I had the chance to meander to Stockton Island, one of several islands in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in Lake Superior a couple of weeks ago. I was there to cover what the National Park Service is doing to make their facilities on the island more accessible to disabled people. I’ll be writing a story about that for work, but I also got a tour of the island by former park ranger, Neil Howk, who gave us (there were about 8 of us) the skinny on the history of black bears on the island.
Neil Howk imparts his knowledge about bears.
Neil worked for many years in the Lakeshore and is now on the board of the Friends of the Apostle Islands, which organized the tour on a sunny, breezy Friday. Neil took us on a short hike on the trail that leads through the campground on Stockton Island to the signpost for campsite number 4. We took a sharp right and began bushwhacking into the woods. Neil knew there was a bear den nearby.
After not too much whacking or getting whacked by tree branches, we came to a deadfall – a tree that had been blown over by wind. Neil said the bear had made its den among the tree roots, which provided a fairly snug place to spend the winter.
He felt okay taking us to this location because: 1) It’s not winter, so no bear will be actively hibernating there, and 2) Bears usually only use a hibernation site once, so disclosing its location should not endanger the privacy of any bears (except if another one ends up using it!)
Besides overwintering in dens in rocks or tree roots, black bears have also been known to hibernate inside hollow trees and even in eagle’s nests. I did not know the eagle’s nest thing. I also learned many other new bear trivia, such as: bears don’t poop all winter. Neil said they eat grass in spring to get their bowels going again.
The deadfall bear den that Neil Howk showed us on Stockton Island.
Also, cannibalism is normal for bears. Males will sometimes eat cubs – presumably ones that aren’t related to them, in order to bring females into estrus sooner so that they can procreate with them. And bears will also eat meat (besides the berries, ants, and other things that bears are known to consume). Neil said that deer fawns and chipmunks are among their favored meaty fare.
Another fact that Neil conveyed is that when bears were first counted on Stockton Island – sorry, I’m not sure when that began – there were only a couple. But now there are 20 known to live there. I can attest to their presence. On my several trips there, I’ve seen many bear tracks on the island’s beaches. (I’ll try to dig up some of my photos of those for this post.)
Black bears like to gnaw upon and otherwise dismember the wooden campsite markers on Stockton Island.
One memory that emerged during the tour came from a trip I made to Russia many years ago. One of my former husband’s relatives bragged about a bear he had shot. Granted, this relative liked his vodka and ended up chasing one of my young sons around the picnic table where we were eating – he was a rather scary, imposing figure, somewhat bearish. At some point, he showed us photos of his triumphant hunt. From the snow in the photo and the location, it became obvious that he had shot a hibernating bear. So much for sportsmanship, but I guess maybe they do things differently in Russia!
Anyway, I learned some things I didn’t know about bears from this tour, and I hope you did, too.
An Ice Age exhibit at the Bell Museum of Natural History, including a mammoth, giant beaver and musk ox.
I recently had the chance to meander through two very different natural history museums. One was public and the other not so much. Both impacted my psyche.
The public one was the Bell Museum of Natural History. This was one of my favorite hangouts during my college days when I was minoring in biology. (I won’t divulge how many decades ago that was!) Besides the obvious appeal to the science-minded, my poetry professor once took us to the museum for inspiration purposes.
The new Bell Museum.
The Bell Museum used to be on the Minneapolis Campus of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Now, it has a “new” facility on the St. Paul Campus.
Russ indulged me (smart man) and tagged along as we visited the Bell’s planetarium where we learned about astrobiology, or the search for life on other planets. The planetarium has a domed Imax theater roof. We saw a movie that was narrated by an actual museum staffer (in real life). This was unexpected, but cool, because we could ask questions. Many children in the audience did, and I was impressed by their interest in the planets.
One thing I learned was that we’ve had unmanned spacecrafts land on Venus. Somehow, I missed that news. It was so interesting to learn about the inhospitable conditions there – the landing crafts only lasted a few hours before they were incinerated by Venus’s hot temperatures.
Antlers on the wall, Bell Museum of Natural History.
In the natural history part of the Bell Museum, I was heartened to see that the painted dioramas I so loved in the old museum had been moved into the new museum. There was the wolf pack on the North Shore of Lake Superior. There were the sandhill cranes of the Platte River. I can’t imagine what it must have taken to move those overland to the St. Paul Campus intact!
Plus, the museum has many new exhibits that deal with the evolution of life on this planet. I don’t think they knew that stuff when I was a college student.
The not-so-public museum was the Zoology Museum on the University of Wisconsin-Madison Campus. I meandered into it for work. Every year, my boss at Sea Grant organizes a field trip for us science communicators and this year, our focus was Madison. This is where most Wisconsin Sea Grant staff are located, but there are many staffers from other areas in the state (including me), so all this was new to me.
The UW Zoology Museum is mainly for researchers and it was formed by researchers. Many of the specimens were collected during science expeditions or they came from nearby zoos. To give you an idea of its layout, there’s a bone room, where bones of animals are stored in boxes. There’s a skin room where animal skins are stored in drawers (think about an entire polar bear fitting into a small drawer). There’s also a taxidermy room that features various birds and mammals.
A soulful lion greeted us in the taxidermy room of the Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison Zoology Museum.
As we entered the facility, we had to carefully close doors behind us so that bugs and other contamination couldn’t follow us and destroy the samples.
In the lower level of the building is a fish room where various species of fish are stored in ethanol in jars and pails. This is in case the jars ever break – that way they won’t flood the other floors. The various jars are on shelves that are moveable. These are called compacter shelves. As opposed to stationary shelves, these can be easily moved so that more can fit in a room than otherwise possible. Zooplankton are also preserved here. Various historic scientific instruments are scattered on nearby tables.
Another part of this basement room features preserved mammals, reptiles, and invertebrates in ethanol.
It was all kind of creepy and gave me some good ideas for a horror story. There were so many many samples! Something about all those dead animals in jars seemed wrong, even though it’s for the sake of science.
A polar bear in a drawer.
The piece de resistance, however, was a room we didn’t even get to see. It’s the room with the flesh-eating beetles. The museum staffer described the beetles as the best method to remove the “meat” from the bone samples that the museum staff wants. The beetles live up to their name, eating off the flesh from the bones. The dark room the beetles live in is down a concrete corridor that would give even Edgar Allan Poe pause. We did not get to see it, but our tour host’s description was good enough.
The beetles do a much better job of cleaning than any other method, so the university still uses them, even in the 21 Century.
Mice and bats in jars in the Zoology Museum.
I realize that science needs access to real animals for research purposes, but I must admit that this research museum creeped me out much more than the public museum. I guess that’s to be expected. I’m glad I was able to see both of them.
Look for the fruits of this field trip in my fiction some day! I just discovered that there’s a horror sub-genre called “dark academic.” The Harry Potter series fits into this – think gothic architecture, pleated skirts, melancholia, and leather satchels. This is opposed to “light academic.” “Pride and Prejudice” fits into this – think of the opening of the movie where Elizabeth Bennet Walks through a sunny field reading a book. It’s all about light and happiness. My story will be more along the dark academic vein.
My takeaway with this post? Visit a natural history museum near you sometime. It might spark something!
The Rouchleau Mine Pit as seen from Minnesota’s tallest bridge.
Russ and I explored a new (to us) section of the Mesabi Bike Trail in Minnesota’s Iron Range this weekend. The section we targeted took us across the state’s tallest bridge, the Thomas Rukavina Memorial Bridge, near Virginia, Minnesota. We driven over the 204-foot-tall structure plenty of times but always looked longingly at the walking/biking/ATV trails right next to the freeway, and today was the day to make our dream come true!
The Thomas Rukavina Memorial Bridge outside of Virginia, Minnesota.
We meandered to bike trailhead in the town of Gilbert at the Sherwood Forest Campground. Biking toward Virginia, we promptly lost the paved trail as it merged into the city roads for several blocks. I think in the past, trail directions had been painted on the road, but those have been lost to the weathering of snow and traffic.
A veterans’ memorial mural we biked past in Virginia.
We had a general idea of where to go, however. We just followed our noses for a few blocks and the trail reappeared, taking us past a restaurant and across Highway 37. Then we headed into the woods. I love these forested sections of trail with their lines of aspen and birch. Pink fireweed is beginning to bloom, which added pops of color to the route. One impressive stretch took us on a skinny peninsula high above a gravel pit and a wetlands area.
What the bike trail looks like across the bridge.
The topography is gradual and unchallenging. The only part my legs complained about was the gradual incline once we returned from the bridge, but I get ahead of myself.
Eventually, we reached the bridge. One side of the trail is for walkers and bikers. The other side of the painted line is for ATVs. A low concrete barrier separates the trails from the freeway. A high railing on the outside provides protection from dropping 200 feet but still provides a view of the Rouchleau Mine Pit below. This mini Grand Canyon was created by iron ore mining activities and now provides drinking water for the city of Virginia.
Wind likes to whip around the bridge, but the weather was fair for us. The bridge was built because mining companies wanted to dig where Highway 53 used to be. They gave the transportation dept. plenty of notice, but, as you can imagine, moving a highway is no small feat. This was the most economical route. Even so, the project cost $220 million! And the bridge was constructed as part of it.
The Oldtown-Finntown Overlook.
Thomas Rukavina, its namesake, was an Iron Range lawmaker born in Virginia. He was a staunch advocate for the Iron Range and its people. He’s also memorialized in a park about a half-mile farther down the trail from the bridge. Bridge View Park offers a good vista of the structure and some interpretive signs and benches.
Once we biked to the outskirts of Virginia, we stopped to investigate a rather overgrown overlook of the mine pit that features a 50-foot caged safety bridge out to the pit’s edge. It’s named the Oldtown-Finntown Overlook.
From there, we passed the historic downtown district with its quaint old streetlights and American flags flying. The trail took us to Lake Virginia. We decided this would be a good turnaround spot. We biked around the small lake, disturbing a gaggle of Canada geese, which hissed at us, and then headed back to Gilbert.
The total trip was 13.5 miles. Although the bridge was our main goal, it was fun seeing the other, unexpected attractions along the way and becoming familiar with a new route.
The Wisconsin State Capitol as seen from Lake Mendota.
May seemed the month for me to meander around Wisconsin. My communications group at Wisconsin Sea Grant goes on an annual field trip to familiarize ourselves with projects that our water research program works on and the researchers who we fund.
Although most of our staff is in Madison, Wisconsin, this year, we chose that locale for our field trip because we have several new staff members. This was especially useful to me, who works far away in northern Wisconsin.
One of our activities during the two days in late May was a pontoon boat ride on Lake Mendota. This is the lake where the University of Wisconsin-Madison is located, and Sea Grant has funded many research projects in and upon it. I had never been on the lake before, so I was looking forward to the ride. I know, I have such a tough job if I get paid to go on a boat tour!
Our videographer, Bonnie, arranged for the rental. She thought she would be able to drive the pontoon. But when we arrived, the staff said she was too young and that she had not taken a required boater safety course, so someone else who was older needed to drive the craft.
Captain Sarah at the wheel!
In stepped Sarah, our graphic designer. She had never piloted a pontoon boat before, but she had experience sailing, so we figured she was the next best thing. I could have possibly done it, too, but was happy not to have the responsibility since I am unfamiliar with the lake.
After Sarah’s short orientation to the pontoon’s operation, we motored off around the lake on a two-hour tour. Viewing how homeowners dealt with erosion in contrast to more natural areas around the lake led to interesting conversations among us.
When we were about a quarter of the way around the lake, a siren sounded. Everyone else on the boat seemed to know that this meant “get off the water!” We were near the university docks, so Sarah headed there. The problem is, she had never docked a pontoon boat before. She recalled from reading the orientation instructions that docking was the most dangerous part of operating the craft.
Understandably, she was wary. She thought maybe we could circle near the docks until the “all-clear” siren was sounded. In the meantime, the wind picked up and rain began to fall. Then came lightning. Sarah and Bonnie checked their phones. Both had received calls from the rental agency, telling them to get the pontoon off the lake.
After her third circle near the docks, Sarah gained enough confidence (or perhaps she was just worried enough) to try and dock the pontoon. She told us which side she planned to dock on, so we deployed the fenders and I organized everyone regarding who would throw ropes and who would jump onto the dock to catch them.
The only problem was that the wind was blowing with gusto by this time. Sarah’s plan to dock us on the left side quickly turned into a plan to dock us on the right side as the wind blew us in that direction. We adjusted on the fly and jumped out onto the right dock.
Stormwater gushes out into Lake Mendota underneath the college’s mascot, Bucky Badger. Note the mallard headed into the stream.
We secured the pontoon and stayed docked for at least a half hour. Rain poured down as the five of us huddled under its canvas roof. A brown plume of stormwater erupted from a nearby storm drain, carrying with it a red baseball batter’s helmet and assorted flotsam that the local mallard ducks surged toward, finding it irresistible. Gross!
Shortly, we discovered that rain leaked through the roof’s zipper, but that was easy enough to avoid. We thought of running through the rain into the shelter of the student union, but the surety of getting wet outweighed the danger of being on the water in a metal structure. Perhaps not so bright, but there were two other pontoons of people who had docked near us, and they were also waiting out the storm on their boats.
While rain poured down and thunder roared on our side of the lake, the pontoon rental people called Sarah and told her it was all clear and that we could go back on the lake. We were like, no way! We waited out the storm another half-hour.
Our unscheduled team-building exercise wasn‘t all terror. We saw this picturesque sail boat before the storm. Note the gathering clouds.
When it seemed like the storm was over, we hightailed it back to the rental place because we were overdue. Bonnie and our boss, Moira, were sitting in the front of the boat and the rest of us were under the canopy. Bonnie had a cap on. Moira didn’t, and she noted with some amusement that her long hair was standing on end.
I wasn’t sure if this phenomenon was due to the wind or some less friendly element, but it’s obvious there must have been electricity in the air. Bonnie didn’t notice it happening to herself because of her cap.
Capn Sarah quietly checked her weather app and gunned the motor. Eventually, Moira’s hair deflated, and we made it back to the rental center intact. Our two-hour tour had turned into a three-hour tour due to weather, but we weren’t charged any extra due to this “act of God.”
Later, at dinner, I looked on the internet to see what it means “when your hair stands on end when you’re in a boat on water.” The entry stated, simply and plainly: You will be struck by lightning!
When I shared this with my colleagues, we all felt lucky to have survived the tour unscathed. Sarah admitted that when she had checked her weather app while Moira’s hair stood on end, it had shown lightning in our vicinity.
After more conversation, it slowly dawned on me that, although I had no hand in organizing the pontoon ride or piloting the craft, my coworkers unanimously blamed me for our misadventure.
Why? Because, as we were about to board the pontoon, I was singing the theme song to Gilligan’s Island. And I MAY have mentioned something about a three-hour tour.
This post is reblogged from the Wisconsin Sea Grant blog, which I write for work.This is the second (and final) story in a series about my weeklong trip around Wisconsin as part of the Wisconsin Idea Seminar. Part 1 described our experience on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus learning about Ho-Chunk history. This part will describe the rest of the trip in general, focusing on a tour of the Green Bay Packaging Co.
A Wisconsin Idea Seminar participant contemplates Black Smokey Falls on the Wolf River in the Menominee Reservation.
Continuing the first day of our tour, a Badger Bus took us to Portage, where we visited the Historic Indian Agency House, which is where the Ho-Chunk people came to collect their government allotments once they were displaced from their lands by settlers. Reading the names of the Native families on the outdoor plaques was a poignant reminder of this traumatic time in history.
Then we traveled to Appleton, where we took a walking tour of the town, learning about Black history. When the area was first settled, some land and businesses were owned by Black people, but by the 1930s, the town was entirely white due to organized, unofficial harassment that drove Blacks away. That has thankfully turned around so much that there’s even a soul food restaurant in town, which is where we ate supper.
Loblolly pine seedlings in the Green Bay Packaging Co.’s conference room. The company’s Arkansas plant uses loblollys when they need virgin wood fiber to make paper.
On Day 2, we drove to Green Bay where we toured the impressive Green Bay Packaging Co. There was a rumor floating around on the bus that this was the business that the Green Bay Packers football team was named after. Later, I discovered through my own research that this wasn’t true. The Packers were named after a meat-packing plant, which was one of their first sponsors. See, this Minnesotan really is learning about Wisconsin culture!
Green Bay Packaging makes paper from recycled materials. That paper is then used to make boxes. They don’t make the boxes on-site – they ship their paper elsewhere for that. Two years ago, they expanded their facilities on the same land by the bay. Much of the process is automated. Even so, the company employs more workers than before. In the early 1990s, this mill was one of the first in the world to become totally effluent free (zero discharge of wastewater).
We were led through the plant by Olivia Durocher, project development specialist, and Andrew Stoub, environmental manager. Durocher said that 50% of their recycled materials comes from “big box” companies like Target and Walmart and the other 50% comes from consumers. They produce about 550 tons of paper per year.
“Wisconsin has been a top producer of paper for a long time,” Durocher said. “We’re happy to have a hand in that.”
She explained that a paper fiber can be recycled seven times before it becomes too short to be used any more. That’s why other mills still use trees to make paper. “If you stopped introducing virgin fiber into the system, the entire country would run completely out of boxes in about six months or less. That’s why it’s important to continue to plant trees and use virgin fiber to produce kraft paper. It introduces that virgin fiber into the system. That’s why we can’t have all the mills be recycled mills,” Durocher said.
A map of all the communities we visited during our tour. Image credit: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Stoub said the water used in the plant does not come from the bay. About half of the water is recycled from treated water the mill has already used and half comes from treated wastewater from the city of Green Bay. The company uses the methane gas produced by their wastewater digestor to feed their boilers instead of burning the gas off, which many facilities do. Plus, the gas fuels a generator that produces enough electricity to power the mill’s wastewater treatment plant. “It’s a pretty cool sustainable system,” Stoub said.
During our tour of the plant, most impressive to me was its automated 100,000-square-foot paper warehouse. According to Durocher, it’s the largest vertically stacked paper warehouse in the Western Hemisphere. It holds 8,000 rolls of paper, which is the equivalent of 26,000 tons of paper – about 22 days of inventory. No people are allowed in the warehouse because of the danger of a huge tower of paper falling on them. As you can guess, when they built the floor for the warehouse, they took pains to ensure it was totally level!
We were able to view the warehouse through indoor windows. The paper is moved around by four vacuum cranes (Konecranes), which each employ 14,000 pounds of suction. Compared to mechanical cranes, the vacuum cranes allow workers to store the rolls closer together and move them around faster. Paper from the warehouse is shipped out by rail and trucks. Alas, I don’t have any photos of the warehouse or the inside of the mill because we weren’t allowed to take them.
Stoub said you can tell that a box came from the company’s materials because it will have their logo on it.
Highlights from the rest of the five-day trip included a visit to the Menominee Reservation where we learned about their sustainable timber harvesting practices and sawmill operation. We also visited Big Smokey Falls on the Wolf River on the reservation, where we had a chance to get a feel for the land and contemplate what we’d learned so far. That day ended with a tea-making workshop led by Menominee Elder Bonnie McKiernan. We made a mixture that’s good for colds, with bee balm (which I have a ton of in my yard; I did not know it was edible), peppermint and mullein.
Getting friendly with some dairy cows at Soaring Eagle Dairy.
On Day 4, we visited Soaring Eagle Dairy in Newton, a woman-run business. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about how that industry runs. Their milk is used by Land-O-Lakes Inc.
During the final day, we took a walking tour of Milwaukee’s South Side and visited Escuela Verde, a charter school. The tour ended with an art project where we were able to reflect on our experiences.
Through it all, our bus driver Bob was with us. He literally held our lives in his hands, and we respected him greatly. He became a favorite among us.
I came away from the experience feeling more familiar with Wisconsin. This Minnesotan still has a lot to learn, but I feel a bit more confident in my knowledge base now.
I’m a born and bred Minnesotan. I’ve lived there almost my whole life. Sometimes, that can make working for Wisconsin institutions like Sea Grant and the University of Wisconsin-Madison challenging. While I am technically a UW-Madison employee, I live in Duluth, Minnesota, and my office is just across the border in Superior, Wisconsin. Although I’ve worked for Wisconsin Sea Grant 10 years, I’m not as steeped in my workplace’s culture and geography as I am in my home state’s.
This can lead to some interesting mistakes. One happened a few months ago when a co-worker said they grew up on Wisconsin’s Fox River. I only knew the part of the Fox that connects to Green Bay so, in the story I was writing at the time, I put that person’s birthplace near Green Bay. I was chagrined to learn she actually grew up near Oshkosh on a branch of the river 50 miles away from where I originally placed her.
I hate making mistakes in my stories. Even if it’s just during a draft. So, when I saw an announcement for the Wisconsin Idea Seminar in the UW employee newsletter, I jumped at the chance to apply.
The seminar is an annual five-day immersive study tour of Wisconsin culture and geography for UW-Madison faculty and staff. It’s designed so that participants:
Gain a deeper knowledge of the cultural, educational, industrial, social and political realities of Wisconsin
Learn firsthand about the social and cultural contexts that shape the lives of many UW students
See and experience the University’s connections to the state
Understand the public service mission of the University
Nurture an increased mutual understanding between the University and the people of Wisconsin
What this looks like in real life is about 40 people on a big red Bucky Badger bus riding around the state, talking to people and to each other, participating in activities and drinking in the landscape. The theme this year was Forest + River, which was right up my alley as a water research storyteller who is also a Wisconsin geographically challenged person.
This post focuses on just one of our experiences during the seminar’s first day. I plan to write another post later about the rest of the trip and a visit to the Green Bay Packaging Plant, which makes recycled paper used in boxes.
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Our experience began on the Madison campus with a walking tour of Ho-Chunk sites. Amid a cacophony of spring birdsong, Bill Quackenbush, tribal historic preservation officer for the Ho-Chunk Nation, took us to several effigy mounds. These are ancient burial mounds formed in the shape of animals — birds, in the case of the two that we viewed.
Bill Quackenbush, Ho-Chunk tribal historic preservation officer.
The Madison campus is home to more of these ancient earthen monuments than any other university or college campus anywhere in North America, and probably the world. There are 38 burial mounds. At least 14 others have been lost to development. They are several thousand years old, perhaps as ancient as Egypt’s pyramids.
I learned something new right off the bat, mainly that there is a goose-shaped effigy mound right outside the Sea Grant office in Goodnight Hall. Granted, I don’t work on campus, but you’d think I would have heard something about that during my career here! Quackenbush said a Ho-Chunk village used to be where the office building is now located on the shores of Lake Mendota.
He explained how the Ho-Chunk are working to reclaim their culture. “These earth works are one small example of a portion of our life. We are no different today then we were back then. We humans like to take care of not only our babies and our children, but also our ancestors,” Quackenbush said.
The goose effigy burial mound near the Sea Grant office on the UW-Madison campus.
He criticized a stone marker on the mound not only for disturbing the site but for the text on it, which gives the impression that the mound is a thing of the past. “It isn’t a thing of the past at all,” Quackenbush said. “This is ever-present. It’s living and it’s here. Our ancestors are buried in this ground. They’re living, breathing things to us like that tree over there. Their bones have probably returned to the earth by now, but it’s the ground that is sacred to us.
“However, I don’t want to be all doom and gloom. There’s a lot of good things that have come from protecting these mounds,” Quackenbush added.
The mound site was designated on the National Register of Historic Places a few years ago. The University is working to restore an oak savannah that used to exist there.
The Ho-Chunk Clan Circle.
A short walk took us to the Ho-Chunk Clan Circle, a series of 12 metal sculptures that was dedicated earlier this year. Each depicts a clan symbol. Quackenbush said the circle represents the Ho-Chunk people as a whole.
Fitting my Sea Grant employment, I found myself standing near the Water Spirit sculpture. Quackenbush said the tribe was involved in the process of creating the circle and that the sculpture offers opportunities for him to meet and speak with more groups such as the Wisconsin Idea Seminar participants. He explained the various clan roles and how they fit into the tribe’s governmental system.
Next, the group was able to view a dugout canoe that Quackenbush built with the help of Ho-Chunk youth. They built it in much the same style as the ancient canoes that were recently discovered in Lake Mendota.
Quackenbush’s dugout canoe.
“This canoe doesn’t look very exciting, but the journey it’s been on is,” Quackenbush said. “When I saw that the historical society discovered the dugout canoes in the lake behind you as I was drinking my cup of coffee, it shot out of my nostrils! It was amazing to me because we had aspirations of putting one of them together.”
He worked with Dane County to find a suitable cottonwood tree that was going to be removed for a trail project. The county delivered the tree to a youth education center, which is where Quackenbush and the students worked on it. Everything came together and, like the clan circle, the canoe is a great educational discussion piece.
Amy Rosebrough, interim Wisconsin state archeologist, joined us and described how the historic dugout canoes were found. She also detailed the significance of the new canoe. “These lakes remember. With the canoes, they’re telling the story of the Ho-Chunk presence here.”
Her office’s goal has been to work with Quackenbush and other partners to keep that story alive, “…To let people know that when they’re out there fishing, this isn’t something new. This is something that’s been going on for thousands of thousands of years. It’s not just the mounds, it’s this whole landscape. And to have Bill and his team come through with this new dugout, that was a wonderful thing – to sort of bring that back,” Rosebrough said.
Our visit ended with a Ho-Chunk drum ceremony by the Iron Mound Singers. Listening to them was like hearing the heartbeat of the Earth. That is definitely not something I get to do everyday in my job as a science writer. As we walked back to the bus to head to Portage and Appleton, I felt privileged to learn more about Ho-Chunk culture and the history of the land where the university stands.
I’m reading “David Copperfield” by Charles Dickens in preparation for reading this year’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “Demon Copperhead” by Barbara Kingsolver. Although it’s not a requirement to be familiar with Copperfield before reading Copperhead, the latter is based on former so I figure it can’t hurt.
Given my blog’s name, imagine my delight when, in the opening of Copperfield, I found a short treatise on meandering. David Copperfield was born with a caul (amniotic sack) around him. Back in the day, cauls were thought to have mystical properties, one of which was to protect whoever possessed it from death by drowning. They had value. David’s family sold the caul in a raffle. It was won by an old lady who died triumphantly in her bed years later at the age of 92. She was triumphant because she did not drown. But drowning would have been difficult for her even without a caul since she never went in or near the water except to cross a bridge.
Copperfield says, “Over her tea, to which she was extremely partial, she, to the last, expressed her indignation at the impiety of mariners and others who had the presumption to go ‘meandering’ about the world. It was in vain to represent to her that some conveniences, tea perhaps included, resulted from this objectionable practice. She always returned with greater emphasis and with and an instinctive knowledge of the strength of her objection: ‘Let us have no meandering!’”
That made me laugh. Good thing the dear departed lady is not alive to read my blog. She would surely find it objectionable.
I have been doing my share of meandering lately, thus my absence from this blog. I hope to write more soon about my adventures traveling around the state and culture of Wisconsin.
This is the Bell of Two Friends on Nicollet Island in Minneapolis. We came across it during an impromptu walk around the park pavilion. See the rope hanging down over the archway? Ringing the bell it’s attached to signifies a prayer for world peace and continued friendship between the people of Minneapolis and their sister city, Ibaraki, Japan.
The sculpture was inspired by a 2,000-year-old terra cotta mold of a bronze bell, discovered in Ibaraki. We didn’t know all this when we rang the bell, but we could feel the friendship somehow.
Nicollet Island is supposedly the only inhabited island in the Mississippi River. I’ve had the chance to visit it on several occasions. Each time, I come away thinking that if I was forced to move from Duluth (probably at gunpoint, which is what it would take) and reside in the Twin Cities, I might be able to be happy on this island.
I love the historic feel of it, the energy of the river that runs on both sides, the roar of St. Anthony Falls, the green spaces, and old homes. My latest visit prompted me to read a book about the island (“Nicollet Island” by Christopher and Rushika February Hage). I learned that there used to be five other islands near it but once settlers arrived, two were filled in so that they joined the riverbank, two were destroyed when a lock and dam was built, and one eroded.
The view from underneath the Hennepin Avenue Bridge on Nicollet Island.
Before it was named for explorer Joseph Nicollet, the Dakota people called it “wita waste,” meaning beautiful island. They fished from its banks and tapped maple trees that covered it. Rites of transition from childhood to manhood were carried out there and the island was considered as a safe place for women to give birth. Plus, it had the added benefit of the sound of the falls to drown out the screaming. 😊
Waterpower from the falls proved irresistible to the settlers, who used it to run sawmills and flour mills. Once the home of the most fashionable and prominent Minneapolitans, the island changed drastically after a fire in 1893 that began by boys smoking at a Wagon Works. Eventually, rebuilding occurred in the form of a Catholic high school and a monastery. Once-elegant apartments were subdivided and occupied by pensioners and veterans. As the economy tanked during the Depression, the island became home to the homeless.
The Hennepin Ave Bridge in black and white.
In the 1950s, the city razed many buildings in the nearby Gateway District, forcing even more homeless people to the island. Then the razing eyes of city government turned toward the island, but the residents resisted.
In the 1960s and 70s, the island was a favorite with the counterculture. Musicians, artists, (dare I say writers?), and drug-users coexisted with the poor island residents. They did not want to be “improved” upon by city planners.
In 1971, St. Anthony Falls and the island were designated in the National Registry of Historic Places. A city preservation commission helped with a movement to preserve the island’s historic homes. Eventually, a city park was established on the site of vacant industrial land.
Now, people like Russ and I enjoy walking, biking, and running on the island. And we ring a bell in world friendship.
Russ and I meandered to the big city recently: i.e., the Twin Cities, i.e., Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. One of our stops was a tour of the Wabasha Street Caves in St. Paul.
This series of seven caves are in a sandstone/limestone bluff not far from the Mississippi River. They were dug in the 1850s to mine silica for making glass.
Our tour guide was named Lois. She began our tour not in the fancy entrance that leads to a refurbished part of the cave, but in a more primitive entrance, where we could see what the unfinished, original walls look like. While we stood in front of an entrance to a side cave, Lois explained that once the silica mining was over, the caves were used to store produce from off the river boats. Temperatures range from 50 to 55 degrees, which makes the caves ideal for storing veggies, growing mushrooms, and aging cheese.
The Wabasha Street Caves were once home to the largest mushroom growing operation in the United States. An immigrant Frenchman and his wife saw the cave’s dampness, darkness, and cool temperatures as the perfect environment for growing the delectable fungi. Plus, the streets of St. Paul provided a free source of growth medium in the form of horse manure.
Although that operation eventually ceased, the mushroom company lives on today in the form of Lehman’s Farm in Lakeville, Minnesota, which sells its marinated mushrooms to high-end food outlets like Lunds & Byerlys. The caves were also used by the Land O’Lakes Company to age Roquefort cheese.
In the 1950s, the caves fell into disuse until a flood caused massive damage to St. Paul. Lois said the caves were seen as the perfect place to store all that untidy debris. She shined a light down a side entrance where she stood to show us it was filled with old tires and dirt. But, before the flood, in the 1920 and 30s the cave was modified as a speakeasy, casino, and a nightclub. The debris-strewn side tunnel was thought to once lead to the speakeasy.
Tour guide Lois tells us spooky tales of nefarious doings in the Wabasha Street Caves.
From there, our tour moved into the refinished part of the cave. We saw the long bar, which was rebuilt based on old photos. Stucco covered the ceiling and water pipes and electricity ran through the walls. A separate section contained a dance floor, fireplace, and a stage. Lois said that famous jazz bands used to perform in the cave’s Castle Royal Nightclub.
The nightclub and casino were favorites with local gangsters. St. Paul had the reputation as a safe haven for them. The police wouldn’t arrest gangsters as long as they didn’t commit any crimes in St. Paul, although Minneapolis was fair game! The gangsters also shared their ill-gotten gains with the police department. This was called the Layover Agreement.
Despite this agreement, one notable crime happened in the caves. Four gangsters were gambling after hours. One of them apparently took umbrage at the conduct of the others and shot them all dead with his Tommy gun. At the noise, a cleaning lady ran in from another room to find three of the gangsters lying dead in pools of blood. She alerted the police who came to investigate.
Suffice it to say, with the cozy relationship between the gangsters and the police at that time, justice was not served. The police cleaned up the scene and chided the cleaning woman for filing a false report. It’s thought the bodies of the three gangsters still reside in the caves somewhere. Despite the protestations of the police, evidence of the crime can be seen in bullet holes on the cement fireplace.
Now the caves function as an event center and tourist attraction. They offer swing dancing and special ghostly tours. We were fascinated to learn about the caves and the shady history of the city of St. Paul.
When last you heard about us, Russ and I were having past life regression sessions in Prescott. That done, we left Prescott a day early under the impending threat of ten inches of snow. We drove across the mountains to the funky mining town of Jerome. Russ had not been there before and we were so close, it seemed a must-see.
Like on my previous trip, we ate lunch at Bobby D’s BBQ. This time, it was Russ’s turn to sit in the “haunted booth” where a former restaurant owner died. Despite this unappetizing tale, we heartily enjoyed our lunch of BBQ chicken, ribs, onion rings, and zucchini fries. They make the BBQ sauce on-site. Our favorite of the four was the jalapeno, molasses and brown sugar one. Zippy but not too spicy, even for us Minnesotans.
Sated, we searched for Nellie Bly’s kaleidoscope shop, which I’d visited last time. Then, I did not purchase any of these tubular wonders. Now, I had some relatives’ birthdays as an excuse. I even bought a small polished wooden one for us. Sometimes, you just need to look at the world in multiple triangles.
A kaleidoscope image I took with my phone camera, looking through the scope when back at home.
After some more browsing, we decided it was best to hightail it to lower elevations before the snowstorm came. We drove to Phoenix where we stayed overnight. The next day we visited the Heard Museum, which specializes in Native American art. From the sculptures outdoors to the paintings indoors, it was all marvelous. But my favorite exhibit was “Stories Outside the Lines: American Indian Ledger Art.” Hidden in several upper floor hallways, the drawings show events and past achievements that Native artists recorded in ledger books.
According to the museum, this art form began in the late 19th century when several Great Plains tribes were relocated to reservations by the U.S. Government. Many of their cultures had traditions of recording events on animal hides using natural pigments. Faced with imprisonment for practicing their cultural traditions, the Natives turned to the materials they had at hand, which were ledger books and colored pencils, provided by traders and government agents.
What struck me was their two-dimensionality. They looked like something a school child would draw except for the subtle sophistication of the topics they depict.
Russ and I are both big “Outlander” book and TV series fans, so our next stop was in the suburb of Phoenix at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore. The bookstore is near Outlander author Diana Gabaldon’s home and she sometimes does events there. We found that we missed Diana by a mere day – she was going to be speaking the next evening. Although tempted to stay, we had relatives waiting for us in Tucson, so we had to content ourselves with buying a few books instead. (After I got home, I discovered that one was autographed by Diana!)
An example of ledger art, courtesy of the Heard Museum.
Later, we drove south to Tucson and stayed at a relative’s home. We awoke the next morning to, you guessed it, a few inches of snow. It was the first snow the city had experienced in several decades. It seems we just could not escape it. However, the white stuff quickly melted.
A blooming cactus at the Sonoran Desert MuseumBighorn sheep, Sonoran Desert Museum
We saw my son in Tucson and toured the Sonoran Desert Museum. Both Russ and I had been there before, but my son hadn’t. It had been years since we’d been there – the exhibits seemed more numerous and larger than I recall, but I suppose some had been added since the 1980s!
Our trip capped off with a hike in Madera Canyon, which to me seemed more like a valley than a canyon in the national forest nearby. The area is known for its birds, so we made sure to take in the bird-feeding station at the Santa Rita Lodge after our hike. We saw a lot of turkeys and Mexican jays.
Thus, ended our trip to Arizona to escape the snow. We failed in that regard, but the experience was successful in so many other ways.
Marie's Meanderings 