Author: mariezhuikov

A Fall Bike Ride

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Last month, Russ and I continued our quest to cycle different sections of the Mesabi Trail, which crosses northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. Amid the crunch of fallen leaves and the brilliant red of sumac, we biked from Nashwuak to Calumet with a side trip to Pengilly.

A warm breeze offered one of those final temperate days between summer and fall. The trail began in Nashwauk at a nondescript parking lot near a closed restaurant with the suggestive name of Big O’s Chef House. (Maybe that’s why it went out of business?) Except for a few frost heaves, the mostly flat trail was in good condition. It parallels the highway ,so the distant noise of cars is ever-present.

Much of the land surrounding the trail is owned by Mesabi Metallics Co., an iron ore and taconite mining company. We passed huge piles of mine tailing waste and overgrown past mining roads as a few vultures circled overhead.

In the sleepy Sunday town of Calumet, we rested at a public picnic shelter. The only evidence of life was a man throwing a ball for his black lab. Then we turned around and made our way back to Nashwauk. Along the way, we took a short spur trail to the town of Pengilly just for a change of scenery.

Scenery along the trail.

Once, a pair of teenagers on an ATV surprised us (they’re not supposed to go on the trail). Several times, we had to dodge Halloween-colored (black and orange) woolly bear caterpillars inching their way across the trail. Folklore says they can predict how harsh the winter will be by the width of the colored bands on their bodies: more black equals a harsher winter. We were trying too hard not to squish these fuzzy forecasters, so we didn’t notice their band patterns.

Apparently, science has not confirmed the caterpillars’ weather-forecasting abilities. Even so, the woolly bear remains a symbol of autumn. Its presence offered us a gentle reminder that the season is turning, and nature is preparing for the quiet, cold months ahead. This will probably be our last long ride of the season.

Total distance: 14 miles. For more information about other sections of the trail, please see these previous posts:

Bicycling from Keewatin to Nashwauk

Biking the Mesabi Trail from Ely West

The Mesabi Bike Trail from Mt. Iron to Kinney, MN

Biking the Mesabi Trail from Hibbing to Chisholm

Biking Along the Giant’s Ridge

Biking Across Minnesota’s Tallest Bridge

Jane Goodall

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Jane Goodall
Story from the Minnesota Daily, May 7, 1986, page 1.

You may have heard that chimpanzee researcher Jane Goodall died recently. As a young college environmental reporter, I had the chance to meet her once. Here’s a story that I posted in my blog previously and included in my Meander North book. Not only was Goodall a great scientist and advocate for nature, she was a wonderful human being.

Here’s a link to my story: https://mariezwrites.com/2014/09/23/how-i-got-jane-goodall-to-stick-her-head-in-a-potted-palm-tree/.

We’ll miss you, Jane!

Two TV Show Recommendations

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I’m so far behind on my blog posts but thought I could write this one before I head off meandering again. (Plus I’m still finalizing my poetry manuscript.)

Actor Filip Berg from Trouble. Image courtesy of Netflix.

My first recommendation is the movie Trouble. This Swedish action comedy is a remake of a 1988 movie by the same name. An electronics salesman and handyman innocently gets caught up in a home invasion and murder. What follows is a farcical romp involving corrupt police and relationship drama. The movie is streaming on Netflix with English voiceovers. I thoroughly enjoyed it and laughed a lot!

Red slipper replicas that were in the Judy Garland museum when we visited in 2021.

The second is Ruby Red Handed. It’s a tongue-in-cheek documentary about the case of the missing ruby red slippers that Dorothy (Judy Garland) wore in The Wizard of Oz. This theft happened a few hours’ drive from where I live. Russ and I visited the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, after the theft happened, so that’s why the movie intrigued us. (See my post about our museum visit.)

Solving the crime took years and the help of the FBI. It involved clueless criminals (who thought the shoes contained real rubies) and buried treasure. Spoiler alert: the show has a happy ending, but if you’ve been paying attention to the news, you know that already. It’s available for free on Hulu and was produced by a Minnesota-based company. You’ll get the inside scoop on all the juicy details of the crime.

New Book Project!

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With all the noise in the blogosphere, no one’s probably noticed that I’ve been quieter than usual lately. That’s because I’m working on another book manuscript. This time it’s poetry. I’ve had poems published here and there but never a book of my own. So, I decided to compile my life’s work of poems—yet another good retirement project.

I finished the manuscript last week and sent it off to a local publisher. I decided to choose this publisher because they exist solely to help poets in our area with projects like this, the turn-around is quick, I’ll get to keep the profits, and have control over the final manuscript.

Two days later, I received a “yes”! Now I’m working on fine-tuning the manuscript and getting marketing blurbs ready. Here’s what I have so far:

High Fire Danger: Poems of Love and Nature

Me years ago on a firefighting assignment in Yosemite. I’m smiling behind my bandana.

In High Fire Danger, Marie Zhuikov meditates on the transformative power of love and the magic and menace of nature. Written over the past thirty-eight years, Zhuikov’s enchanting poems offer unique insights and cutting humor. They take readers from her home in Minnesota to far-flung locales across the Great Lakes, Canada, Scotland, the Caribbean, and even to another planet. These accessible poems are filled with the heat and longing of romantic love, but also a deep love for family, community, and nature. They’ll scorch your soul like wildfire.

In a few months, I hope to have this book out into the world! For info about my other fiction and nonfiction books, please visit my book page.

Northern Lights and Lightning Bugs

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A rare show lit up the sky above our cabin last night. Russ and I meandered down roads in the dark, feeling our way by the gravel crunching under our shoes. We made it to a bog that has a good view north.

As the aurora silently danced above in curtains of reds and greens, lightning bugs danced closer to the ground, their feeble white lights the last of summer.

If you’d like to see my photo page with lots of other images (organized by topic: water/wood/stone/sky/travel and lighthouses) please visit my photography page and choose a topic: https://mariezwrites.com/photography/.

Making Puffed Wild Rice (and Donuts)

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A hearty bowl of puffed wild rice.

Wild rice, the kind of rice native to the Great Lakes and other parts of North America, is not only delicious in soups and other dishes, it makes a great and healthy snack.

A few years ago, I was gifted a copy of The Good Berry Cookbook by Tashia Hart. The author is a member of the Red Lake Anishinaabe (northern Minnesota) and she’s a culinary ethnobotanist, artist, photographer, writer, and cook. The book is more than a cookbook. It’s everything you ever wanted to know about wild rice.

A wild rice triple chocolate donut. Doesn’t it look tasty?

I’ve made several recipes from the book, notably, one for wild rice chocolate donuts (Triple Chocolate Donuts). As someone who’s always on the lookout for alternatives to wheat and corn, I was attracted by this recipe. They turned out looking great but were a bit gritty. Maybe I didn’t grind the rice into flour as fine as I should have. Since then, I’ve found other wheat- and corn-free recipes I like better.

This weekend, I went to a Harvest Festival in Duluth, which features produce from local farmers and artisans. One booth offered puffed wild rice in several flavors (for instance, cheese pizza!) I tried a sample of salted rice puffs. They were very good. Done this way, the wild rice tastes almost like popcorn, but with a richer, nuttier flavor. I would have bought some, but the vendor used popcorn salt, which usually contains cornstarch, so I passed.

Seeing the puffed wild rice reminded me that the Good Berry cookbook had a recipe for it, so when I returned home, I made some. It requires wild rice that has been picked and parched in a traditional manner. This makes it a lighter color (dull brown) versus the paddy-grown wild rice, which is dark and shiny.

All you do is heat a few inches of oil (I used canola) in a pan at a high temperature. I used setting 7 out of 9 on my stovetop. Wait until the oil is good and hot, then place a small amount of wild rice in a sieve (2-3 tablespoons) and lower it into the oil. It should puff up quickly if the oil is hot enough. Then spread the rice on a plate lined with paper towels to drain. I seasoned mine with sea salt (which usually contains no cornstarch).

If you’ve ever had puffed wheat cereal, you’ll recognize puffed wild rice, although the rice kernels are smaller and skinnier. It tasted great!

Marie tries her hand at harvesting wild rice, St. Louis River, MN.

Russ has developed the habit of eating popcorn in the evenings, which is sort of torture for me because I can’t have it. (Do you think he’s doing this on purpose??) Now, I have an alternative.

Tashia also offers a recipe for wild rice chocolates. Basically, you take the puffed wild rice and pour melted chocolate chips over them. I have some leftover puffed wild rice. That’s next on my list!

For a story about my “immersive” experience harvesting wild rice, visit this link.

Update: 9/10/25

I made the puffed wild rice chocolates. Very good! The recipe calls for making them in a flat sheet, but I chose to clump them instead. They taste rather like a Nestle crunch bar.

Bicycling from Keewatin to Nashwauk, MN

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The Hawkins Mine Pit in Nashwauk. We heard peregrine falcons on the cliffs to the right.

Russ and I have been biking short sections of the 150+ mile-long Mesabi Trail in northeastern Minnesota. Stretching from the Mississippi River to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, the trail will be complete in the next year or two. At that point, it will be 165 miles long, making it one of the longest paved trails in the country.

We’ve biked the trail twice this summer (and many times in the past – a list of other posts included at the end). Those recent trips weren’t very noteworthy, so I didn’t blog about them.

This section of the trail took us between two iron ore mining towns. We began in Keewatin, which was formed during the iron ore mining boom in the early 20th century. The town’s name comes from the Ojibwe word for “north” or “north wind,” and the soil is a rusty red from all the iron it contains.

The 11-mile round trip seemed like a gradual climb both ways to me. I’m not sure how that worked! Only one short, steep hill gave me pause, otherwise it was smooth cycling. The first part out of Keewatin follows an old highway/road that’s no longer in use.

We passed several lakes and mine pits, namely O’Brien Reservoir, Hawkins Mine Pit, and LaRue Pit Lake. A cold rain shower caught us about halfway to Nashwauk. I had to stop and clean off my sunglasses. Sometimes I think they need little windshield wipers! The rain didn’t last long, so we kept on going and the breeze dried our clothes.

Downtown Nashwauk, MN

When we reached Nashwauk, we stopped at an overlook at the Hawkins Mine Pit. It used to be an open pit iron ore mine but is now unused and filled with water. Steep red and tan cliffs topped with green trees line the “lake.” As we admired the view, we heard some squawking that sounded suspiciously like peregrine falcons. I’ve heard that they sometimes nest on the mine pit ledges, so perhaps there was a nest at the Hawkins Pit?

It’s believed that Nashwauk was named after a river in New Brunswick, Canada. The word is said to be from the Algonquin language and means “land between.”

As we turned around and headed back to Keewatin, we noticed a spur trail with a sign about the LaRue Pit Lake. The sign said the area features a boat landing, fishing pier, and is a tourist attraction. We decided to check it out.

Our bikes needed a rest at the LaRue Pit lake. We were fine, of course.

The spur trail came out on a paved road. Unsure which way to go, we chose to turn right, which ended up being the correct direction. The road took us down a steep hill to a picturesque lake. It looked like the “tourist attraction” was still under construction – no grass, just bare dirt that was being graded. An angler floated offshore in his boat, trying his luck with the fish. The LaRue Pit began as an underground mine in 1903-1905. The park looks like it will be a nice place, once finished.

The LaRue Pit lake near Nashwauk.

Then we biked back UP the road and rejoined the trail. Not far from the spur, we stopped at a memorial we had passed earlier. The name on the weathered white wooden cross was James Dorgan and it was dated 12/22/1973. The memorial looked in such good shape, we weren’t sure if that was the day he died or the day he was born. Once back home, I did a bit of sleuthing and discovered that it was his death date. James was a former Keewatin resident living in St. Paul who died in a car accident when he stopped to help his ex-wife, whose car was stalled. Another driver apparently hit him.

We were impressed by how well the memorial has been kept up for fifty-two years. Colorful plastic flowers decorated a flower box, and a wind chime hung from a post nearby. Solar lights illuminate the memorial at night.

We mostly had the trail to ourselves. Saw a few squirrels hightailing it across the pavement. Saw a few walkers. We passed a couple of other cyclists in town. Heard some ATVs but didn’t see any.

From rainstorms to pit lakes to falcons to ghosts, this is a good stretch to ride to get a feel for how important mining is to this part of the country.

Wishing everyone a good Labor Day Weekend!

For more information on other sections of the Mesabi Trail, check out my previous posts:

Biking the Mesabi Trail from Ely West

The Mesabi Bike Trail from Mt. Iron to Kinney, MN

Biking the Mesabi Trail from Hibbing to Chisholm

Biking Along the Giant’s Ridge

Biking Across Minnesota’s Tallest Bridge

Foxes and Fireflies Bookstore Turns One

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Superior, Wisconsin, is just across the Minnesota state border from my home in Duluth. A twenty-minute drive down a hill and over a bridge takes me to another state. I used to make this drive nearly every day for work before I retired this spring. Now, I do it less often but it’s for events that are more fun than work!

One such event is a reading and discussion next Saturday (Aug. 30) at Foxes and Fireflies Bookstore in Superior (1401 Tower Ave). It’s billed as a “local author extravaganza,” which I love, especially since there are only two of us doing presentations. 😊

I used to get nervous before these events from self-consciousness and fear of being judged, etc. (By the way, fellow blogger Swabby offers an excellent post today about self-absorption.) But I’ve had enough practice now and done enough presentations about my books and photography that for the last several events, I’ve just winged it.

Me at the book launch for Meander North. (This was before Foxes and Fireflies had opened.) Look, I’m having fun! Image by Russ.

It’s worked out well, I think. I wasn’t nervous one bit. I’m glad I’ve finally reached this point. That only took over a decade! Public appearances still take a lot out of me, but dare I say they’re even becoming fun. I enjoy learning about the audience members and pondering their questions. And I’m not talking about huge audiences here, so they’re usually intimate affairs. Ah yes, the glamorous life of a local author!

For next weekend’s event, I’ll read from my books, The Path of Totality (magical realism short story collection) and Meander North (blog memoir). I’ll look over notes from past talks beforehand, but I’m going to leave them at home and see how “winging it” goes again.

The other author who’s reading is Gina Ramsey from Superior. Her book is Burnt Gloveboxes. (Two volumes.) She relates crazy but true things that have happened to her family.

Foxes and Fireflies is the first independent bookstore that Superior has had in years since Beecroft Books closed. I used to love going to Beecroft for author events. Afterward, the authors would have the honor of signing their names on a long white hallway. It was my goal to someday write a book and be able to sign that hallway, but the store closed before I had that chance.

My fox from the bookstore.

Foxes and Fireflies was opened by Maria Lockwood, a reporter for the Superior Telegram, kind of by accident. She was researching a business grant program for a story and decided to submit a grant to see how the process worked. Lo and behold, her project was chosen to receive the funding! She’s been working at the bookstore and at her reporting job, so she has her plate full. She’s so supportive of local authors. Besides books, Maria offers all sorts of other literary paraphernalia and cute little toy foxes.

Instead of a long hallway for authors to sign, in the tradition of Beecroft Books, Maria offers a whiteboard. My name is proudly on it.

If you’re in the area, please stop by for the author extravaganza or any of the bookstore’s other events.

Old Fish in Lake Superior Sparks Controversy

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The oldest lake trout yet discovered in Lake Superior, also known as “Mary Catherine.” Image courtesy of the Michigan DNR.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) published a story a few days ago that made many people upset. As someone who has her feet in both natural resources management and public relations/science communication it offers an interesting case study. The DNR was trying to highlight an interesting fact about how fish can reach old ages, but some mistakes got in the way of this message.

The ear bone of one fish they caught in a special survey done in 2023 to study the different forms of lake trout and their reproductive biology was recently analyzed and the DNR discovered that the fish was as old as I am! (62 years) They caught the lake trout on a reef in the southeastern part of Lake Superior (40 miles north of Grand Marais, Michigan) and this lake trout is the oldest one currently on record.

The ear bones of fish show annual rings much like a tree, and that’s how the DNR can tell the age of the fish. It’s the only way they can do this, and they have to kill the fish to extract the ear bone, also called an otolith

Mary Catherine’s otolith shows 62 years of growth. Michigan DNR image.

One mistake the technicians made was naming the fish. They picked the era-specific moniker of Mary Catherine because Mary was one of the most common names in 1961 when the fish was hatched. People who heard news reports were excited that such an old fish was found, and that it even had a name, only to be crushed when they learned later that the fish was killed in the process of discovering its age.

One Facebook commenter said, “Hey we just killed Mary Catherine, but the upside is we now know that she was 62 years young, much like many grandmothers and recently retirees. There’s one less on Social Security now, and that should help keep it solvent.”

Another said, “Sad that they killed a fish who is probably older than the combined ages of some of the researchers, but it is interesting information.” Another commented that the fish might have lived another 20 years if not sacrificed for science.

You might think that such an old fish would be very large, but she wasn’t. Mary Catherine weighed 2.1 kilograms (4.62 pounds) and was 627 millimeters (24.7 inches) long. That’s because Lake Superior doesn’t have much food in it and animals grow slowly. The typical lifespan for a lake trout is 25-30 years.

The story gained wide media coverage, so it was successful that way, but even some of the reporters were dismayed that Mary Catherine was a goner. People already love to hate the DNR, and this well-intentioned science story just gave them another reason.

I’d say the main lesson is not to name your research subjects in newsworthy stories, especially if they’re dead.

The researchers were mum about whether they were inspired by the Saturday Night Live character, Mary Katherine Gallagher.

In Which Marie Competes in her First Paddleboard Race

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One of my paddleboards and a sliver of the moon reflected in the water.

For more years than I care to count, I’ve staffed a booth for work at Lake Superior Day, which falls annually on the third Sunday in July. When I wasn’t informing people about water quality issues and research, I was gazing wistfully at the groups of paddlers gathered for a race held in conjunction with the event.

The “Paddle for the People” competition welcomes paddleboarders, canoeists, and kayakers. The 4 K race takes them around Barker’s Island in the bay just offshore from the city of Superior.

Last year, a gray-haired woman won the event. She inspired me. I decided that in 2025, since I’d be retired and not staffing a booth anymore, I was going to enter the race.

This spring I sent in my entry. Once the ice went out on our cabin lake, I began training. Having never raced on a paddleboard before, I watched online videos for tips. Russ helped me figure out that two-and-a-half times around our lake equaled the race distance. Around and around our lake I went.

Me, ready to paddle!

I’d circled Barker’s Island on my board a couple times in the past just for fun, but I did it one more time before the race to assess any hazards and to build my confidence.

Come race day, I awoke a couple hours earlier than usual (ouch) to make it to the start of the race on time. I felt good but had no illusions about winning. The weather cooperated: warm and sunny with little wind. The only problem was poor air quality from wildfire that had drifted from Canada, but it didn’t seem to bother me.

About thirty of us lined up in the bay on our various crafts behind an imaginary starting line. When the bullhorn blew, we were off! I got a good start, paddling with quick, short and powerful strokes and I didn’t crash into anybody. Soon, we paddled around one end of the island and were out on the unprotected side, but conditions stayed optimal.

I was about halfway around the island when an older lady who I’d spied before the race slowly passed me. I wondered if she was in the same “old lady” race category as I was. She was about a foot taller than me. Her technique wasn’t that good, but she was propelled by long-armed strokes. I decided to try and stay with her and pass her if I could in case she was my competition.

At one point, she slowed to (unsuccessfully) try and pick up a can floating in the water. Although I was impressed by her environmental concern, I thought this was my chance to pass her. Try as I might, I couldn’t catch her. I still felt like I was paddling strong when I watched in dismay as a couple of young people with small dogs on their boards passed me. Then came two overweight people who were sitting too far to the front of their boards. They virtually plowed through the water paddling with kayak paddles and also passed me.

I shrugged off my dismay and just dug in. The “other old lady” crossed the finish line twenty-five seconds ahead of me. At the end, I felt good about the effort I expended and the fact that I wasn’t last.

The race organizers held a short awards ceremony afterward and sure enough, I came in second in my category to the woman I had been chasing. I received a silver medal for my efforts.

Now I know what the race is about. But I don’t think I’ll do it again. Waking up early and then paddling hard for 45 minutes isn’t my idea of fun. But I’m glad I stayed true to my self-promise and participated instead of gazing at the racers wistfully from shore. What dreams have you pursued this summer?