The lake is back

I've been up and down the North Shore this summer, including a beautiful day (above) on top of Corundum Point at Split Rock SP. But it wasn't until yesterday when walked out on our backyard Park Point Lake Superior beach and realized: the lake is up!

This big lake, always changing, but always the same. It's like an old friend, and how Simon and Garfunkel sang, "After changes upon changes, we are more or less the same." Sure, go off and try a new look, a new attitude, a new water level, but I know you'll be back, basically the same dynamic person...or lake... I've come to know and love.

In just one year, the Lake Superior water level has returned almost to normal. Lake level is 15 inches higher than July 2007. Of course it's been a gradual rise, but something about the lake yesterday made the change really hit me.

If you're into numbers and climate stuff, check out the Minnesota Climatology Working Group and their monthly newsletter. They go into all the detail statewide of increased precipitation, etc.

But for me, it's just a relief to see the water up where it should be. It was discomforting to have the North Shore shoreline so changed, so exposed. My rowing friends were sick of dodging logs and sandbars in the Duluth harbor. We need all the wake-up calls we can get about climate change and the warmer, drier North Shore that awaits us. But it's also comforting to have some constants in my life, for now. Old friends...they always come back.