Xmas Bird Count 2007

December has been a snowy month and the temperature has stayed below freezing the whole half month. Perhaps that accounts for the poor birding that was had by all in the area... as well as the snow and wind that was prevalent on the Sunday the 16th of the count. There were a lot of the regular chickadee, nuthatch and woodpecker occupants at the feeding station but when Muir and i went down to the Pilgrim river in the snowstorm, we only saw a lone bald eagle and a couple of chickadees. The eagle was flying with regular wing beats along the Pilgrim River course and was then gone. Nothing else was moving as we snowshoed a round-about course through gullies and woods. Noticed that Aholas have added a new plywood enclosed deer stand to their farm complete with a Cabela's timed feeder that meters out a bit of corn each day as bait. I wondered if the fat spike buck that I've seen eating apples by the garden goes there to feed.
After our snowshoe cruise Lynn, Muir and I drove over to Nara Nature Trails and snowshoed down the boardwalks and across the ice a couple of times and out to Princess point and around the sewage plant and then back to the car without seeing anything living nor even tracks... except at Pilgrim Terrace there was a man and his dog out for a walk.

Lynn bundled against the elements at the entrance to the nara Trails boardwalk that goes down along the Pilgrim River and sloughs at it's outlet into Portage Lake.

Lynn, Don and Dixie out at Princess Point. Dixie gamely accompanied us on the whole jaunt with a badly split toe nail for her efforts. Her arthritis seems to be better this year and she has put on a bit more weight to help insulate her from the cold. Her favorite spot this time of year is by the wood heater.

Muir, talking to his girlfriend with his cell phone; on the trail of the elusive rare bird, that have become more common (witness the Northern Cardinals that we were too far north for until recently) in these days of global warming.

New Boots

Bought me a pair of cowhide boots, to be prepared for winter walks. The shoemaker praised them because they were made a year ago. I feel like an armed man now. The man who has bought his boots feels like him who has got in his winter’s wood. There they stand beside me in the chamber, expectant, dreaming of far woods and wood-paths, of frost-bound or slushy roads, of being bound with skate-traps and clogged with ice-dust. H.D. Thoreau, Journal, Dec.3, 1856

I also got a new pair of boots - mukluks to fit the environment that I like to be in. Though not indigenous to the north woods hereabout, with their rubber soles they do quite nicely on those days when the temperature rises to thaw. .I have always felt good in a pair of soft soled boots in the winter time. I got my dad's Maine hunting shoes, a soft soled rubber bottom leather topped boot when I was in junior high school, that I would wear in the woods and on my paper route that I walked in the winter. They were (and still are) made in Maine by LL Bean and are very serviceable for wet fall conditions and in winter, if it isn't too cold.
When I went to Alaska I started wearing Nunamiut - made kamiks, made of caribou hide, with the fur turned in (caribou bull neck hide) for the sole and the upper portion of the boot from the caribou leg with the fur turned out. Light and very warm; not to be used above zero Fahrenheit or else the moisture woild degrade the skin and it would rip. Many spinoffs to the Inuit "mukluk" have been devised, also native tanned moccasins - all originals and later models are light and warm due to their flexibility. Denny Akeya, a St Lawrence Island Siberian Yupic told me that he quit being able to wear their sealskin mukluks, though he wished that he could, because as he became an adult, his weight on his feet didn't give him enough support with mukluks. Fortunately I never had that problem.
Lynn would make smoke tanned moose hide bottom and unbleached canvas top mukluks and moccasins when we lived in Eagle. They looked a bit like the Steger mukluks that are in the picture. I bought this pair last year in the Steger Store in Ely, during a sale that they were having. The advantage with these mukluks is that they have commercially tanned moose hide that , though less porous and insulating than smoke tanned, is more durable and the rubber bottoms are grippy and not affected by wet conditions. With a wool felt liner, they are warm, flexible (which keeps the foot warm and comfortably circulating) and with good traction.
A friend of mine who I guided dog team trips with, Scott N. once, in a late season trip, got his Steger mukluks thoroughly soaked for 3 days in rain. The mukluks were none the worse for wear and his feet did O K too. By the end of that trip we were mushing on bare ground!

I still have my old Steger's that I got while I was living in Eagle. Though worn, they are still serviceable. They have a shorter canvas top which is handy and serviceable.I have to keep sole saver coating, a rubber cement-like substance brushed on them after letting a dog sled trip client with cold feet use them one below zero morning. I told her to keep them away from the camp fire, but she forgot and melted the rubber bottom and ever after they have been sticky unless the sole saver is applied to them. I got Lynn a pair like my old ones for winter treks and camps. Much warmer, lighter and less "clunky than Sorel pak boots.

Each year, since i lived in Anaktuvuk Pass, I feel much like Thoreau when it is time to get out the winter moccasins or mukluks. That sense of excitement to be wearing true boots of the north, Native designed and adapted for the northland.
I now have a pair of 3 season "wrap-around top" moccasins from Steger Co. that I've used for snowshoe use as well as using when the conditions are dry. On my feet the soft soles feel right.

Beside the Steger "Expedition" mukluks is one of my ski boots that are seeing a lot of use with the beautiful snows that we are now having.

Thanksgiving 2007 and Beyond

Some are saying that it has been 10 years since we've had the start of a winter like we're having. In my northern perspective, I couldn't be more delighted.

Thanksgiving was a long distance car trip over to Grand Marais, MN to spend it with Kate and Matt at Kate's cabin out by the shores of Lake Superior, a couple of miles from the village of Grand Marais. Lynn and I took off out of Houghton early on Thanksgiving day, bringing the cooked turkey and many of the fixings. We arrived in the early afternoon with Kate and Matt waiting for us. Matt was looking very urban in his wool and cashmere pea jacket, just arrived from Minneapolis. We were, beyond dinner bringing Kate a convection oven and our futon so that she would have a couch and bed for other guests who may visit her. Her little cabin was cozy for the dinner with the 3 of us and her boyfriend Nathaniel, who came for dinner in spite of having a bad cold.
The next day Muir called from Duluth and said that he was coming up to Grand Marais to visit with his girlfriend Katelyn and go hiking on the North Country Trail. We had a nice visit and evening with all of us together. In the early afternoon Muir and Katelyn left and went to a section of the trail for camping and hiking. We had a fun time getting to know Kate's village a bit better and having a fun time doing a bit of shopping (something I ordinarily dislike) with a purchase of a sale dutch oven and a couple of books. Ordered out pizzas from "Sven and Ole's " and made trout chowder.
We drove Matt in to Duluth for his bus ride back to U of M in the Twin Cities. Walked the trails at Gooseberry Falls on the way. We also went up to the Miller Hill mall to buy him some needed clothes at special discounted holiday prices... ain't consumerism wonderful?
We had left our dog Gabe back in Houghton in a cold kennel that a friend had. He is much more capable of living outdoors than Dixie, Muir's short haired Staffordshire terrier. Dixie couldn't really be left in an unheated place and in order to put them in a commercial kennel, dogs need to have a kennel cough shot, which Dixie doesn't have. So she came along with us.She actually did very well on the trip.
It was great to see Kate's living and work environment, to have Thanksgiving in her little cabin and with all 5 of us together it was very special.

Within a couple of days of getting back to the U P we started to get snow and that has been the story now for weeks! As a skier friend of mine said recently: "This winter is like they all used to be."

Lynn, Kate and Dixie along Lake Superior. We were out for a walk after a Thanksgiving feast.

Matt, Muir and Kate at Kate's cabin above Lake Superior, about 3 miles out of Grand Marais, Minnesota. Thanksgiving, 2007.