more than 90% frozen. Sawbill got close to that, but then reopened over the weekend. Two young men appeared on Friday evening and proposed going out on a canoe trip. However, they accepted our strong recommendation to stay in the campground and take day trips into the wilderness, to avoid being frozen in. When they did venture out on Saturday and Sunday, they found most of the bays frozen and weren't able to paddle very far in any direction.

In the past, the lakes used to freeze pretty reliably right around the first of November. The first time we were able to paddle on Thanksgiving was in the late '80s. At that time, the old-timers around here said that they had never seen the lakes freeze that late. Since then, it has become a fairly routine phenomenon. In 1975 or '76, we actually had below zero temperatures in October and the ice on Sawbill was 6" thick on Oct. 26 when a van pulled up to the canoe landing with two canoes on top. We skated over to chat with the surprised canoeists. I remember the party leader protesting that the lakes were still open in Minneapolis.

Sometime in the '90s, we had a party get frozen in on Cherokee Lake. Cherokee was still open, but when they headed back toward Sawbill, they found Cherokee Creek too thick to paddle and too thin to walk. They returned to their campsite and waited for rescue. When they were a day overdue, we contacted the sheriff, who asked the Forest Service to send their Beaver float plane over to take a look. The campers efficiently signaled S-O-S to the plane, so the pilot landed and taxied to their campsite. He informed the group that the route to Brule Lake was open and if they paddled there, he would call Sawbill Outfitters to come pick them up. They refused that option in favor of being flown out immediately. The pilot said he would only fly them out if they agreed to pay for the flight and left ASAP without their canoes and camping equipment. For some reason, they chose this more expensive, inconvenient option.

Two months later, Steve Schug, from Schroeder, went in with the Forest Service dog team and retrieved the canoes and equipment. He was able to get everything in one trip by loading the gear in the plastic canoes and dragging them behind the dog sled, which worked surprisingly well. In the two months that the gear had been alone in the wilderness, it had been ravaged by rodents and pine martens. I called the party leader and we worked out a deal for me to bring the gear to his office during a routine trip down to the Twin Cities. His office turned out to be high in the IDS tower in the heart of downtown Minneapolis. When the elevator doors opened, I was greeted by an opulent reception room and a glamorous and decorous receptionist. She eyed my pile of stinky, semi-thawed camping gear with open disdain. As I explained my business with her boss, I mentioned that it was entirely possible that small rodents were hibernating within the gear and might wake up as they warmed. She told me firmly to put the gear in her boss' office and shut the door - tight. That's the last I ever heard of it, but it's entirely possible that distant descendants of Cherokee Lake mice are still living high in the IDS tower.

This is the time of year when we all pause to count our blessings and think about what we are thankful for. I am thankful for all the people who chose to support WTIP in the recent membership drive. I'm even more thankful for WTIP itself and the wonderful asset it has become for our community. In many ways, WTIP is representative of all that is good in our little corner of the world. There are literally too many good people, doing too many good things, to list in this limited time. Life is surely a balance of joy with sadness, but I am profoundly grateful to be part of a community where people live in dignified fellowship with each other and with nature.

As of Wednesday, Nov. 9, Sawbill Lake is about 75% frozen over. The shallow bays froze the day before and stayed frozen in spite of a sunny, calm day. At sunset that night, the red sky was reflected off the skim ice and as the temperature dropped we could watch the ice form minute to minute. A nearly full moon allowed Tofte's own filmmaker, Carl Hansen, to film a time-lapse sequence of the lake freezing by moonlight. The next morning, I walked down to the lake early to check on the ice progress and was rewarded by a pack of wolves howling in the wilderness between Sawbill and Alton lakes. Their howling was different than the long howls that we usually hear. It was more like moaning mixed with yipping and barking. Our little terrier mutt, Roy, who normally barks at everything, was stopped in his tracks by the sound. He stood stock-still and stared in the wolves' direction, but he kept his mouth firmly shut. Maybe he's smarter than we think he is.

Wednesday, Nov. 16 is "Minnesota Give to the Max" day. This innovative and successful program is an initiative of the Minnesota Community Foundation. It is designed to bring Minnesotans together to raise as much money for non-profits as possible in 24 hours, starting at midnight Nov. 16 and ending at midnight Nov. 17. This creative one-day event showcases the incredible generosity of Minnesotans. It also highlights the power of raising money for good causes by harnessing the convenience of the Internet. All you have to do is visit the clear and simple website at GiveMN.org and you can quickly find information about the non-profits in your community and make a donation by credit card with a few clicks. In this era of declining government budgets, many vital community services are being delivered by non-profits. Quite a few of the non-profits here in Cook County and on the West End are participating. Even a small donation can make a huge difference if we all pitch in. Once again, the website is GiveMN.org and the date is Wednesday, Nov. 16.

I am sad to report that Sawbill's beloved golden retriever, Homer, passed away this week. Homer was part of a popular litter that was born at Clearview Store in Lutsen back in 2000. The puppy pen was right next to the store and the puppies got more than their fair share of attention right from the start. In those days, Clearview was the transfer spot for the school buses between Grand Marais and the West End. Every school day when the buses pulled in, all the kids would pile out to visit the puppies. Rules had to be established so the poor puppies wouldn't be literally loved to death. Most of the pups ended up in local homes and a few became resort dogs like Homer.

Resort dogs are a special kind of dog. They receive far more socialization than ordinary family pets. They become the symbols of the resort, star in many photographs, become expert moochers and are generally loved up by staff and visitors alike. They are real ambassadors for our beautiful area and are minor celebrities in their own right. Homer was the epitome of the resort dog, friendly, gentle and reassuring. He was petted so much, that I often wondered why his fur wasn't rubbed off. He inherited the mellow personality that some golden retrievers are known for, but took it to a whole new level through thousands of happy interactions with visiting people and dogs. As one former Sawbill crew member said, "Take away the drool and the smell and you have the world's most perfect dog." I can picture Homer in heaven right now, lying on the porch and having his ears scratched by an angel. Happy trails, old friend.

Don't forget the Birch Grove Foundation dinner/dance fundraiser at Papa Charlie's in Lutsen on Friday, Nov. 18. From 4 until 8 it is good food, good folks and a fabulous silent auction. At 8, the local band, D'Merritt, plays for foot-tapping and dancing. Be there or be square.

I'd like to add my sincere condolences to the friends and family of long-time Minnesota Public Radio personality Tom Keith who passed away unexpectedly this week. Tom was famous for his mastery of the nearly forgotten art of radio sound effects. He provided inspired and hilarious sound effects for Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion, which is heard on public radio stations nationwide. Garrison would often try to stump him by calling for nearly impossible sound effects, like a man falling into a pool filled with piranhas and the sound of tires spinning on ice. Tom was also the co-host of the MPR Morning Show for many, many years, with his radio partner, Dale Connelly. Tom was a frequent visitor to Cook County. He took several canoe trips out of Sawbill. Years ago, he stayed for a week at Bearskin Lodge and called in a live report each morning. When the local MPR transmitters in Grand Marais were built about 13 years ago, Tom and Dale brought the Morning Show to Grand Marais and broadcast live from North House Folk School. Tom's dry humor and classic laid-back Minnesota manner endeared him to millions of people. Losing him feels like losing an old friend.

This weekend is the Bluegrass Masters Weekend at Lutsen Resort. This amazing event has been running annually for 21 years. It brings some of the biggest names in bluegrass music to little old Lutsen for workshops, jam sessions and a Saturday night concert. This year, Tim Stafford and Steve Gulley, two of the best bluegrass guitar players in the world, will be the masters in residence. In recent years, the event has drawn participants from all over the midwestern U.S. and northwestern Ontario. The workshops and concert are great, especially if you are a bluegrass fan like me, but the real highlight of the weekend are the continuous jam sessions that fill every nook and cranny of Lutsen Resort. Everyone is welcome to stop by, especially on Saturday evening, and listen to spontaneous music being made very accomplished players. As an example, last year I ran into a friend who is a fabulous guitar player. He told me that he had just spent the three hours playing with a group of fiddlers. He said they had played approximately 60 fiddle tunes without a repeat. The Bluegrass Masters Weekend, which is sponsored by the North Shore Music Association, is not only a significant artistic and cultural event, but it brings hundreds of visitors to the county on a weekend that would otherwise be very quiet. Tim and Steve will give a preview of the weekend on The Roadhouse this Friday.

It is the time of year when everything in nature seems to be waiting for winter. Flocks of snow buntings are passing through and creating a minor driving hazard on the back roads. They are tundra dwelling birds during the summer and their reflex when threatened is to fly toward open space, which causes them to fly in front of cars instead of off into the woods. It is fun to be able to see into the woods now that the leaves are down. You can actually watch animals as they walk though the woods, and interesting artifacts re-emerge after being covered by foliage during the warm season. For instance, there is a Model-T pickup truck just off the Sawbill Trail that can still be spotted near one of the creek crossings. It dates back to the time when the Sawbill was upgraded from a cart track to an actual road. Some local firefighters have told me that the Pagami Creek Fire revealed several old cars and trucks in the BWCA Wilderness. It wasn't too long ago that logging roads crisscrossed what is now wilderness in the area of the fire. The old roads have been overgrown and almost impossible to trace for many years, but the fire has made them jump out of the landscape as plain as day. The firefighters actually made use of some of the old roads for access and fire lines. I'm old enough to remember the road that used to cross the portage between Phoebe and Hazel lakes. One time, I was carrying a canoe across the portage and paused at the canoe rest that was located right where the road crossed. As I caught my breath, a loaded logging truck pulled up, driven by my friend, Hans Hall from Lutsen. Hans stopped and we had a nice chat before he continued toward the sawmill and I trekked on up the portage. Another time, I was paddling down the Kawishiwi River just north of Square Lake when I came upon a Forest Service pickup truck parked next to the river. Of course, we chatted for a while before heading our separate ways. It is hard to imagine these encounters in today's wilderness setting.

Speaking of changes in the wilderness, there is bill working its way through Congress that would exempt the Border Patrol from virtually every environmental law within 100 miles of the border. This includes the Wilderness Act, the Clean Air and Water Acts, the Endangered Species Act and many more. On the House side it has the disingenuous name "National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act.” I'm surprised that they didn't call it the "Mom and Apple Pie Act.” In my opinion, it is silly piece of election year nonsense that uses the pretense of national security to justify circumventing laws that protect the public from rapacious special interests that would put their own wealth ahead of the health and well being of the American people. Worse than that, it is wasting time in election-year posturing when we should be working on the real problems facing our country and world. Tourism travel between the U.S. and Canada is sharply down in recent years, much of which is attributable to tougher border requirements. In this part of the world, where tourism is a huge part of our economy, we have to be careful not to protect ourselves into poverty. I'm afraid this bill is more about the ever-expanding silly season that seems to accompany the election process these days than it is about national security. 

This is the time of year when the community turns its attention to the Birch Grove School and Community Center. First up is the popular and long-standing Birch Grove PTO Halloween Carnival. I can't remember when the carnival started, but it has long been an important community event in the West End. This year it falls on Sunday, Oct. 30 from 2 to 4 p.m. It includes games, bingo, costumes, a cakewalk, haunted house, treats and basically a wahoo good time for everyone. If you've attended in the past, you know what I mean. If you haven't attended before, I guarantee that it is big fun for kids of all ages. Of course, all the proceeds go to support the programs at Birch Grove.

Hard on the heels of the carnival comes the annual lutefisk dinner for Zoar Church, Nov. 12 in the Birch Grove gym. This will be the first year that the lutefisk will be prepared in the beautifully remodeled school and community kitchen. I assume the kitchen design took into account the rigors of lutefisk preparation, including adequate ventilation. When my kids were students at Birch Grove they claimed that they could smell the lutefisk for two weeks after the event. All kidding aside, this is a great West End community event, and ham is also on the menu for those few people who don't love lutefisk.

Next up is the Birch Grove Foundation's annual Papa Charlie's dinner and dance at Lutsen Mountains. Save the date for Friday, Nov. 18. Dinner and the silent auction run from 4 until 8 p.m. The fine local band, D'Merritt, will play for dancing from 8 until they stop. Most, if not all, of the labor and supplies for this event are donated, which makes it an exceptionally good fundraiser for all the great things that the Birch Grove Foundation does.

As I speak, I am in the far east end of Cook County attending the Heart of the Continent Partnership conference at the Grand Portage Lodge and Casino. The Heart of the Continent Partnership is an informal coalition of public land managers and local stakeholders from both sides of the international boundary in northeastern Minnesota and northwestern Ontario. It includes public land managers, business owners, non-profit groups, elected officials, and virtually anyone with an interest in the truly beautiful ecosystem that includes Lake Superior, the Superior National Forest, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Quetico Provincial Park, Voyageurs National Park, the Chippewa Tribal lands, First Nation lands, many smaller state and provincial parks, and various units of government from local to national. The idea of Heart of the Continent is to create a regional identity around our shared ecosystem and cooperate in exploring how we can work together to improve the economic health and sustainability of the region.

The four-day conference is the first of its kind for this region. It is especially valuable in bringing Canadians and Americans together to see what we have in common. When you combine the long driving distances and the inconvenience of crossing the border, we almost never see each other, even though we live very near each other as the crow flies. The most immediate benefit of this effort is just getting to know one another and acknowledge that we are all in the same boat. And the people at the conference are also working to launch specific projects that will improve and protect the already great quality of life in the region. Among others things, this includes cooperative marketing to studying problems and solutions related to climate change.

It almost goes without saying that much of the discussion revolves about how we can best take advantage of the outstanding natural features of lakes, rivers, forest, trails and wilderness that are so abundant here. Within the Heart of the Continent region there are more than 5 million acres of public land. The trick is to use these resources in a way that provides a rich and dignified life for local residents and is welcoming and fulfilling for visitors, while protecting the region's natural character for our children, grandchildren and beyond. On the personal level, I've enjoyed revisiting Thunder Bay's Old Fort William Historical Park, where the first half of the conference was held, and the Grand Portage community, where the second half was held.

Although the leaves are now fully down, the tamaracks are at their golden peak. While November can be a cruel month here in the northland, it does have its own stark beauty. I have my fingers crossed for the lakes to freeze smoothly this year, because skating on "wild ice" is never far from my mind. I think it would be interesting to explore the Pagami Creek fire on skates, but failing that, on ski or snowshoes for sure.

The first snow that stuck to the ground fell this week in the woods away from Lake Superior. It came in the night, so the first sight that greeted our eyes upon awakening was a world transformed by snow on every twig and needle. My favorite part of the first snow is the subtle, but distinct smell that accompanies it. It is a fresh and clean scent that promises many adventures in the upcoming season. Soon we will all be riding, sliding and gliding again.

The Forest Service is making some changes to the BWCA Wilderness permit system. It makes me feel old to admit it, but I’ve been intimately involved with the wilderness permit system since it began back in the late ‘60s. It almost goes without saying that the whole point of having a permit system is to keep the wilderness experience sustainable by providing visitor education, preventing crowding through a quota system, and collecting data.

In the days before desktop computers, the whole permit system was run on paper. This was a big job and was handled by Forest Service employees in Duluth. To save on labor, they would collect permit applications by mail for a couple of months without processing them. When the pile got big enough, they would open all the letters and issue confirmations. In the rare event that the applications for a given date at a particular entry point exceeded the quota, they would throw those applications in a hat and pull out the winners and notify the losers that they needed to change their entry date or entry point. This little system was called the lottery and it grew to cause a lot of confusion among BWCA Wilderness visitors. Now that more than 90% of permits are reserved online, the lottery procedure developed during the dark ages is being dropped, which will make the system much less confusing and straightforward. All permit reservations will be made on a first come, first served basis starting January 25th.

The other change that the Forest Service is pondering is to allow visitors to issue permits to themselves online, so they don’t have to stop at a Forest Service office or outfitters to pick up their permit in person, as they do now. Currently, every visitor to the wilderness is required to have a few minutes of leave-no-trace education before his or her permit is issued. Although this is a little pesky, it has had a very positive impact on people’s behavior in the wilderness over the years. In my opinion, allowing people to issue their own permits would mean that the vast majority of visitors would not receive even minimal instruction in the leave-no-trace principles. The Forest Service is suggesting that the use be required to watch the video online and then check a box that pledges that they have done so. I don’t think that would work. I confess right now that I regularly check boxes that pledge that I have read the terms and conditions, when I actually never read the terms and conditions.

The real reason that the Forest Service is proposing this is, of course, to cut the budget and eliminate their front desk staff people. I would prefer that they either find money for the staff in their budget, or raise the permit user fees a few dollars to cover the staff. I also think it would be disastrous to eliminate all user education. If you think about it, wilderness is really more of an idea than a place. If you were to stand on the wilderness boundary and look both ways, it will look pretty much the same. What makes wilderness different is the social contract where we all agree to think about an area of land in a certain way and limit our activities on that land to maintain its character for future generations. At the end of the day, wilderness is just an idea that we share in our minds, making education its most important attribute.

Silver Bay will be formally breaking ground on its eco-industrial park this week. The ceremony will be at 1:30 p.m., Monday Oct. 24th, off State Highway 61 on the waterfront just north of County Highway 5. County and state officials are expected to attend. Plans for the ambitious eco-industrial park include a biomass heat and power facility, a greenhouse that will grow food for Silver Bay residents, and a fish farm that would make use of fish waste to grow algae for bio-diesel fuel.

 The Cook County Community Fund has produced a document called “A Guide To Giving” which is a directory of over 100 non-profit organizations that accept donations and are active in Cook County. The booklet will be mailed to every mailing address in Cook County. It is fascinating to look through it to see how many different efforts there are to improve life in the county. It includes churches, schools, recreational clubs, environmental causes, health care, emergency services and much, much more.

The Cook County Community Fund was created a few years ago to act as sort of a clearing-house for charitable giving in the county. You can make a general donation to the Community Fund and they will re-grant it to one of the non-profits that applies to them for support. Or, the Community Fund hosts a number of funds that provide long-term support for specific organizations or causes.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that anyone has published a comprehensive list of the local non-profits. Please save your copy when you receive it, or pass it along to someone who might be interested in supporting something that benefits our community. The Community Fund tried very hard to include every organization in the guide, but if they missed anyone, it can be added to the website version of the guide.

Making a donation to something that you care about is a terrific thing to do. Numerous studies have shown that people who make donations are generally happier and more successful in life than people who don’t make donations. Giving to local non-profits is an old and deep tradition here in Cook County, so I urge you to look at the guide when it arrives and do what you can. You can see the guide online now at: www.guide2giving.com.

I was in Ely the other day to collect some of the gear that we had rented to the firefighters working on the Pagami Creek fire. As you may imagine, they have rented from every outfitter in the Ely area. In the heat of battle, the firefighters don’t pay much attention to who provided any given piece of gear and it quickly becomes all mixed together. As part of the process in winding down the fire, the Forest Service collects all the gear in Ely and then works with each outfitter to get their gear back to them. It was interesting to hang around for a while and watch as pumps were returned, drained, serviced and staged for their return to storage. There were dozens of pallets of rolled fire hose sitting around. While I was there, a hotshot crew pulled in, unloaded a pile of hose, and in just a few minutes, straightened it, rolled it, bundled it and stacked it neatly on pallets. It was clear how good they are at the firefighting business just by watching them handle this one mundane chore.

The fire containment was strongly tested earlier this week with the continuation of freakishly warm and windy weather. The fire lines did their job, though, and the flare-ups and spot fires were handled without a problem. With the long range forecast looking much more seasonable and wet, decommissioning this fire will probably start in earnest this week.

Grouse hunting continues to be very good in the West End. Every hunter I talk to is getting birds and many report bagging their limit. We’ve been eating a lot of grouse here at Sawbill thanks to our crew members who enjoy hunting. Fishing, on the other hand, seems to be slowing way down. I have a vivid memory from when I was a little kid. I asked Dick Raiken, who owned Sawbill Lodge at the time and was the best woodsman I’ve ever met, about late fall fishing. I clearly remember him saying, “When the leaves go down, lean your fishing rod in the corner and take out your shotgun.” That advice has always held true.

Moose hunting season started this week, although you would hardly notice if you weren’t paying attention. The number of hunters is dwindling, along with the number of moose. This year, a big chunk of the moose hunting territory is closed due to the Pagami Creek fire. Hunters with licenses in the areas affected by the closures were given the chance to return their licenses for a refund, or take the risk that their hunting zone would be reopened before the season ends. Their decision was complicated by the realization that there may not be many more moose hunting seasons in the future if the population continues its downward trend. Minnesota moose licenses are parceled out through a lottery system and some hunters wait many years to win a license. They are only allowed one license in their lifetime, whether they bag a moose or not. In recent years, hunters have been limited to shooting bulls only. According to biologists, shooting bulls only causes almost no impact in the size of the overall moose herd.

Last year, we had two moose hunters staying in the Sawbill Lake campground. They were enthusiastic, but candid about the fact that they did not know what they were doing. In fact, one of the hunters had a chronic disease that severely impacted his stamina. Unfortunately, they shot a moose, late in the afternoon, about two miles from the nearest road. They came into the Sawbill store and offered our crew $100 per person to help fetch the moose out of the woods. Three of our crew, Luke Opel, Liz Foot and Marc LeVoir, took them up on their offer.

The hapless hunters led their three newly-hired Sherpas through the thick brush and rugged terrain to the moose. One of the hunters inexplicably left his rifle leaning against a tree halfway to the moose. The other left his ammunition in the truck. When the group reached the moose, they were horrified to discover that it was still alive. The hunter who left his rifle in the woods couldn’t find it again, so the other hunter made the long trek to the truck and back before dispatching the moose. After the arduous and messy task of field dressing the moose, they tied a haunch to a pack board, which Luke strapped on his back and headed off alone toward the truck through the pitch-black woods. As soon as he was out of earshot from the rest of the group, a pack of wolves started howling about a half mile away. Here was Luke, alone in the woods, in the dark, unarmed, not completely sure where he was going, with 150 pounds of warm, bloody meat strapped to his back and a pack of wolves closing in. It would be enough to unnerve the steadiest person. Luke’s only reaction was to unbuckle the hip belt on the pack, so he could shed it quickly if he needed to – and, well, he might have picked up his pace a little bit. The wolves left him alone though, and all’s well that ended well.

This year, we’ve only seen one successful moose hunting party so far. As I’ve said before, I’m not against hunting, but with so few moose left around here, I feel like they’re more valuable on the hoof than mounted over someone’s fireplace. The moose is such an icon of the north woods, it will be a crying shame if it disappears from the landscape.

I see that County Auditor Brady Powers is reporting that the bed tax collected in Cook County is continuing its upward trend. This is surely good news for everyone. While it’s good to be busy, we are almost to the time of year when most of the county stops, takes a breath, and enjoys a few quiet weeks before the winter season cranks up. The conversation at the post office lasts just a little longer, there are more frequent middle of the road visits with two cars side by side and the mood in the local watering hole is just a tad more jovial. It’s good to live in Cook County.