April 1, 2008 After the Spring Snowstorm

STEPPING OFF THE TRAIL

Lynn coming back from the first clothes line hanging of laundry for the new year. Though the snow in the morning has the frozen boiler plate "Keweenaw Crust" that makes such good go-anywhere skiing, when it is thawing out the settled snow-slush will give way, sometimes even on the compacted trail.

April 1, 2008 Snowstorm

April Fools Day in the Keweenaw, after a spring snowstorm. The Upper Peninsula below us got the bulk of the snow. We got just 4 inches of wet, heavy fluff and a lot of wind to blow it around.
The picture above shows not just the paltry 4 inches of new snow, but also the last half of this winter's compacted-to-ice snow that has been slipping off the garage roof the last few days, and will lay in ice slabbed glory, to melt where it falls. The temperature today was a sunny 34 degrees with a prediction of 40 for tomorrow.

On the late afternoon of the last day of March (yesterday), as meteorologists predicted, the snow started to fall fast, adding to the thick, compacted snow that has been slowly, intermittently melting.
This is a winter that I feel relief experiencing - the first old-fashioned or "regular" winter in a decade - a winter that has held off from having regular thaws and instead has been cold and with ample snow that came early and is leaving late. Since my childhood I have felt a regular disappointment that our climate was warming when compared to what grandparents, parents and elders told me about their winters at the beginning of the 20th century. Now, with the irrefutable evidence of climate change shown in the news and in our environment, having a winter with regular cold and snow (both of which were lacking in the subarctic Alaskan interior for much of this winter) was a real relief. To the wimpy malcontents that I've listened to in the Keweenaw and Ely, MN regions, whining about the winter, " Please go south to the doldrums of heat and humidity. If you don't like winter, don't live here!"

Last night the wind started to blow gusts of 39 mph when I went to bed. Before I got into bed I remembered that I had left the extension ladder up against the chimney so moved it off the chimney before the wind blew it off.
In the morning the wind had diminished and the gray, stormy skies began to show sun by late morning. Lynn and I decided to bring the dogs and go skiing on the MTU trails up the road. Our no wax skis needed glide wax to keep the skis from slowing to a stop with clumping snow. The trail we followed was freshly groomed and it was a leisurely time for us as well as the dogs.

I cut out 2 canoe paddle blanks yesterday - one a cherry wood, the other an ash. I really like the deck for working on them during the spring, with its south facing orientation and its view of bird feeders, field fringed by woods and little creek valley. Lynn shoveled it this afternoon and it looks like it is ready for paddle carving and relaxing again.

Jeff Hull's "Streams of Consciousness" and the loss of species

As I sit here this morning by the fire, after reading a few stories in Jeff Hull's Streams of Consciousness, I think about Hull's stream fishing in North and South America. He writes of the grayling fishing in Montana and always in "Chasing Grayling" there is a sense of loss -- of the Grayling fish, of parts of the stream ecosystem to human development, of the loss of Hull's spiritually sensitive experience on the Big Hole River. Hull watched a young fisherman catch and injure the same fish that Hull had carefully caught and released earlier that day. Hull's sorrow and rage at the "progress" wrought by man that means a loss of whole wild nature runs like an undertow through the sea of his beautifully written descriptions of waters that he has fished.
In "Knots" Hull uses the metaphor of fishing knots to look at, among other things, the knots that people's desire end up making in trying to possess wild nature - trophy homes, loss of wildlife habitat, pollution of air, water and sight - not a rant by the author but a measured plaint to what is loss for everything living.
In "Estancia del Zorro" a University writing project about the impact of free trade on a fully capitalist Chile leads to a Patagonian fishing trip. Amidst rapidly rising extractive industries, unburdened by environmental regulations, Hull fishes on a guided trout fishing excursion in the relatively under-fished Patagonian streams. Here, his guide Rodrigo dreams of going to flight school to learn to fly helicopters so he can guide fishermen to waters that are unfished by anyone, an example of modern man's drive to "progress" beyond where other men have been, to make a mark for oneself in a new way.
Though I have focused on just one current in the stream of Jeff Hull's writing, to the exclusion of his Hemingway-like description of sporting people, dogs, waters and woods, what I came away from was the bittersweet sense of Hull's and my loss - of our youth, of innocence, of part of our birthright to land and water that is healthy, where man is not the dominant species. Yes, the wild is still out there, but it is mostly just background to man's dominance and "progress".

SKI and DOGSLED 2008

Here we are at the height of winter and I'm too busy with guiding, travel between MN and MI, spending limited family time to really sit down and concentrate on making blog entries. My back seems to be holding on to mobility in spite of its deteriorated L-5 disc and I'm classic skiing on dog team trips (due to quite a bit of snow in Minnesota's Arrowhead region and skate skiing back home on the Michigan Tech trails. Both seem good for my back.


The lodge-to-lodge sleds that I am standing by are evolved by Paul Schurke to a pretty ideal form for 2 guests to mush together on, pulled by 5 Inuit dogs. Made of steel, plastic and aluminum, they stand up to more abuse than any other more traditional toboggan dogsled .

Picture by Lynn as we start out on a classic ski on the Maasto Hiito ski trails. On this winter of big snow and high wind, the oak tree is still holding on to some of its leaves that were rattling in the breeze that day.

On the County Road #6, between Finland and Little Marais, on my way over in January to visit Kate at Grand Marais, MN. An above freezing snow in December left much of the forest cloaked in a heavy layer of snow that bent down alder, birch and willow branches and led to hard mushing. A willow branch whipped in my eye on New Years eve caused a cornea surface tear. Though small, it was painful for days.

Daughter Kate and her friend Nathaniel at the gorge and falls on the Devil's Track River, just a walk from Kate's cabin outside Grand Marais, MN. Kate was about to get back her car after an alarm by shorted wiring disabled it while she was home in Houghton for Christmas. Lynn was driving the repaired car over to Kate and I was over for a visit after guiding, before taking Lynn back to Houghton.

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.