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.

Detour to Lester Park

Starting June 21 (a few days after Grandmas Marathon; no coincidence), virtually all traffic headed to the North Shore will be detoured at the eastern edge of Duluth. This is not the Megaproject (aka Armageddon) on Duluth's stretch of I-35, but the repair of the historic bridge over the Lester River.

The bridge really is historic: it's on the National Register. The opportunity the detour provides is historic as well.

If you're like 95% of the travelers to the North Shore, you have driven right past Lester Park without knowing it's there. Now's your chance to change that.



Lester Park is the first real North Shore park. It's got the churning waterfalls, it's got the tall white pine trees, it's got lovely trails.



The detour will take you off London Road and on to Superior Street. Follow the detour for about two blocks on Superior Street, and turn left on Lester River Road. The main parking lot for Lester Park is on your left after about 200 yards. Park there and head across the stone foot bridge, which gives you your first view of the Lester River.



Let the kids play at the big playground for a bit and get your bearings. Lester River and Amity Creek join right below the playground. After playing off some steam, take off and explore Amity Creek. A lovely trail goes up one side and back down the other, past some of the largest and most beautiful white pines on the North Shore. Crazy local high school boys might be jumping off the waterfall into what they call "The Deeps."

It's a great bit of Duluth you've driven by a hundred times. This summer is your chance...finally...to explore Lester Park.

Lupines, as predicted

Back in early April, Edwin Way Teale and I predicted that the North Shore lupine would bloom in early June. That was based on the lupines I saw blooming then in Arizona and the way that spring "moves" north.

All the flowers have been off this year, two or three weeks early in some cases due to the warm early spring. So I was only a little surprised to find the lupine in full glory along Highway 61 a few days ago. Between Two Harbors and Gooseberry there are some fine patches of this flower. It's like a bonus fall color season, only in the early summer.

They are definitely blooming earlier than normal. The last week of June is pretty common for the lupine bloom, as I've noted in this blog here and here (for 2009 and 2008). I know this especially because we had lots of fresh North Shore lupines as table decorations at our June 29 wedding.

Way to go, Edwin Way Teale!

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.

A North Shore deck for everyone

There's a deck with a view waiting for you at Gooseberry.

On most lakes, the best part of your own private estate is the dock down by the water. Docks are useless on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Unless they are made of tons of concrete and are in a protected bay, the big lake will take them away.

Instead of a dock, the best part of your own private North Shore estate is your deck. Many a fancy gathering has been on a North Shore deck, many an inspirational journal entry written.

There are three terrific, gorgeous, brand new North Shore decks available to anyone willing to hike a mile or so at Gooseberry Falls State Park.



Gather three or four of your best friends. Pack up your favorite hors d'oeuvres and beverages. Take the two-mile Gitchi Gummi trail to the secluded southeastern corner of the park, across the river from the main visitor center area. Less than a mile in you'll find the first of two new platforms perched over dramatic Lake Superior views. This one is alright. It's built right in front of the historic stone CCC shelter.

Hike just a bit further to the second and third decks. Claim the lower one. Pull out your journal or your canapes. Toast the lake and each other and the good fortune of hiking on the North Shore.

The platforms were built in the name of erosion protection and interpretation. You can claim them for yourself, for an hour or so, in the name of pleasure and celebration. It's your own personal North Shore deck. Just be sure to clean up when you leave.

Bloggus borealis

How "north" is the North Shore? One clue might be the flowers you see along the trail.

The scientific names of flowers show their genus first, and then their species name. Like the trillium I saw the other day, Trillium grandiflora. It was a trillium, that's the genus. Grandiflora means "big leaves." That's the species.

Here in the North Woods, we have lots of plants that have their species name sounding like something from the north. And one of my favorite species name is borealis, meaning "of the North."

Hiking yesterday, it was one borealis after another. The starflower above is Trientalis borealis, roughly translated as "4-inch flower of the North."



Bluebead lily is Clintonia borealis. Roughly translated as "bead lily of the North."



And twinflower is Linnaea borealis. Roughly translated as "Carl's favorite flower of the North."



There's a great story about this flower. It was so loved by the famous botanist Carl Linnaeus that when he had his wedding portrait painted, he held a twinflower. Even though he really liked the twinflower, his fiancee Sara Elisabeth Moræa got her own, separate portrait.

Here it is close up:



Linnaeus didn't have to get to the North Shore to find his beloved twinflower...it's actually a circumpolar species, found all around the northern latitudes.

So when you hike these trails and see these flowers, remember that you...and the flowers....are "of the North."

Fog flowers

A remote trail at Tettegouche. A hillside in Duluth. Bound by flowers and the fog.

Most folks call it Bluebells. North Shore naturalists call it Tall Lungwort. It's not even in my Peterson's wildflower book. It's Lake Superior's own Mertensia paniculata. And it's blooming...a few weeks earlier than normal, thanks to this topsy-turvy spring.



In the course of two days, I found patches of Mertensia on the Piedmont ski trail (top) and in Tettegouche State Park (above). Both places have in common the fact that they are close to big, cold and wet Lake Superior. This wildflower belong to the lake. It needs the cool, moist air. Mertensia paniculata grows all around Lake Superior, and also on the cool, moist western slopes of the Northern Rockies....but nowhere in between.

If it's foggy because of the lake, that's the lair of the lungwort. When you see those dangly blue flowers and the pointed leaves, you know it's the North Shore.

I heard it was hot

They say that the warmest place in the US yesterday was Minnesota. All day long, the folks on the radio were talking about how hot it was. 93 degrees in Saint Paul. 97 degrees in Cambridge.

How bizarre to bundle up while listening to a weather report like that.

Here in Duluth, on the shores of Lake Superior, we topped out at 58 degrees. That hot moist air that has covered the state met the cold waters of the big lake and WHAMMO, instant fog, goodbye sunshine.



It was so foggy that the shrubs and trees along the lake were wringing the moisture out of the fog and it was virtually raining underneath them. I took the dog out to the lighthouse and shot a short video to capture the sound of the foghorn.



It's still pea soup out there today. The South Pier foghorn is still blowing away. The boats out in the lake were sounding too, every minute per regulations. We are under a "dense fog warning" from the National Weather Service. 50 degrees here right now, 70 in Minneapolis.

Good old Lake Superior.

Advice from a trillium: Go big or go home

I went for a short hike on the Superior Hiking Trail the other day. It was my birthday, and maybe I was feeling contemplative or open to new ideas. Who'd have thought a woodland wildflower would give me advice.

We're past the first flush of those little spring wildflowers like violets, bunchberry or anemone. Those flowers are cute as a button and a wonderful surprise to the spring hiker.

As the trees get all their leaves and the forest floor becomes fully in the shade, flowers and their leaves need to go big. Big leaves bring in more sunlight for photosynthesis. Big flowers attract pollinators.

There aren't many bigger flowers in the North Woods than the Large-Flowered Trillium.

Go big or go home. The Urban Dictionary explains that means, "be extravagant, to go all the way, and do whatever you are doing to its fullest - and not flake out.

It can be even be texted: gbgh!

So now I'm 46 years old. If there's ever a time to go big, it's now.

Watch out world!

Thanks for the advice, you robust wildflower!

Superior spring, summer sensations

Mid-May, and it feels like summer on Lake Superior. Last night the sailboats were out for their first Wednesday night race of the season. The Keel Club very thoughtfully put one of their main race buoys right off our house, so we get to see the races up close.



Much to my surprise, people were swimming in the lake as well. Swimming, dunking, not just running in and running out screaming.

Puffs of cool lake breezes contended with strong, warm southerly air all day. For the first time this year, it smelled like summer, both the cool blue smells of Lake Superior and the earthy air masses from Wisconsin and the harbor.

Summer is a'coming in!

UPDATE:

No sooner did I post this than good old Lake Superior kicked it up. No more pleasant lakeshore ripples or stalled sailboats. The temp just dropped 15 degrees in a few minutes.

More trouble on the trail

After warning readers yesterday about an unnamed hypabyssmal intrusion on the Superior Hiking Trail, I would be remiss not to warn you about trees that eat hikers. Thanks to long-time blog follower Ovidia for this photo. Although it's not known where the picture was taken, the phenomenon of trees eating hiking signs is not a one-time occurrence.



Check out these other examples.

You have to be careful out there!

Caution! Unnamed hypabyssal intrusion on the SHT

Hikers on the Superior Hiking Trail should be very very careful. There is an unnamed hypabyssal intrusion on the trail.

This intrusion was discovered on a recently published geologic map of the Crow Creek area.

The SHT runs west from the Castle Danger trailhead and descends right into the steep valley of Crow Creek. The unnamed intrusion is marked on the map with a thick blue line and the letters "db".

Poem for the Lift Bridge: Boat unnah hum

I caught the Great Lakes' largest boat, the Paul Tregurtha, coming through Duluth's Aerial Lift Bridge yesterday afternoon. Our neighbor was there too, with her toddler Piper. "We love these boats," she said in that first-person plural parents of speechless toddlers use.

Watch out when these young boat fans start to talk for themselves. Our older son at age 2 loved to tell and retell the whole story of a boat going under the bridge, sound effects and all.

The Lift Bridge, to our toddlers who rode cars over it, was known as "the Hum Bridge" for the distinct sound of tires on metal grates. "Unnah" was "under." To ride in the stroller under a tree was to go "Unnah Doe."



Here's his recitation:

Boat unnah hum

Honk! Honk!

Ding Ding Ding.

Up up up up.

Boat unnah hum.

Man, those were the days! Now we can hardly get him to tell us anything, even with sound effects.

Surfing and snowing, all in a May Day

Only in Duluth—or maybe Alaska—will you find surfers out riding the swells after the snowstorm...in May. Check out the patches of white up on the hillside, above the white crest of the surf.

Duluth got more snow last Friday than in all of March and April combined. It wasn't enough to pull my cross-country skis out of the attic, I'm not that desperate. But it's a reminder that we're here near the northern edge of urban civilization. Any snowier or surfier than this and it's a Bering Sea outpost.

A North Shore mother looks to sea

The newspapers only knew her as “Mrs. Olson” of Two Harbors. Though her name may have been common, her suffering at the hands of Lake Superior was poignant and rare.

Her men were fishermen, and even before coming to the United States she had lost her husband, drowned off the coast of Sweden. One of her sons, John had drowned April 1910 in Grand Marais on his way to Isle Royale.

Now, in April 1911 her other son, Otto, was off to Isle Royale in the same boat. And there was no word from him; he was missing off the North Shore.



In the 1900s and early 1910s on the North Shore, information only traveled as fast as the boat, dogsled or runner bearing the letter. Telephone lines weren't in yet between Duluth, Two Harbors and Grand Marais. The Booth Line’s steamer Easton was the main link North Shore communities had with each other and with the world. Imagine Mrs. Olson waiting for news of her son.

One can only imagine Mrs. Olson’s dread as days stretched into weeks without word. Radios were only recently introduced to Lake Superior’s larger ships, and smaller boats seldom had them. The steamer Easton had made two of its regular trips between Duluth and Isle Royale to collect the fish from the dozens of Island fishermen, and had seen no sign of the Olson party.

On April 14, 1911 the Duluth News-Tribune ran the headline “FISHERMEN ARE PROBABLY LOST ON NORTHSHORE.” The article explains that since the time the party left Grand Marais, “a strong wind has been blowing almost continuously from the northeast, and is considered by old sailors here more than probable that the small launch has been swamped and all aboard perished.”

But April 14 was also the day the Easton returned to Two Harbors from Isle Royale on its next trip, with news and mail from the island in addition to its load of fish.

The Easton carried a letter written a few days before by her son Otto. After leaving Grand Marais, the crew had stopped at Grand Portage and then reached the Susie Islands. The wind was so strong that they dared not make the fifteen-mile crossing to Isle Royale. They had “held” at Susie Island for four nights, waiting for the wind to drop.

Mrs. Olson: wife and mother of men who fish.

Although Mrs. Olson was no doubt very happy that day, I wish a much MUCH happier Mother's Day to all this year!

All those waterfalls, going to waste

I came across this image from a 1913 edition of the Duluth News Tribune today. Note the incredible caption, about this beautiful waterfalls and its 75,000 horsepower "going to waste."

The relevant part of the article reads:

"Within the very lap of Tofte there is 125,000 electrical horse power undeveloped. Temperance River Falls, three miles west, that has 75,000 horsepower, owned by Fletcher Brothers of Minneapolis, who signify an intention of developing it for operating pulp mills and for furnishing electrical lighting for Tofte. Then there are the Cascade Falls just east of Tofte that has 50,000 horsepower going to waste. Both of these falls should be harnassed and made to do their share in the work of developing the natural resources of this section of Cook county. With the dawn of the railroad era the Duluth & Northern Minnesota, that cuts through the center of the county and the building of the new line, Grand Marais & Northwestern, tapping the forest wealth, iron ranges and the rich leaf mould agricultural soil tributary to the north shore, we doubt not but what both of these water falls will be put into commission in the very near future."

Imagine a narrow reservoir with a tall plug of a dam right where we look into Temperance's Hidden Falls today. Imagine a major industrial site right where the Temperance campground is now, still cranking out paper. Really, imagine the Ontario town of Terrace Bay and its dam on the Aguasabon River. I like Terrace Bay. A very nice dentist there helped me get past a really bad toothache once. But I like Temperance as it is even more.

The Grand Marais & Northwestern Railroad never came to be. Five years after this article was published, the Duluth and Northern Minnesota railroad announced in the same paper it was pulling up miles of its track in Cook County. The "forest wealth" had already been tapped. The pulp business consolidated in other places, and the local pulpwood that would have been pounded with the power of the Temperance went by raft across the lake.

Rather than a dam at Temperance, the CCC built stone overlooks. In 1957, the state park was created.

Those waterfalls at Temperance aren't wasted. They add value to our lives everytime we see or even think of them.

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.

Full Circle Superior: Just keep going

You ever want to just keep going? Head out with no plans to turn around?

Kate Crowley and Mike Link took off yesterday morning on the very first leg of their walk around Lake Superior.

It was quite a scene in Canal Park for a blustery April day normally reserved for gliding gulls and stormwatchers. Mike has always been a people magnet, with his charisma and his knowledge of the natural world, so I was not surprised as he led and read his way through his own kick-off ceremony. The wind and the waves washed out most of his readings and Kate's thank you's, but the spirit was infectious.



It was pretty cute to watch Mike and Kate with their children and grandchildren. The big crowd accompanied them as far as the Lift Bridge and the start of the sand beach.



They will be accompanied by an RV sag wagon, and most of their hikes will be daylong stretches along the shoreline and adjacent trails. Watch for their rig at various beaches and overlooks as they head counter-clockwise around the big lake.

I think this will be a great experience for them, and I'm optimistic that they'll complete their journey. I might even join them for a day or two late this summer or fall as they come down the Minnesota shore.

Guess what? They started their hike with a hike out of our forthcoming Hiking the North Shore! Hike 7: Duluth Beach Walk. Except they're not going to turn around and come back like a day hiker would.

They are going to just keep going.

Best time for the trees

"The best time to plant trees was twenty years ago.
The second best time is now."

That's wisdom from the Minnesota Tree Planting Handbook. It's especially true the next two weeks on the North Shore. Community groups and resorts are all ready for a busy tree planting season, and they really want your help. Earn a very cheap stay at a Gunflint lodge, or just help out the neighbors in Hovland.



The Gunflint GreenUp has become a huge event. After the 2007 Ham Lake fire,Gunflint residents and businesses turned crisis into opportunity. It's not just a tree-planting event, it's also a half-marathon and live music with dancing. It's May 7-8. They've had so much success planting trees that they aren't planting anymore, instead doing the VERY important work of clearing grass away from the trees that were already planted. That's called "releasing," and there's lots of work to do.

If you really want to plant trees on the Gunflint, get in touch with Boundary Country Trekking. They're planting trees along the Banadad Trail. Stay at Poplar Creek Guesthouse for cheap and help out. Their dates are April 30-May 2, May 7-9, and May 14-16. Volunteers eat well and stay two nights double occupancy for $89. Call Barb or Ted at (800) 322-8327 or write bct@boundarycountry.com.



On the North Shore proper, head for Hovland on May 1 or May 8. The good folks of the Flute Reed Partnership are planting 1300 white pine, black spruce and white spruce. Meet at 9:00 AM at the Hovland Town Hall...free box lunches will be provided! Contact Rick Schubert if you have any questions, rschub@centurytel.net.

Plant trees...good for you, and good for the North Shore.

Looking for Old Sam Peabody

Walking through Duluth's Canal Park this morning, on my way to a meeting at the Amazing Grace bakery, I heard a very familiar song through the din of traffic and construction. Like in the old game show "Name That Tune," I could name that tune in three notes.

"Old Sam Peabody Peabody Peabody."

(or was it "Oh My Canada Canada Canada?"

I went three or four summers in the BWCA hearing the song of the white-throated sparrow but never ever seeing the bird. They hide so well in the thick shrubs next to the lakes. So I listened hard and the next time the sparrow called I walked in the direction of the sound. I did that three or four times until I reached a little corner of rocks and spruce trees in the corner of the parking lot, I was surprised to pick out the bird right away, perched on a short mugo pine. Like in the BWCA, these shrubs were near water, the famous Canal Park fish fountain.

The video above captures another whitethroat on another pine tree. I love how the video captures the bird listening, looking around, hearing other sparrows sing, then launching into its own song. Actually, it's just like our psycho poodle, who goes out on the porch and does the same sequence. Listen, look around, bark, listen, bark.

Poor little lonesome white-throated sparrow was looking for love in all the wrong places. I hope he's moved on to some fitting shoreline or outcrop deep in the North Woods. But I'm glad I found him when and where I did.

North Shore ski season review: One finger up

Someone must have found this glove and placed it oh so delicately...and provocatively...on a shrub next to the Piedmont ski trail here in Duluth.

Probably there was no foul intent, but it sums up a lot of peoples' feelings about the sudden and early end to the ski season here.

Memo to green things: Be careful now

The dog and I walked...WALKED...the Piedmont ski trail here in Duluth today. The alder bushes look like a cluster of shy scared green people stepping outdoors all wrapped in heavy blankets and just beginning to let the blankets go loose.

Yes, it's the end of April and I had no right to think I might still be skiing. Still, the last time I was there it was very early March and the woods were full of snow. The air today was gray and cold and nearly felt like snow, after weeks of way-above temperature. Two miles from Lake Superior and I could still feel her chilly breath.

Anyway, the North Shore forest seems to be responding reluctantly to the early warm spring. Yesterday's 30 degree temperature drop in 30 minutes might have made the green things a bit more reluctant, like they're saying, "Told you so."

Yet the shrubs in the woods inevitably leaf out. It's like Nature Central sent out a memo.

April 21, 2010
To: Plants
From: Nature
Re: Green up

The warm early spring might have fooled you. Green up should begin, but be careful now.




Flowers are starting to come up as well, like the Canada mayflower slowly unrolling the first of its two leaves. In today's gray and cold, nothing seemed to be in much of a hurry.

The only plant that seemed like it was getting ahead of itself were the marsh-marigolds down in the little forest cricks. Their leaves were big and bold, and the flower buds already have a yellow hue. Maybe they didn't get the memo.



This is spring on the North Shore. The wind may shift, and the temps may not hit 60 again until June. Yet nature marches along.

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.

Yield to the trail

A good trail gives you comfort. There's a reason those blue blazes on the Superior Hiking Trail are called "assurance markers." The SHT is well-marked and easy to follow, but it's still comforting to see those rectangles of paint.

Today I hiked five miles through Canyonlands National Park on the Neck Spring Trail, up in Island in the Sky. The first quarter mile of the trail was very hard to follow. The route ran on slickrock and vandals had knocked down many of the cairns. I felt unsettled. It was not enjoyable. If I'm hiking, especially if I'm hiking alone, I like to walk and enjoy the surroundings, not focus on the turns of the path.

Eventually the cairns got better and the route became clear. And I could relax and yield to the trail. I loved it. The cairns were set up just perfectly so as you approached one, the next one came into sight. The cairns led the perfect route down the Navajo Sandstone to the valley below.



Yesterday I had to yield even more. I had to totally set aside my own need to navigate and simply follow the leader. After at least five visits to Moab and Arches National Park, I was finally able to sign up for the guided tour of the Fiery Furnace (through Recreation.gov, if you're wondering). The Fiery Furnace is a maze of sandstone fins in which it is VERY easy to get lost (ask me, I've been lost there). I tried for a while to keep track of where the ranger had led us, but soon realized I was thoroughly lost...and took comfort in following the group and the ranger through and out of the labyrinth.

Hiking in Canyonlands today, I kept thinking of a scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Not the scene at Double Arch in the beginning, but the scene at the end as Indy works through the final challenges to reach the Holy Grail. In the last challenge, he has to have the faith to step out into the void. Which he does, only to find that there was an invisible stone beam underfoot. He proceeded safely to find the goofy immortal Knight from the Crusades.

A trail through the woods (or through the desert) is a lovely, nearly spiritual thing. I yield to the trail.

The lupines are blooming...

...in Arizona. I went for a guided wildflower walk yesterday in Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area, outside Carefree. Not only lupine but the whole palette of desert wildflowers were blooming.

Naturalist Edwin Way Teale came up with one of the great big-picture observation, that spring moves north across the continent about fifteen miles per day. Let's do the math.

It's April 5. The trademark lupines along Highway 61 bloom in late June, as I've observed in this blog. According to Google Map calculator, it's 1415 miles from Carefree AZ to Beaver Bay MN. But we're as much west here as we are south (gee, that's why they call it the "Southwest"). For the Teale analysis, we're about 900 miles south.

900 miles at 15 miles a day. That would take 60 days. Which would put the Highway 61 lupines blooming June 1. It's been a freaky early spring on the North Shore, but not that early. Teale's observation is within range, however. It would have been ten or twelve miles a day instead of fifteen.

I love big broad natural history patterns! It's true, I am a nature dork.



So spring wildflowers are down here in Arizona and I can promise you they're coming north. When will the cactus bloom in Minnesota?

Goodbye old friend

My daypack for the last 20 years has been a miracle. Just a month old, it was stolen by a car prowler in Seattle and we just happened to find it in a dumpster three blocks away, emptied of anything "valuable." But far more valuable was the pack itself and all the adventures it's been on.

Wherever I've gone, it's gone too. To Germany and back. Down the Green River in Utah. And up and down and all over the North Shore, spring, summer, fall and winter.



When the seams began to burst, Get There! Designs in Ely fixed it up and made it good for another 4 or 5 years. Now the seams are really going. The nylon is so worn it won't hold the thread used to fix it.

I splurged on a new pack at REI last month. I'm not feeling real good about it yet. I found one that was as simple as the old one and nearly as big.

Thank you, Sally, for that wonderful birthday present back in 1991. May be the best present ever. Especially since I've gotten to share it with you so many times.

Coho canoe

In the early Lake Superior spring, coho salmon move in schools from the South Shore to the North Shore as the water warms, stopping for a few weeks at Duluth's Ship Canal piers. If I were only a fisherman, I'd be totally happy now, as this prime fishing spot is right in my backyard.

Instead, I just observe. Pickup trucks line our block as the guys park and head out to the piers. This spring has been so early that the motorboats are out too, trolling back and forth by our house to catch the fish many call "Lake Superior candy." Fisherman must wait hours in between bites, and the cost of those trolling boats must far, far exceed the protein value of any fish they might catch.

But the guy in the canoe was after my own heart. He paddled back and forth dragging a single line. What a great view and a great day to be out on Lake Superior.

Good luck coho canoe guy!