Jay Cooke re-opens after June flood

After the flood
Jay Cooke State Park is one of the great recreational assets of the North Shore area. I feature it in every book I've written. It's got great ski trails, a terrific campground, and miles of diverse hiking.

But since the June flood, the park has been completely closed. All of the major roads leading into the park were severely damaged. Even the iconic Swinging Bridge over the St. Louis River was half-destroyed. As the salty old Mainer would say, "You can't get they-uh from hee-uh."


Today, the park reopened to the public, but just in part. Of the three main roads that led to the park, just one is open. And the Swinging Bridge won't be open again for at least another year. 

Getting there
To reach the main park facility, including the campground and visitor center, you have to come through the little town of Thompson. Take Exit 242 off Interstate 35 and turn south on Carlton County Highway 1. This leads you about three miles through Thompson and to State Highway 210. Turn left on 210, and it's about two miles into the park. 

From the visitor center area, you can hike on the wide, mowed ski trails of the campground area or just stroll along the river bank. Say hi to the park staff, who have been working really hard to get the place reopened.

Secret inside information coming
Watch this space as ski season approaches. I know two "secret" back ways onto the park's excellent network of ski trails, including the long stretches of trail across the closed Swinging Bridge.

Check out the new wayside at Split Rock

If you've driven on the North Shore this summer, you surely experienced the traffic back ups for construction in the Split Rock area. MnDOT completed a two-year-long project straightening out Highway 61 just west of the Lighthouse. The new highway is gorgeous, wide and fast.

The new highway alignment runs about 200 yards away from one of the North Shore's most distinct wayside rests, a classic pull-off with a great view of Split Rock Lighthouse and the open waters of Lake Superior. For the traveler dedicated to enjoying Lake Superior, this is a great change. 

Follow the spanking new blue "Wayside Rest" signs off of Highway 61, and you'll loop away from the new highway and back over to the old highway. 

Not only is the old wayside rest still there, it has been substantially improved. I love the variety of rocks found in the pillars...North Shore gabbro and diabase, granite from somewhere, even a southern Minnesota limestone.

Now, instead of having highway traffic speed by just feet away from you as you try to take in the view, scenic viewers have the overlook all to themselves. A foot trail leads away from the overlook toward the lighthouse; next time I'll find out where that goes,

MnDOT may iron the curves out of Highway 61 until it's an arrow-straight line from Duluth to Grand Portage, but as long as they leave these quiet and scenic waysides, I'm okay with it.

North Shore colors: Remember the Superior National Forest

Oberg Lake and the Superior National Forest from the Oberg Mountain Trail, September 2009

This weekend will be one of the busiest and most beautiful of the year on the North Shore, as the autumn color show is at its peak and the weather forecast is fine. While thousands will head for the state parks, those in the know will head for the Superior National Forest...whether they know it or not.

Most of the Superior Hiking Trail east of Tofte is in the Superior National Forest. Favorite fall color hikes like Oberg and Leveaux mountains are in the National Forest, and so is most of the Lutsen gondola hike. 

The Superior National Forest promotes great automobile tours for fall colors, including this guide for the North Shore. They have four different drives to recommend, including the Moose Drive up toward the Cramer Road and the Maple Leaf Drive that loops behind Carlton Peak through the heartbreakingly beautiful maples of Heartbreak Ridge. 

The forest also maintains a whimsical fall color conditions report . In the latest edition, they let Winnie the Pooh suggest:

Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, 

listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering.

If you can't make it up the shore and are stuck at your computer, tap into the National Forest's  Flickr photostream of current fall colors.

Miss North Shore, please come home

What is the North Shore? What does it mean to live there? And...can saying you live here make it true?

The Lake County News Chronicle reported on a case of mistaken North Shore identity. The four contestents for the title of Miss North Shore listed their homes as Silver Bay, Two Harbors...and "Scenic Highway 61." The eventual winner, Caitlyn Thompson, was the person from the scenic highway. 

After some consideration by authorities, however, it was decided that Ms. Thompson did not actually live on the North Shore. She lives in a Twin Cities suburb, Vadnais Heights.


View Larger Map

Ms. Thompson's family has a summer vacation home in Holyoke. Holyoke is a small settlement in the Nemadji River area south of Jay Cooke State Park. You reach it off Highway 23, the scenic back route shortcut between Duluth and Sandstone. Holyoke is within 30 miles of Lake Superior, as the crow flies. But it's not really the North Shore.

So the title of Miss North Shore, and the $1000 scholarship, passed on to first runner-up Kimberly Jacobson of Two Harbors. 

I say, "Welcome to the North Shore, Ms. Thompson." Keep saying you live here, and eventually you really will. Holyoke isn't quite as North Shore cool as, say, Finland or Maple Hill, but it's close. We need more talented, energetic young people moving here. When Ms. Thompson finishes her nursing studies at St. Thomas, I bet there's a job for her in Grand Marais or Duluth.

I remember when I was in my early 20s, a lifelong resident of the Twin Cities but also a Boundary Waters guide and frequent North Shore explorer. At one point, I started telling people I lived in northern Minnesota. It took a few more years of actually living in Ely to make that true, but it was so important...and felt so good!...just to say it.

The rules of the beauty pageant may have ruled her not a real "Miss North Shore." But saying you live on the Shore, even when you're stuck in the suburbs, is the first step to making it true. 

Snow buntings

Driving from Ely to the North Shore yesterday, I was stunned and thrilled by the flocks of snow buntings rising from the road as we passed. Photos were simply impossible, since we were going at least 60 mph and the birds popped up without warning. But the beauty of the flock in flight, the flashing of dozens of white wings, called out for something, somehow, to capture it.

Maybe some snow bunting simile?

Half-burnt aspen leaves, caught in the updraft, rise and dance from the burn pile.

Snowflakes scatter from the road, up and out and away, only there is no snowstorm.

Snow buntings, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology,  are migratory birds for whom Minnesota is "south." They nest in the high Arctic. There, the males arrive weeks ahead of the females, in the long long sunrise of the Arctic spring. Prime nesting sites are deep in rock crevices, which the males line with their own feathers. The birds we see here are scrubby brown and white, with dramatic flashes of bright white when they fly. The males rub off that winter plumage to line their nests and to reveal their summer plumage of all black and all white.

The best photo of snow buntings in flight I could find online comes from the website of Donald and Lillian Stokes.  Check it out!

Hiding from Grandmas

We're prepared for the storm. Two bottles of milk. Lunch meats and cheese. A DVD from Blockbuster. It's not a blizzard, not even this crazy year. It's Grandma's Marathon weekend. But like when a blizzard hits, we're not going ANYWHERE for the next two days.

Duluth gets so locked up by Grandma's...by the car traffic arriving, by the runners in THREE different races...that you have to plan far ahead.



Our friends in Grand Marais are even suggesting skipping Duluth entirely on your way to their fair harbor town, heading nearly to the Iron Range and then taking Superior National Forest Scenic Byway across to Silver Bay.

Since we live out on Minnesota Point and the only way to reach us is through Canal Park, the marathon foot and car traffic essentially cuts us off from the rest of the world. Which is fine with me. Maybe we'll have a picnic in the middle of Lake Avenue. All those gardeners who don't like showing their rear end to the world can work in their front yards all day long on Saturday.

Maybe, just maybe, the Lake Superior water will be warm enough for a swim.

Cheaper gas in Two Harbors: A geopolitical plot?

Here's a way to save (literally) a buck or two on your next trip to the North Shore: Buy your gas in Two Harbors. Week after week, the gas in Two Harbors is about seven cents cheaper per gallon than in Duluth. On Monday, gas was $2.58 in Two Harbors and $2.65 in Duluth.

Fill up a big, empty tank and save enough money to put some ice cream on your pie.

Apparently the Krist station sets the low price, and the other stores match it.

Here's where this gets interesting. The word is that Krist is actually owned by Citgo, which is largely owned by Venezuela. Is the populist leader Hugo Chavez behind this all? Is there a plot to hook us all on cheaper gas? This is the same country/"dictator" who offered super-cheap heating fuel to Native American communities, including our own Grand Portage.

Personally, I'm a total addict of the North Shore's Holiday Stores. I know them all and what kind of cheap cappuccino they serve. I make a point of filling up in Two Harbors on my way back home, partly for the tiny savings and partly for one last bit of caffeine for the final miles. Geopolitics? Nah, just a sweet tooth.

Welcome back, Moab Man

Last February we had a bad car accident here in Duluth. We were all packed up for a week in Ely and headed out of town when a woman ran a red light in downtown and t-boned our Honda CRV. Almost three months later, we're still nursing some injuries. One of the sadder parts of the whole thing was losing the car and its memories, including the sticker of the Moab Man pictograph.

At least one part of our recovery is complete. After wrassling with the insurance agency over the value of the old car, we bought a new (used) CRV in Phoenix. Same year, a few less miles. I drove the new car back from Phoenix via Moab. I hiked around Comb Ridge, in the Fiery Furnace in Arches and a new trail in Canyonlands. Three years to the day after buying my last Moab Man sticker, I found another one in the same store.

The sticker had to be a different color though. Like most Arizona cars, the new CRV is white.



Putting that new sticker on was a small step to recovering our lives. It felt great.

I now pronounce you goofy

On my drive back from Arizona, I listened to the audio version of William Kent Krueger's Purgatory Ridge. Purgatory Ridge is a fictional North Shore location, just west of Beaver Bay. It was pretty cool running across dry flat South Dakota while immersed in Northeastern Minnesota. The mystery plot is riveting and the action spreads from Ely to the North Shore to the depths of Lake Superior.

The CD's producer, Books in Motion is based in Washington State. The Northwest performer, in addition to relying heavily on "Fargo" for his Scandinavian character accents, has some issues with pronouncing North Shore landmarks:

Here's "Tett-a-goo-chee"



Okay, that's a common mistake. But here's "Grand Ma-ray-iss"



The little town at the intersection of Highway 61 and Highway 1 is "ILL-ghen." Oh, and the vast Ontario wilderness north of the BWCA apparently is pronounced "kwa-TEEK-oh."

My own town's name is butchered all the time. At the Super 8 in Dillon, Colorado, the clerk read my address as "DULL-ith."

Thanks for trying. Next time, check those pronunciations with the author, who knows better.

Deer Abby: Advice for driving Hwy 61

It's March and the deer are all over Highway 61, making ravens and eagles happy and drivers nervous.

They say there are two kinds of North Shore drivers: those that have hit a deer, and those that haven't...yet. I still fall into the second category. But that's only a matter of my own dumb luck. My turn will come.

I'm tempting fate here, but here's what I've learned so far in my stellar no-deer stretch of luck:

1. If you keep it under 55 at night, you'll have much more reaction time should Bambi pop out from behind a birch tree.
2. Be especially observant at dawn and dusk . I see a lot more deer and they are moving more at those times. They call this behavior "crepuscular," which sounds like "creepy" and "muscular." Which is what deer are at night.
   
3. Watch for flashes. If an oncoming car flashes highbeams at you, it might be a warning that there are deer ahead. Check your own headlights and then keep your eyes out for deer in the next 10-15 seconds.
   

If you see a deer:

1. Where there's one, there may be more. In winter, deer are more likely to move in herds. If one has crossed the road safely, there's a decent chance that a second will follow.Don't let that SECOND one be your FIRST.
   
2. Honk your horn. Flash your highbeams for the oncoming traffic to warn them. No, gangsters won't track you down and kill you for a random gang initiation...that's urban myth.
3. Don't swerve. Stay in your lane. Brake firmly but not so hard you lose control. I've had plenty of close calls and stayed in my lane as I braked ("broke?"). By the way, experts suggest that you DO swerve if you're headed for a moose. I have never seen a moose on Highway 61, but it does happen. A 1600-pound moose wins the battle with your car much more often than a 200-pound deer.
   

If you hit a deer, hope you have your hunting knife. I'm not kidding: a friend of mine took this advice from her father and was able to gut out and keep a deer another car had just hit.


Okay, now I've done it. I've jinxed myself. See you at the body shop.

Goodbye, Moab Man

Over the years, your car becomes you. All those miles driving with friends and family. All those arrivals at trailheads and put-ins. And, of course, the stickers you apply.

Moab Man joined our Honda CRV after a particularly fun road trip three years ago through southeast Utah. It's a very simplified version of a real petroglyph just outside Moab, Utah. We LOVED Moab Man. He was like a family pet, only one you didn't have to feed or walk. He was our freedom and our wanderlust.

Moab Man, and the car he was attached to, went to the junkyard last week.

All four of us were packed into the car and on our way to Ely for the week. A car ran a red light in downtown Duluth and bashed us hard, sending us into oncoming traffic where we got bashed hard again. Air bags went off, it was way too loud and way too scary.



Moab Man made it through the accident without a scratch, unlike me (burns and bruises) or Sally (bruises all over). We also left the Minnesota state park sticker attached to the car.

The car was totaled, and now we're wrestling with the insurance adjusters to replace the vehicle. But there's no replacing Moab Man.

The deer have come down...early

When the snow on the North Shore ridges is deep and the snow right by the lakeshore is thin, deer move to the lakeshore to feed. It's normally in March that the deer really move to the lakeshore, when early spring sun has melted the snow off the south-facing slopes.

The great deer slaughter on the North Shore has already begun. With the weird rain/snow blends we've had, the snow inland is as deep as ever and the snow by the lake is almost absent. The deer have come down. Early.

Yesterday there were at least five fresh carcasses between Duluth and Grand Marais.

Personally, I don't mind the loss of deer. There are too many deer on the North Shore and not enough white pine or cedar trees. I'd rather have way fewer deer, so that the pine and cedar trees can grow again.

I just worry about the cars and their drivers...including myself!

Be careful out there!

The North Shore Billboard War

It's getting ugly out there in billboard land. Are people sick of summer already? My theory is that hospitality workers are taking out their stress on these billboard as they return for one or two more weeks of crazy time.

I-35 is the artery that feeds the North Shore. Every day hundreds or thousands of Twin Citians, starved for blueberry pie, a wild hike, or a view of a distant horizon, head up the Interstate to Lake Superior. A slew of billboards between Forest Lake and Hinckley have been set up to drive those tourists to select destinations.

Those oh-so-clever people in Grand Marais nailed a fake herring gull to their billboard. And "someone" stole the bird. Now they're offering a "reward," with the rather tacky phrase "We just want someone to give us the bird." Do they really want someone to make an obscene gesture in the general direction of the Lake Superior Trading Post?

My theory is that it was one of the hard-working guest workers from Eastern Europe who could just not stand another guest demanding hotel Wi-Fi that reaches to Artists Point.

So what's next?



Will a stressed-out dishwasher from Lutsen steal the caribou statue from Great Lakes Aquarium and jam it splashing into the picture of Caribou Highlands' outdoor pool?



Maybe a Glensheen Mansion summer tour guide will get sick of the Congdon murder questions. I can think of, but would rather not share here, felonious objects that might be added to or stolen from the Glensheen billboard.



Perhaps some lifeguard tired of cleaning bubblegum from the waterslide strainers would appreciate a (removable) moustache on that pony-tail girl at the Edge.

Hang in there, North Shore workers! Kids are back in school and the best few weeks of summer are ahead. Destroying billboards was fun for Edward Abbey, but will not look good on your resume.

Take the Scenic Route!

Fourth of July has come and gone, so summer on the North Shore is in high gear.

To me, one of the main indicators of summer on the shore is the big pick-up truck RV swaying and bouncing along Highway 61 at 45 mph leading a train of 5,6,8,10 cars through the curves. If you're in a hurry to get somewhere, it's frustrating to be caught in the train of cars. Passing on Highway 61 is a risky endeavor at any time.

But, hey, you're on vacation. If you're headed up or down the shore and the traffic is looking heavy, don't stress---relax and take the scenic route!

All along the North Shore, there are secondary roads that parallel Highway 61 and can get you from almost whatever Point A to nearly any Point B you want.



Last week I drove Lake County Road 3 from Two Harbors to Beaver Bay. It's a beautiful stretch of road through a variety of terrain. 30 miles of paved and gravel roads bypass 23 miles of Highway 61. The roadside was littered with wildflowers, from towering cow parsnip to meadow rue to fields full of daisies.

County Road 3 is really easy to find. You turn left (north) just past Bettys Pies and you're on it.

The first 8-10 miles are in lovely agricultural landscapes, with old barns and open fields, dark green ridges of the Superior Hiking Trail in the distance. Stop for pictures, but use caution as the road is narrow.

The middle 8 miles are on gravel and are very wooded. You're on old logging railroad grades here. Scattered through the woods are run-down tarpaper shacks left over from the railroad and logging days. You cross the upper reaches of familiar North Shore rivers, like the Gooseberry and the Split Rock; here they're just gurgling brooks.

The last 7 miles are paved again and bring you back through scenic fields and ridges, like this view near the Silver Bay airport:



One of the best parts of the drive is also one of the hardest to find. About 3.5 miles past the Silver Bay airport, with a hillside full of crushed boulders on the left, the road dips down and back up again. At the top of the far side of the dip, an unmarked clay dirt road turns roughly to the right and leads to a field. Below that field is Glen Avon Falls, a watery playground on the Beaver River.



From Glen Avon Falls, it's 1.2 miles further on County Road 3 to a T-junction with Lax Lake Road. Turn right on Lax Lake Road for the short drive down the hill to Beaver Bay. There, you can get back on the busy highway and continue on your way,

If you drive straight through, this scenic back route takes about an hour to drive. Plus, instead of getting mad at that bouncy, swaying camper, you can get happy about wildflowers, wildlife, and waterfalls.

Straight across the Heart of Darkness

In Joseph Conrad's great novel, Heart of Darkness, the character Marlow recounts his voyage deep into a dark continent trying to advance French colonial aspirations. The native people help in the carrying of trade goods. And deep in the continent at a colonial station is Kurtz (i.e. Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now), the demigod and the man most deeply transformed by the experience of being in deep.

Yesterday, I drove across the heart of Wisconsin, listening to Conrad's novel on disk. Wisconsin is a deep and strange wilderness to me. I normally stick to my side of the Mississippi and St. Croix rivers. But my family had given me "trade goods," and told me of the "colonial station" to which I was to bring them.

According to Rand McNally, it was quicker to drive straight across Wisconsin from Winona to Duluth than to go through the more familiar Twin Cities I-35 route. I snuck across the mighty Mississippi river at Winona, and drove up through the very scenic Driftless Area on Highway 93. Green Bay Packers logos were scattered here and there. Eau Claire, with its shopping malls and chain stores, was a refuge of civilization, but just north of Eau Claire the land turned truly alien. A highway sign pointed to Green Bay itself. Three times the straight lanes of Highway 53 passed under "County Road Q".

In the Holiday gas station, on a Sunday, they were selling wine. And cheese curds. Bizarre.

Then finally in Rice Lake, a mile off the expressway, I reached the trading station:



Natives in their simple dress of elastic-waist khakis and polo shirts greeted me. Since I carried an empty 11-inch pie tin for trading, they assumed I meant no harm. If they had known that my true loyalties were with the Minnesota Vikings, I might have been buried in lefse or, worse, whipped topping.

I didn't enter Norske Nook far enough to know if Kurtz was there, in a booth in the darkest corner. Or, if not Kurtz, what demigod would Wisconsinites worship? Maybe good old #4?

Minnesota has colonial aspirations on Wisconsin's own demigod, Brett Favre. That makes me murmur, as Kurtz did on his deathbed, "The horror, the horror."

I traded for a Blueberry Crunch pie. It's a huge pie and we're still eating it. And someday I can dig out the empty tin and send it off with someone else on their own journey across the Heart of Darkness.
_______________________

I'm going to get it big time from my wife and mother-in-law, who have real Wisconsin and Scandinavian cred and might find the above post, well, insulting. But I couldn't pass this next bit up. After my journey across Wisconsin with a pie tin for trade goods, I'm waxing philosophic.

Marlow, in Heart of Darkness, on the meaning of life:

"Droll thing, life is, that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself that comes too late. A crop of inextinguishable regrets."

Wisconsin, on the meaning of life:

I hate to admit it, but I really prefer Wisconsin's.

Who's honking now?

I was really heartened to hear all the concern about the Honking Tree. This was a landmark white pine near the Two Harbors end of the expressway. To a lot of people, passing the Honking Tree was like passing a gateway, either to the wild North Shore or to their home town. Some person did a stupid, stupid thing.

For some insight into the mind of this sort of tree killer, read The Golden Spruce, by John Vaillant, about a very troubled guy who cut down a revered and unique spruce tree on, I think, Queen Charlotte Island.

Go another sixty miles up Highway 61, and the roadside trees are falling like dominos:



There's a four or five mile stretch of Highway 61, between Tofte and Lutsen, that's getting The Treatment this summer. The road will be widened, so there are two lanes of travel and wide shoulders on both sides. The Gitchi Gami bike trail will be built alongside. Actually, the road is moving "to the left", and the bike trail will be where the eastbound traffic lane is now.

So it will be safer, especially for bike riders. And a bit less wild. Roads, especially National Scenic Byways like this one, have to balance scenic quality and safety

If one tree falls, we may notice.

If a forest falls, we may not.

North Woods death march

Noah and I went to Washington DC this last week and had a great time walking to the monuments, the White House, and a few museums. When Noah announced on Day Two that he didn't like walking and he didn't like museums, it was time for a new plan. On Sunday we rented a car and drove north out of town.

We crossed over some relic Appalachian mountains and through a 18th century village founded by Daniel Boone's cousins (sure sign that we were headed for the wilderness). We even crossed the Appalachian Trail. But I didn't realize how far north we'd gone until I saw this sign:



The amateur forest ecologist in me got snarky. Apparently the North Woods of white pine and northern hardwoods had petered out exactly right here. Apparently, decades of debate among forest ecologists, about ecotones and isotherms had been settled. A National Park Service interpretive sign marked the spot.

In fact, this was at the Antietam battlefield, site of "the bloodiest day" of the Civil War. Just back of this sign is the Corn Field, where about 1000 each of Union and Confederate soldiers died in a massive face-off.

Here's a painting of the battle, from Captain James Hope of the 2nd Vermont Infantry. The soldiers in the front left are Confederate artillery. The "North Woods" are in the back left. The lines on the right are Union soldiers marching to their death.



The symmetry was nice...they marched to their death to protect Washington DC, and I nearly marched Noah to death in Washington DC. Only they were patriotic and I was just trying to be a good father.

On the road

We drove from Ely to Duluth along Highway 1 the other day. There's some woozy curves along the way, especially woozy for kids in the back seat. I guess Noah wanted some fresh air, or he'd been inspired by the poodle, but he seemed to be enjoying the cool fall air and the breeze as we passed near Isabella.

When Noah grins like this, my whole world lights up.