Wildersmith on the Gunflint: August 26

My, oh my, August along the Gunflint has almost slipped away, barely noticed. Seeing September 2016 on the horizon is hard to comprehend. But it is what it is, so bring on month nine.  

With the last big summer season weekend just seven days away, vacation activities are fading fast and another school year has our attention. If this isn’t stirring enough interest, I see tinges of orange on maple leaves, and the berries of mountain ash and high bush cranberries are exchanging tints of green for fall-like decorations. 

Amidst this autumnal advancement, except for one day of clouds and rain during the previous week, the upper Gunflint has been sparkling. In fact, when beginning this commentary last Sunday evening, our neighborhood had been so “cool” windows around the house remained closed all day for the first time in many weeks. That in mind, the moose and I are in “hog heaven” hoping for more of the air conditioning. 

After ten days of working nine to five on the timber frame project, I’m back in the retirement saddle. It was a splendid, but challenging experience with fourteen other Gunflint Community volunteers and three other great new acquaintances from outside the county.                                                                            
Some interesting statistics were recorded by one of our group showing the enormity of our undertaking. To mention a few: of the eighteen volunteers, the average age was just shy of sixty-eight years; in terms of time spent, the group contributed 1440 hours and adding in 160 instructor hours, the project consumed 1600 total hours; also a good number of us commuted on a daily basis, spinning the odometer for some 8000 miles.   To top all of this off, there were few “sugar plums dancing in our heads” as several night time moments found us awake in the wee hours hoping for the next day's complicated cut, to be finished as designed. One of many interesting comments made during our shaping episodes included “my head is about ready to explode” when transferring blue print dimensions to actual cut lines on a raw piece of wood.  

Getting to the crux of this project, our sawdust/wood chiseling team crafted a total of 103 white pine timbers ranging in length from sixteen to twenty-eight feet. Being either eight by eight or eight by ten inches, they were monsters to move about.

Our vocabulary focused on the joinery jargon of shaping corner posts, king posts, tie beams, bents, knee braces, rafters, purlins and a ridge beam, all components of the 24 by 36 foot structure. Uncountable saw cuts, mortises, tenons and chamfers produced bushels of shavings and sawdust.  

In the end, we made it! No fatalities, one serious chisel drop accounting for ten stitches, and only four band-aids, all sandwiched in with comforting smiles, supportive tips and encouragement from teammates, and two splendid North House Folk School instructors. A job well done will be determined when all the puzzle pieces are joined together next summer.  

Another Trail topic over the past week fostered a bit of humorous entertainment for some passers-by, while understandably, raising the dander of others.   

 It all began as a situation where an apparent remodeling effort found someone with a used commode on their hands. Perhaps, either trying to elicit a laugh, or just being ill-informed as to the legality of dumping such a unit, it was set up along the Trail.  

The porcelain throne sat roadside for a few days before signage was added entitled “Rest Area.” As we wood chippers drove by on a daily basis, we found that the lid would be up one day and down the next. So others were obviously getting involved in whatever comedic relief was intended. A roll of TP being posted alongside must have been the tipping point.

With an implied image of this being a new Gunflint Trail rest area things were headed in a downward flush. One can only imagine what could have been next, and complaints were on the rise, so I found out via our district County Commissioner. This apparently led the county highway department to terminate the trickery. The obvious, non-compliant facility has since been removed, and things are back to normal with scenic Trail flora being the point of attention once again.   

This is Fred Smith, on the Trail, at Wildersmith, where every day is great and some are even better!