Nightlife on Gunflint Lake

Amidst this talk about the forest fire, I do have a light-hearted story that I want to tell you, too. It has to do with some nighttime entertainment that occurred here on Gunflint Lake about two weeks ago. Robert and I were the only ones home that evening. Greg was across the lake, visiting with friends, and Paul was out, too. We got a call at 10:30 p.m. that two certain donkeys had been spotted on the Mile O' Pine Road, and were they really allowed to range that far? Sort of like, "It's ten-thirty---Do you know where your donkeys are??" Now Robert and I were none too pleased, as we both were of the mind that it was bedtime. No chance for that with the news we just got.

We fetched the two ropes that would be needed, hopped into the car, and slowly drove up the road. I am always concerned in these cases (yes, this wasn't the first time we got that kind of call) that Moses and Jethro will take it upon themselves to travel down someone's driveway, and I won't find them right away. Fortunately, this wasn't the case. About a half-mile down the Mile O' Pine Road, we found the pair of Houdini break-out artists, as Greg likes to call them. I got out, hitched them to their ropes, and started walking them home. Robert turned the car around and drove on back.

I had told Robert that I planned to walk the road the whole way, as it was too dark to take the donkeys down the powerline trail. As unhappy and frustrated as I was, I have to admit that it was a very nice night. The stars were out, and I could see well enough from the lingering sunset to make my way along nicely. There was one thing I didn't plan on though.....and that was the very tall grass that the donkeys discovered as we traipsed along. It didn't take long for one to stop. Then the other one did, too, but on the other side of the road. I pulled, prodded, whined and coaxed, but nothing worked....not when faced with lush grass like these donkeys found. Donkeys are smart. They knew that they were bigger than me, and that if they wanted to stay, then the decision was made. Still, I continued to try, and I did my best to keep my frustration to myself. A donkey knows when you are upset, and they dig their heels in even deeper. Some people call this being stubborn, but experienced donkey people know that it is just self-preservation and perseverance on the part of the donkey. Ha! they thought. We've got her now. For my part, as I pulled and coaxed, I felt like I must look really ridiculous, as though I were dancing with donkeys, of all silly things! My young neighbor Nikki came driving by, and offered her help. That was very kind of her, but I told her that the guys back home knew where I was, and that surely one of them would soon come to rescue me.

Shortly after, Robert came walking up the hill, and he was able to take one donkey while I took the other. Moses wasn't too thrilled to be trudging on back, especially after I started to discuss the possibility of barbecue with him....It's probably a good thing that they can't understand too much English. A half-hour later, both donkeys were back up in their pasture, gates were closed, and I told them that they were confined to the donkey hoosegow until further notice. Who says there isn't much in the way of nightlife here on the Trail?

More reports from Gunflint Lake

It was another interesting day on Gunflint Lake. As I mentioned yesterday, we have been pretty fortunate to be smoke-free for the most part. This morning, I was wrong. An inversion caused the smoke to hang close to the earth, and it traveled quite a distance. When I got up, I couldn't see Canada. Usually that only happens in the winter time, when it is snowing quite hard. It is different than looking at fog, too, which has more of a translucent quality to it. This was just opaque white. We heard that it traveled as far south as Tofte, and by late in the day, a friend called from Two Harbors to say that they smelled it there, too. For us, it was mostly cleared out by ten, with just a lingering bit through the rest of the day. This evening, the winds blew gently from the south, and so most of it has passed into Canada, at least for a little while.

The fire has grown, and is now in the vicinity of about 16,000 acres. So far, it still is burning entirely within the BWCA. The weather today was a bit kinder to the fire fighters, in that the wind was decreased considerably from some of our previous days. The rest of the week, however, may not be so good, as the winds are predicted to be increasing in speed and switching around. We are keeping an eye on things on a day by day basis while hoping for the best.

The sky continues to fascinate us, with the mix of clouds, smoke and sun. Tonight, the sun was a big red cherry as it began its descent behind the curtain of smoke. It splashed a slice of red on the water, and a loon swam through it while we were watching. I looked up and saw a heron flying overhead---a rare treat for me, as I almost never see them on Gunflint Lake. Robert remarked that it looked tired, and we wondered how far it had traveled.

Our friend Sue up at Voyageur Canoe Outfitters has some excellent photos and descriptions of the fire happenings from her side of things on her blog, http://www.boundarywatersblog.com/ . She is definitely a lot closer to the fire than we are, and I appreciate being able to read her perspective on things. Stop in at her blog if you get a chance.

Thank you to everyone that has called or emailed to check up on us and how things are going. It is so helpful to us to know that you all are thinking of us and sending good wishes our way! We really do appreciate it.

On a personal note, Addie and Sharlene landed in Duluth this evening, and will be on their way up the Trail tomorrow. Our neighbor Marcia remarked to me the other day that she certainly hopes that the time didn't go as fast for Addie as it did for us down here! It is true....the six weeks really seemed to travel by quickly. Addie said that she had been very busy, with work, service projects and fun. It was a really good experience for her, and I will try to get her to sit at the computer long enough to share a bit of it with you.

The Hot Days of Summer

The heat of summer has finally arrived, much to my happiness and unfortunately, Greg's chagrin. I always say that I need a bit of this spike in temperatures because, mark my words, it will be cold again soon. Winter will be here before we know it, and this will only be a memory.

Of course, the weather in itself really isn't our big news right now. No doubt you may have heard that there is a forest fire burning in the BWCA, not far from Seagull Lake. Named the Cavity Lake fire, it started late last week from a lightning strike. The fire was spotted on Friday afternoon by a Forest Service air employee, out on a routine check for fires. Within a half-hour, they had called in air support in the form of water-dropping planes to begin work on the fire. Unfortunately, over the weekend, the weather was doing some funny things with wind, and the high temperatures were not helping. To top it off, fires burning elsewhere in Minnesota were of higher priority, as they were burning much nearer to homes and people. So the fire ended up growing.

The good news is that in the last several years, the Forest Service has been preparing for the possibility of a fire much like this one. I went to the website http://www.mnics.org to see what they had posted about the fire. I downloaded the location map of the fire, which also showed the location of all of the previous prescribed burns that had been done, beginning in 2002. The Cavity Lake fire started west of these prescribed burn areas. It is totally within the Boundary Waters, and the objective is to keep it in the BWCA. The Forest Service has many tools to accomplish that. Some of those are the traditional methods of fire-fighting---the use of aircraft and personnel to work on setting up containment lines, and dropping water on the hotspots. In addition, the prescribed burns are another tool. Because of these old burns, those areas are now not likely to burn in the same way that the wildfire is burning. The fuel loads have been significantly reduced, so the fire can't burn as strong there. There are also lakes along the way that will slow the fire down.

We have been seeing the smoke columns in the sky at the west end of Gunflint Lake. On Saturday morning, we experienced some smoke in the air, and falling ash. A switch in the wind cleared it out. Since then, the winds have been kind to us, and the air has been clearer. We did see some spectacular color in the sky yesterday. The sun was shining through smoke and clouds, casting a golden orange light everywhere. To the south, a bank of clouds was passing by. The lake looked like liquid bronze, from all of the unusual light reflecting off of it. I've never seen it that color before.

We are grateful to the Forest Service and the Minnesota DNR, for the outstanding job that they have done in recent years, and for all of the work that they are currently putting in, to keep this fire in a manageable situation.

Tell Me Why

When I was little, my mom would sometimes sing a song called "Tell Me Why". Some of you may be familiar with it---the first lines go, "Tell me why the stars do shine. Tell me why the ivy twines....." It's a lovely little song with a pretty score, and I've always wanted to figure out how to do a bit of needlework with the images in my mind that this song conjures up for me. Haven't gotten that far yet. In the meantime, though, I think about the three words "Tell me why". When kids are little, they ask that question often. I remember each of my kids following me around, asking "Why?" for what seemed like an endless amount of time, until finally I would reply "Because I said so," or something equally parental in nature. It was their way of finding out about how things work, and about how long they could test me, I suppose. It is also a good way of learning new things.

You may remember that a few days ago, when I posted that the flowers are in bloom, I mentioned the lupines looking so wonderful. Lupines are blooming everywhere. I also said that, despite our best efforts, we seemed to be the only ones in Cook County that couldn't grow lupines. Why couldn't we grow lupines? I never did figure it out. As it turns out, I had written too soon. A couple of days ago, I noticed that we finally had a lupine flower on the plant right next to our Heston's Lodge Country sign, at the top of our driveway. What a welcome sight, after all of these years. I even planned to take a picture of it, to post here, I just haven't gotten that far yet.

This afternoon, Greg was on his way up to the garage to do an errand. He noticed someone had stopped at the top of the hill, and he saw a woman bend over and cut our lupine flower! When she saw him, she jumped back into her Suburban, and the fellow with her took off down the road. Now I ask you, why would someone cut the one lone flower that I had there? With it right next to my sign, it obviously was on private property. Just a quarter mile back on the county road, there were several blossoms that were left untouched. I realize that she would have no way of knowing how long it had taken me to grow that flower, and how happy I was to see it there. I just don't understand. So unfortunately, I don't have a photo of my lupine success.