Author: mariezhuikov

Governor’s Island, New York City

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A view of Manhattan from a Brooklyn pier.

Russ and I decided to see New England in the fall. We began our road trip earlier this month in New York City even though this mid-Atlantic state is not technically part of New England. We landed in NYC because Russ’s son lives there. We wanted to visit him and he planned to join us for the first few days of our ten-day trip.

Besides the colors, our other goal was to visit sites relevant to ourselves and our ancestors.  But first, some fun in NYC! This was not our first visit. In 2019 we dropped in just before COVID hit. (See “Unicorns in New York City!” and “Images.”)

We booked a hotel in Brooklyn. The place looked great online but when we arrived, we were surprised to see it lay in a gritty neighborhood filled with graffiti. We never felt unsafe, but we definitely knew we were not in Duluth anymore!

A sculpture atop the fort on Governor’s Island, NYC.

We’d agreed to spend most of a day on Governor’s Island, a 172-acre former military installation in the heart of the harbor that’s reachable only by ferry. Native Americans used to fish there and gather nuts from the island’s plentiful trees. After colonization, the Dutch promptly set about cutting down those trees, and established a sawmill and fort. The island’s location made it a strategic military base. It was occupied later by the British and the U.S. Army. In more recent days, the island was the site of an historic meeting between President Ronald Reagan and Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Now the island is managed by several entities, including the National Park Service. The island is a car-free zone, so after disembarking from the ferry, we walked around. Later, in a fit of classic tourism, we elected to pedal the island in a dorky four-person bike surrey.

The Field Station of the Melancholy Marine Biologist art installation.

Besides old brick army personnel quarters and homes, the island sports eateries, an urban farm, a private spa, and art installations. Given my Sea Grant background, my favorite artwork was named “The Field Station of the Melancholy Marine Biologist.” Ensconced in an old military building, the mixed-media work “suggests an abandoned research outpost filled with scientific objects, instruments, artifacts, and samples. Through the windows, the viewer finds a scene preserved in time—a staged moment that invites you to imagine the life of a solitary researcher faced with the realities of a dark future defined by declining ocean health and climate change.” (Art installation sign text.)

A view of the Staten Island Ferry and Manhattan from Governor’s Island.

The island offers great views of Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty, and the harbor. Once back on the mainland, we attended the Broadway musical “Six,” which is about Henry the 8th’s six ill-fated wives. Given the topic, one would expect a depressing show, but it comes off full of female empowerment and strength. I highly recommend it!

Day 2 took us to Russ’s hometown of Old Saybrook, Connecticut. More on that, next.

Flipping Fishing on its Head

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A new sport has reached the shores of Lake Superior. It’s called microfishing. Think birdwatching, but with tiny fish. Quite a change from trying to catch the largest possible fish!

You can read all about it if you’re a subscriber to Lake Superior Magazine. My story is in the October/November 2025 issue. I learned about this unique sport when I interviewed a local department of natural resources fisheries biologist for a different story. Once I retired, I had time to pursue a magazine story. The sport is practiced all over the world.

If you’re not a magazine subscriber and want to learn more, visit microfishing.com.

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.