Getting my novel and an excerpt ready for the exhibit.
This week in downtown Duluth, an exhibit is being installed in the Zeitgeist Arts Café lobby windows. The effort is spearheaded by Tone Lanzillo and Phil Fitzpatrick to highlight how the creative arts can help people gain a deeper understanding and appreciation for the various impacts that climate change has on our lives. It’s part of a global campaign, “Culture x Climate 2020” organized by the Climate Heritage Network in France.
Although my novel “Plover Landing” may look like it’s all about shorebird restoration, it’s about climate change in equal measure. Besides being cute as a button, the character of young Demitri has mysterious powers related to climate. Much of the story revolves around Demetri and his friends figuring out his role in the world.
When Phil approached me about submitting poems for the Culture x Climate project, I had to decline, saying I had none, but that I did have a whole novel about climate change. He encouraged me to submit an excerpt and to provide a copy of the book for the display.
Tone and Phil are putting the finishing touches on the exhibit today and it will be up all week, possibly longer. Other activities are happening, too. Zenith Bookstore and the Duluth Public Library will present books on climate change for adults and children on social media. KUMD Radio and PACT-TV will be interviewing artists and poets who are participating in this project. The Duluth/365 climate initiative, as well as other climate and environmental groups, will be posting information about various poets, artists, musicians and photographers on social media. There is a Facebook event and discussion about the creative arts community and climate change on Nov. 17. And there will be a new blog providing information on the creative arts and climate change.
As Tone said in his Duluth Reader article, “This project will hopefully illustrate how important the creative arts are to the quality of life in Duluth. And just as significantly, show how the creative arts can be used as a very valuable and meaningful tool to engage, educate and empower our citizens to address climate change.”
I am happy to be part of this. I hope you get the chance to check it out!
Russ biking across the 3/4-mile floating bridge on the Mesabi Trail.
The Mesabi Bike Trail website offers a rather hokey legend about how this part of northern Minnesota came to be named “Mesabi.” Basically, it describes how native peoples thought of the glacier(s) that covered the far north during the Ice Age. The story says the area was “guarded by this great white giant, so large that he could not be seen over. He could not be walked around.” The early people named him Mesabi, which means “a great and stout giant man.”
When the weather warmed and the giant grew weak, he retreated, uncovering a land of abundant forests, lakes, and farmland. The Mesabi Bike Trail traverses 135 miles (of a planned 155 miles) through this terrain.
Russ and I had the opportunity to bike several sections of the trail this summer. Thanks to unseasonably warm weather on a weekend earlier this month, we had the chance to pull on our biking shorts and explore more. We took the Giant’s Ridge Spur, which we reached from the parking lot of the Giant’s Ridge Recreation Area near Biwabik, Minnesota.
Our goal was to make it across an extensive floating bridge that crosses a bog near the end of the spur, a 16-mile round trip. This goal was no big deal to Russ, a retiree who routinely bikes 50 miles at a pop, but for me, a person whose life is still ruled by working for a living, it would be the longest trip of the season.
I’ll cut to the chase: we made it! The trail runs through remote country, passing regrown timber lands and beaver ponds, and crossing cabin driveways. A relatively new section climbs up a rather large ridge – high enough that it sports cell phone towers on top. The trail on other side of the ridge features at least a half-mile downhill stretch that you can just blast down. The metal floating bridge is at the bottom; it runs ¾ of a mile through a wetlands in the Darwin Myers State Wildlife Management Area (WMA). The trail turns to gravel at the end of the bridge for a short stretch through the rest of the WMA.
Of course, going downhill means you have to go uphill on the way back. I needed to walk my bike a couple of times, but the fun I had during the downhill runs on the way out were totally worth it.
Soon after our bike trip, Old Man Winter returned with snow, so we put our bike shorts away for the season. Unlike those who lived during the Ice Age, at least we can look forward to taking them out again on the other side of winter.
Seeing snow on the runs at Giant’s Ridge while we were biking in shorts was strange.
The New York Times recently published an article about eating invasive species as a means of control. It reminded me of a demonstration project we undertook when I worked at Minnesota Sea Grant in 1996. We received money from The Great Lakes Protection Fund for two years to study the overseas market potential for Great Lakes sea lamprey.
The business end of a lamprey. Image credit: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
I’m sure many of you are familiar with the story: lamprey, with their penchant for sucking blood, are a parasitic exotic species that entered the Great Lakes and almost wiped out the Great Lakes fishery by the 1940s. This led to a control program coordinated by the Great Lakes Fishery Commission that is ongoing even today. Every year, the commission’s various lamprey control programs cost millions of dollars. Sea lamprey are clearly still an enduring threat.
In the mid-1990s, the commission’s lamprey control program routinely landfilled thousands of female lamprey they trapped. At that same time, lamprey populations in their native countries like Portugal and Spain were becoming decimated due to overfishing and habitat loss. This was an issue because lamprey were/are considered a culinary delicacy in Portugal and Spain. Like the lobster aquariums found in American restaurants, Portuguese restaurants offered tanks of sea lamprey where people could pick their dinners. Exclusive and expensive clubs even formed around lamprey consumption.
Jeff Gunderson, the fisheries and aquaculture specialist with Minnesota Sea Grant at the time, took an idea from a University of Minnesota food professor and the extension leader at Minnesota Sea Grant and turned it into a project to find a use for the excess, unwanted Great Lakes lamprey by seeing if chefs in Portugal and Spain would find them as palatable as their native lamprey. He set up a team that included a professor in Portugal who would conduct market testing, University of Minnesota experts, a NOAA international marketing expert, and a fisheries biologist.
My job was to garner visibility for the project and its results. When Jeff first described the project to me, one of my first questions was whether the lamprey had been tested for mercury. “I don’t want to promote something that’s going to contaminate people,” I recall saying. He assured me the lamprey had been tested and were within U.S. standards. But what I didn’t know at the time was that only a small sample of lamprey were tested. (More to come on this later.)
To figure out my publicity strategy, I consulted a couple of my news reporter friends. I think it was Mike Simonson, the well-known and now dearly departed Superior bureau chief for Wisconsin Public Radio who said, “You gotta have a taste test!”
That sounded like a capital idea, so my first step was to find a local chef willing to cooperate. I approached my favorite restaurant, Bennett’s Bar and Grill, run by Bob Bennett. This “forefather of contemporary cuisine in Duluth” was game.
The Portuguese professor had given me several traditional sea lamprey recipes, at least one of which involved using lamprey blood. Ewww. Anyway, I showed these to Chef Bennett, and we came up with a taste-test plan. He would prepare two traditional recipes and create two of his own. Gunderson talked the original Lou of Lou’s Fish House in Two Harbors into smoking some lamprey for the taste test, as well.
Next, we had to find some brave lamprey consumers. Somehow, I managed to convince the Duluth mayor (Gary Doty) to participate along with the University of Minnesota Duluth chancellor (Kathleen Martin). Several members of our Sea Grant Advisory Committee also agreed as did a freelance graphic designer who worked for us, a congressional office manager and the Minnesota Sea Grant director (Michael McDonald),
We held the lamprey taste test at Bennett’s restaurant, which was on Superior Street in downtown Duluth. Eight intrepid tasters were seated at a long table facing into the room so that reporters could easily see them and ask about their reactions to the food. We gave them a rating form. We also provided an aquarium with several lamprey in it, just to add to the room’s ambiance, and the smoked lamprey and some crackers for snacks.
Simonson was right about the lure of the taste test. We were mobbed by local reporters, both print and broadcast. Reporters from the Twin Cities even made the trip up north for it. The resulting stories went everywhere, even internationally. The Associated Press picked up the print story, and Gunderson said he talked to someone who saw it on a television station in Seattle. The story eventually made it into Newsweek and The New York Times.
Back in my office after the test, I received a phone call from the daughter of a Portuguese immigrant in Boston who saw the news stories and wanted to know how to obtain lamprey. She told me lamprey was a traditional Sunday dinner in Portugal, just like American pot roast. Her father was so excited when he saw the news, he implored her to find out more. I had to give her the disappointing information that lamprey were a regulated invasive species without a commercial source yet.
The highest rated dish was Bennett’s own lamprey stew with garlic mashed potatoes, rated 4.5 out of a possible 5. The smoked lamprey came in second, earning 3.7 out of 5. The taste of the lamprey came out more strongly in the traditional dishes, which did not suit these American taste-testers.
I ate both the lamprey stew and the smoked lamprey. I enjoyed the stew, although the chef forgot to take out the lamprey’s cartilaginous backbone (called a notochord), which made it a bit crunchy for my taste. I bet if he had removed the backbone, the dish’s ratings would have been higher. The smoked lamprey tasted rather like any kind of smoked fish – very good!
The taster’s comments included: “Surprisingly good. Try selling it without telling people what they are eating. It would be better.” And, “I would not order this out, but Bennett’s dishes were by far the best.”
More extensive taste tests were run in Porto, Portugal. Eight restaurants with lamprey-cooking experience, two homemakers and 16 individual taste testers participated in two studies. The restaurant chefs were asked to rate how the lamprey looked while alive, how they cooked compared to Portuguese lamprey, how they smelled/tasted/looked after cooking, how the lamprey tasted to them, and how their clients or family members liked them.
Overall, the Portuguese taste testers enjoyed the strong flavor and firm texture of the lamprey, noting the lamprey had a pleasant “turf” taste and was less soft and fatty than Portuguese lamprey. (A turf taste refers to an earthy flavor, somewhat like mushrooms or liver.) They rated the flavor 4.5 out of 5 – a definite win.
During the second year of the project, more lamprey were shipped to Spain for taste tests. The results weren’t as glowing, perhaps because only frozen and canned Great Lakes lamprey were shipped instead of live wriggly ones. The Spanish testers liked the texture and that some contained eggs. Yes, lamprey are a delicacy in Spain, but lamprey caviar takes it to a whole other level.
The death knell for this innovative program came from subsequent contaminant tests on the lamprey. The Great Lakes lamprey contained mercury levels that were too high to meet European Union standards. They tested at 1.3 ppm for mercury. The EU standard at that time was 0.3 ppm. This information came too late for our taste testers, but hopefully, one meal of lamprey was not detrimental. I certainly didn’t feel any ill effects.
Gunderson summed it up like this: “At least we have an answer to the question that has been debated for nearly 40 years. Yes, Great Lakes lamprey are marketable in Europe. Because of current control programs and experimental programs, a commercial harvest of lamprey would not have been a priority even if mercury levels were acceptable. But given time, a commercial harvest could fit into lamprey control and management. Lamprey are here forever and who knows if the funding for lamprey control will last that long. If funding ever does wane, let’s hope it’s not before mercury levels decline to acceptable levels so that lamprey harvest can be evaluated as part of a low-cost management program.”
That was almost 25 years ago. A Lamprey and Rice Festival is apparently held in Portugal each year, so it still must be popular, but I fear that the people who used to love eating them for Sunday dinner are aging out of this world.
Unfortunately, mercury levels in Great Lakes lamprey are still high. According to a 2018 study by the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission and the University of Wisconsin, levels in adult lamprey were still beyond that deemed safe for human consumption.
In any event, this project was one of the highlights of my career. It seemed like a win-win idea: The U.S. could rid itself of an expensive invasive species, and European diners could eat a traditional and much longed-for dish. Yes, I promoted something that could have contaminated people. But I did a darn good job of it.
When last you saw us, Russ and I were thwarted in our attempts to bike along the North Shore of Lake Superior by cold weather and lack of appropriate clothing on my part. As an alternative, we decided to hike somewhere we had never been before. This turned out to be along the Temperance River.
The trailhead is extremely easy to reach – it’s right along Highway 61, with parking on both sides of the road. (The trailhead is on the side opposite Lake Superior.) Russ and I had driven past the park roughly a bazillion times but were always going somewhere else. We were so glad we stopped this time!
The first part of the trail takes you to a plunge pool, which is at the base of a waterfall hidden back in the rocky clefts. At the end of the Ice Age, the waterfall wasn’t so hidden. Torrents of melting glacier ice cascaded over the rock ledges, creating a waterfall that was 300 feet wide, or so said the interpretive sign along the trail.
We hiked along the river gorge on the Superior Hiking Trail about eight-tenths of a mile to the upper falls and then backtracked to return to our car. With lots of rocky ledges to clamber and scenic river vistas around every turn, this trail would be a perfect way to get sullen teenagers excited about nature. Although there are some stairs to climb, most of the trail is relatively easy if you are able-bodied.
The river gorge is super gorgeous. I kept wondering why I’d never heard my friends who know the North Shore rave about it, because it certainly is rave-worthy. My photos only capture a minor part of the beauty.
If you do go to the Temperance River, please remember to practice social distancing and carry out your trash. The park looked clean when we were there, but I know that some parts of the shore are being over-loved and over-travelled lately.
For mini-vacation #2, Russ and I meandered with our thirteen-foot Scamp trailer to Cascade River State Park on the North Shore of Lake Superior. (Interested in mini-vacation #1? Read about Lake Vermilion State Park.)
I must admit, one reason we chose Cascade River was because it had camping reservations available during the time we wanted. Another reason is that, despite innumerable trips along the North Shore, neither of us had spent any time there. It was a good excuse to see some new sights.
We decided to add a little glamour to this outing, just for fun. Before we left Duluth, we made dinner reservations at The Strand restaurant at Lutsen Resort, which is just a 15-minute drive from the campground, and for a wine tasting at the North Shore Winery, also at Lutsen.
Because it’s late in the camping season, the shower building wasn’t open at the campground, so we decided to go the restaurant our first night (of two). We weren’t sure how presentable we’d look later!
Before I go into the long description of our stay, I’ll offer some Cascade River Campground pros and cons for those of you in a hurry.
PROS
Although the campground is located near a highway, it was quiet at night.
A short hike takes you to the river’s scenic falls and to Lake Superior. Plus, there are many options for other hikes.
Near the many civilized attractions of the North Shore at Lutsen and Grand Marais.
We saw a bear!
CONS
The sites offer little privacy. The lack of vegetation between them made us feel like we were living in an outdoor fishbowl sometimes.
You can hear the highway during the day.
The squirrels and chipmunks are habituated to people – watch your food!
We saw a bear, which made going to the outhouse in the middle of the night a sketchy affair.
You can’t check into your site until 4 p.m., so we only had enough time to plug in our camper and take a quick hike along the river and shore before we needed to leave for dinner at Lutsen. The waterfall cascades that the park is named for are just a short walk directly from the campground, and Lake Superior is not far downstream, so we were able to see a lot in just an hour. We had time to plunk ourselves down on a rock along Lake Superior and shake off the worries of the city.
Soon, it was time to hike back to our site and drive to Lutsen. This is the first restaurant we’ve eaten inside since COVID. We felt that by now, most restaurants should have their safety act together regarding the virus, especially a place like Lutsen, which sees a lot of tourists. We decided the food was worth whatever slight risk it might entail.
The image from our table at The Strand Restaurant.
I’m not sure how we managed, but we scored a table right by a window overlooking the lake. While we ate, we watched the sun set in muted pinks and purples – a perfect accompaniment to our food. For starters, Russ had the North Shore salad, which features blueberries, candied pecans, and a blueberry vinaigrette dressing. I had a cup of the Red Lake wild rice chowder.
My tastebuds were in heaven! I’ve eaten many chowders in my day, but this ranks among the top. I could tell it was made with real cream, hand-harvested wild rice that was fluffy and tender, and care. The flavors were perfectly balanced, and the soup wasn’t too salty. I would have just been happy with the soup, but there was more!
For entrees, Russ ordered the night’s special, which was a rack of lamb. I ordered the sea scallops. Russ was very happy with his, and I was, too. My scallops were seared to perfection and accompanied by an asparagus puree and root vegetables. As I dined on the parsnips, I was transported back to my childhood when I used to help my father harvest parsnips from our backyard garden. And then a bite of scallop zinged me over to the seaside, but I didn’t mind!
We decided to go for the gusto and ordered dessert. Russ had the apple pie ala mode. I had the flourless orange chocolate cake. Once again, a win, although my cake was not shaped like any piece of cake I’ve ever seen before. It was rather like a tall blob. But it was a good blob. I ate it all. Well, Russ had to help with the last few bites because I was stuffed.
On our sated drive back to the campground, our headlights shined on a black bear crossing the road near the entrance. We had already noticed signs everywhere in the campground about bears, and this proved them right. Thankfully, the bear was headed away from the campground.
Despite being near the highway, the campground was quiet at night. It was also cold. Both nights were near freezing and we were glad we brought extra blankets.
The next day we hiked to Lookout Mountain, which was about a 2.6-mile round trip. The cold nights hastened the fall colors, which were especially spectacular to see from the mountain overlook. We also took in more waterfalls along the river.
Then it was time for Thursday-night date night at the North Shore winery. From 6-8 pm you can listen to music and try flights of their red or white wines and hard ciders. It surprised us that the event was all outdoors. That’s not mentioned anywhere on their website or when you call them for a reservation. It was a bit nippy spending a couple of hours outdoors on a September evening, but thankfully, we happened to be dressed for the occasion.
I tasted a white flight and Russ a red. None of the whites did much for me, but Russ liked some of the reds, enough to buy a bottle of their oak-aged petite syrah for home. The winery also offered munchies with the wine, like salami bites, cheese, and truffles. I was impressed by the flight of truffles from the Gunflint Mercantile in Grand Marais. The flight consisted of blueberry, espresso, triple chocolate, maple, and dark chocolate raspberry.
The maple was my fave – creamy and not overpoweringly sweet. I liked it enough to order a dozen once we returned home. I was especially delighted when they eventually arrived to discover they were about twice as large as the ones we had at the winery. So good!
The white flight of wines from North Shore Winery, plus a flight of truffles.
On our final day we had plans to bike on the Gitchi-Gami State Trail but were thwarted by the cold. On a whim, we decided to visit another place we never have had the opportunity to explore before: Temperance River State Park. But I will save that for another post.
I have heard about the Sax-Zim Bog in northern Minnesota for years, decades even. During winter, it’s a birding mecca – home to many rare owls and other species that visit from the arctic when food and weather conditions get too dicey up there. Birding is good during summer, too. The bog is a place where birds can nest in their natural habitat, relatively undisturbed.
Russ and I had a chance to visit the bog over Labor Day weekend. I’m getting back into birding and was excited to finally be seeing this place I had heard so much about. It’s even mentioned twice in “The Big Year,” a 2011 movie that stars Rosamund Pike, Jack Black, Owen Wilson, and Steve Martin. However, no filming was done on-site, so viewers never get to see the bog. The closest is when Owen Wilson’s character spends Christmas at a Chinese restaurant in Duluth, which is about fifty miles away. I suspect even the restaurant was fictional because it didn’t look like any I’ve ever seen in my hometown.
The Welcome Center
Anyway, so I was psyched to visit the bog. I thought since migration season had started, we might have a good opportunity to see birds moving through the area. We pulled up to the visitor center (which is closed now, opens mid-December through mid-March) and hiked the trails that go out from it. There’s a loop trail that starts at the parking lot and a Gray Jay Way that begins at the visitor center.
After all these years of anticipation, maybe I was expecting too much. We only saw a thrush (probably a Swainson’s), blue jays, and the chickadees and nuthatches found everywhere in the north. I was disappointed.
But it was neat getting a close look at a bog and learning the history of the area from the interpretive signs near the welcome center. For instance, I never knew that Jeno Paulucci, famed creator of Pizza Rolls and Chung King foods had a celery farm near the bog.
Gray Jay Way ends with a viewing platform where visitors can see the remnants of ditches that were dug in the early 1900s to drain the bog land for farming. Russ and I pushed through the undergrowth for a better look at the ditch junction. The dark bog water lay acidic and still on the landscape, lending an eerie air to the place.
On our way home, we stopped at one of three boardwalks in the bog: The Warren Woessner walk. We marveled at all the work that must have gone into its construction. We had a pleasant walk but didn’t see any more birds.
When I got home, I asked the executive director of the Friends of the Sax-Zim Bog what was up with the lack of birds. Was this just a bad time to look? Sparky Stensaas said this is the worst time of the year for birding in the bog. Just my luck!
Sparky and I go way back to when we used to be on the board of the local Audubon Society chapter. He took over editing the chapter newsletter from me a loooong time ago. Or did I take over from him?
Sparky also said that the visitor center is only open during the winter because that’s when 90% of the visitors come, but that they probably won’t be open this winter due to COVID. Guess I’ll have to content myself with watching the videos Sparky made this spring and summer, which show there really ARE birds in the bog.
So, don’t be like me. Don’t go birding at the Sax-Zim Bog in September.
If you are a Duluthian or just want to be Duluthy, and you are tired of biking the Munger Trail, try its wild, more adventurous twin, the Duluth, Winnipeg and Pacific Railroad Corridor Trail. I call it a twin because, like the Munger Trail, it follows an abandoned railroad line and passes over a similar geography. But the DWP is wilder and more adventurous because it’s gravel, less developed, and fewer people use it.
We accessed the DWP from Spirit Mountain’s Grand Avenue chalet. If you go up the ski hill about 200 yards from the chalet, you will run into the trail, which crosses the hill. You can also access it from a gravel road and trail system to the right of the chalet, but those are technically closed this season due to COVID-19.
Take a left, and you are on your way to new vistas, a couple of updated trestle bridges, and a tunnel. The 10-mile trail will take you to Ely’s Peak, Becks Road, and eventually to Proctor. When we arrived at Ely’s Peak tunnel, rock climbers were scaling the outside walls, testing their nerve and equipment.
We turned back at the tunnel. Later, while resting on a bridge, we had the chance to speak to a family who said they biked to the Buffalo House and had lunch before biking back to the parking lot at the chalet.
He’s had the chance to spend extra time on a clear northern Minnesota lake. It’s easy to see the young fish and bluegills against the sandy bottom. He was so excited when I pointed out the “fishies” in the water that now he whiles away many an hour wading and chasing them.
He hasn’t caught a fish yet. I don’t think he’d know what to do with one if he did. But that’s why they call it “fishing” and not “catching,” right?
I know that Garrison Keillor of “Prairie Home Companion” fame has fallen out of favor these days, but he told a great story about Bruno, the fishing dog, during a Lake Wobegon skit a few years ago. Bruno could catch fish, and caused a memorable panic during a baby’s baptism reception.
I am hoping that Buddy does not follow suit.
It’s just fun seeing Buddy excited about fishing. I am hoping it doesn’t stress out the fish too much. They probably know by now that he’s not a major threat.
I hope you all are having a summer as good as Buddy’s.
A vermilion sunset on Lake Vermilion. Night One of our stay.
Since nobody wants Americans in their countries right now, Russ and I decided to take several local camping trips. For mini-vacation #1, we trailered our thirteen-foot Scamp to Lake Vermilion State Park, a newish development in northern Minnesota.
I’ve spent some time on Vermilion Lake before but had not been to the park yet. This large lake is reminiscent of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness – same rocky shorelines, scraggy spruces and towering pines – but development is permitted (outside of the park) so lots of cabins and lake homes line the shore.
There’s also an historic iron ore mine located in the park. When viruses aren’t running rampant, underground tours are offered, which are an interesting way to learn about the importance of Minnesota’s Iron Range.
We spent two nights in the Vermilion Ridge Campground. We brought our kayak, paddleboard, and bikes, and used them all, even though the weather wasn’t that good. We went during the week because all of the weekends for the summer were booked already – apparently, everyone else had the same idea to travel locally.
Here are some pros and cons we discovered.
PROs
A nice boat launch. You can use it if you have a state park sticker, otherwise, I think there’s a daily fee. (Staying at the campground requires a state park sticker, which you can apply for at a self-service kiosk when you enter the park.) We found that the boat launch dock was a good place to watch the sun set. That’s where I took some of the photos that accompany this post.
Close to the Mesabi Trail. This is a bike trail that spans 135 miles across the north. It’s not all completed yet. The section near the campground seems new. We were able to bike to it from our site and ride 4-5 miles toward Ely before the pavement stopped. Someday, the trail will reach Ely.
There’s wifi! If you need to keep in touch with friends, family, or social media while you’re in the woods, you can.
Quiet. The campground was quiet at night and there’s a good screen of trees between sites, which affords some privacy.
New pavement. The campground was constructed about ten years ago and work is still being done on the roads. All the pavement (including the bike trails) is smooth and new – a dream for longboarders, bikers and inline skaters.
Sunset on Lake Vermilion, Night Two.
CONS
No swimming beach. There’s no good place to swim in the park. A drive is required to reach local beaches on the lake.
Hard to get a reservation. Like I mentioned, we had to go in the middle of the week because summer weekends were filled already. Plan ahead to get the dates you desire.
The campsites aren’t on the lake. They are farther inland. I suppose this is better for the health of the lake, but it would’ve been more scenic to be near the water.
A building at the Tower-Soudan iron ore mine.
Another thing to know before you go is that you can’t bring your own firewood or gather it in the park. You’ll need to pay a fee to use wood the park provides. I think this has to do with not spreading the emerald ash borer beetle.
An idyllic scene from the Mesabi Trail.
If you go, we hope you enjoy the park as much as we did. Buddy liked it, too!
Buddy, a goldendoodle naturally highlighted by a golden sunset.
I awaken at 6 a.m., roll over and look at the lake outside the window. The water is smooth as a scrying mirror. The sun peeks over the spruces, encouraging a lake mist to form.
If I were more ambitious, I’d be out paddle boarding right now. Instead, I roll over and shut my eyes, lulled into a doze by the trills of hermit thrushes deep in the forest.
An hour later, I open my eyes to the same scene — the lake still calm, mist still rising.
Although in my book, 7 a.m. is still early to rise, I succumb to the siren call of my standup paddle board. It is early July and the temperature is already 70 degrees outside – one of those days that Minnesotans dream of during February. It would be criminal not to enjoy it.
Russ and the dog are still sleeping, so I quietly get out of bed and don my swimsuit. I tiptoe out into the dew-wet grass toward the boat house – feeling like a teenager headed for an illicit rendezvous. However, I am responsible enough to leave a note on the kitchen table: “Gone paddleboarding!”
Opening the boathouse door, I inhale. There’s nothing like that old boathouse smell – decades of damp, mixed with a little mustiness and a hint of worn wood.
I heft my board and paddle, carefully closing the door so I won’t wake those in the cabin. On my way to the dock, I pass a bunch of blueberry plants covered with small blue sapphires – berries ready for picking. I can’t be distracted, though. They’ll have to wait.
As I settle my board into the water, I giggle inwardly. Hardly typical behavior for someone nearing retirement age, but a quick glance at the lake has told me it will only be me and the loons out there this morning. Life cannot get much better.
I head out in a clockwise direction around the lake. This just seems natural. The night before, a small parade of pontoon boats were all going counterclockwise. We’re living in the northern hemisphere. The toilet water spins clockwise. I figure it’s better not to go against the spin.
My board skims the surface easily. In the clear water below, bluegills rush to hide in the reeds. Water plants stand still and straight as trees. As I paddle, the mist seems an elusive dream. I know I’m in it, but I can’t see it when I arrive. The mist is always just out of reach ahead, playing tricks with my senses.
All of the other cabins are silent, still shuttered for the night. I only see a couple of other ladies, each sitting on shore, enjoying their morning coffee. I wave and they wave back.
My morning idyll is shattered by a pain in the middle of my back, between my shoulder blades. A horse fly or deer fly has found me! As I struggle to paddle into position so that I can safely use my paddle to scratch it off my back, I marvel at how these flies know exactly where to bite where they can’t easily be swatted. It’s like all the babies attend Fly Biting School were the teachers point out the safest places on people and animals to chomp.
Board in position, I carefully balance while lifting my paddle to scratch my back. Success! I don’t fall off my board and the pain disappears, along with the fly. Although a nuisance, these flies need clean water to live. Their presence is an indicator of a healthy environment.
The rest of my paddle is uneventful, if you can call relishing every summer sight and sound uneventful. I arrive back at the dock feeling like I’ve paddled into deep summer.
I am so thankful to be able to enjoy this morning, especially since there are so many people gone from this Earth due to the coronavirus, who will never have the chance to experience such things again. It was worth getting out of bed early.
If you are a Duluthian or just want to be Duluthy, and you are tired of biking the Munger Trail, try its wild, more adventurous twin, the 
We accessed the DWP from Spirit Mountain’s Grand Avenue chalet. If you go up the ski hill about 200 yards from the chalet, you will run into the trail, which crosses the hill. You can also access it from a gravel road and trail system to the right of the chalet, but those are technically closed this season due to COVID-19.
I’ve spent some time on Vermilion Lake before but had not been to the park yet. This large lake is reminiscent of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness – same rocky shorelines, scraggy spruces and towering pines – but development is permitted (outside of the park) so lots of cabins and lake homes line the shore.
I awaken at 6 a.m., roll over and look at the lake outside the window. The water is smooth as a scrying mirror. The sun peeks over the spruces, encouraging a lake mist to form.
Opening the boathouse door, I inhale. There’s nothing like that old boathouse smell – decades of damp, mixed with a little mustiness and a hint of worn wood.
Marie's Meanderings 