Nature

A “River of Poems” spans the world

/ mariezhuikov / 2 Comments

We expected only a few local poets would be interested. We thought they’d offer poems about the St. Louis River on the Minnesota-Wisconsin border.

That was our mindset when the River Talk planning team at my workplace first developed the theme for the public poetry reading to be held in conjunction with the St. Louis River Summit as an evening program in March 2021. We were mistaken, but in the best possible way.

In reality, our call for river poems through the literary submission management platform Submittable garnered interest from 76 poets from across the U.S. and around the world. They submitted 148 poems for consideration.

“As it turns out, a lot of people like to write about rivers. That’s because they are really important in our communities and in our lives,” said Deanna Erickson, director of the National Lake Superior Estuarine Research Reserve, which co-sponsors the River Talk series with Wisconsin Sea Grant.

An overlook above the St. Louis River in Duluth, Minn.

We quickly realized we were going to need more judges. In the end, we gathered six who represented a good cross-section of the audience we expected to attend the summit.

The judging was “blind,” which means the poets’ names were not associated with their poems. After two rounds, the judges narrowed the number of poems down to a dozen, with a few for backup in case any of the chosen poets could not be reached.

Although communication was sometimes a challenge, all 12 poets were enthusiastic about participating in the reading. They represented a wide diversity of ages and ethnicities.

The River Talk was a couple of weeks ago, but the warm fuzzy feelings it engendered remain with me. I could use many adjectives to describe it: powerful, beautiful, stark, raw, funny — but it’s really best if you listen to the poems and feel all the feels for yourselves. The reading drew 85 Zoomers, a record attendance.

The Lake Superior Reserve, our partner in the talks, recorded the reading and it’s available on their YouTube channel. Here’s a list of the poets (in the order they read) and the names of their poems:

Tyler Dettloff (Michigan) “My Stars”
Heather Dobbins (Arkansas) “I Held us on for 36 Hours after the Levee Broke to hell”
Ben Green (New Mexico) “Immersion: A Prayer of Intent”
Lorraine Lamey (Michigan) “Catching Your Drift”
Joan Macintosh (Newfoundland) “The Current Feels”
Kate Meyer-Currey (England) “Timberscombe”
Rebecca Nelson (California) “Of the St. Louis River”
Stephanie Niu (New York) “To the Beaver’s Eyes”
Diana Randolph (Wisconsin) “Knowing the Way”
Ron Riekki (Florida) “It Took a Long Time to Discover”
Derold Sligh (South Korea) “Rouge River”
Lucy Tyrrell (Wisconsin) “Talking Water”

Ironically, the one poem specifically about the St. Louis River was written by someone who had never visited it. Rebecca Nelson said her poem, “Of the St. Louis River” was inspired by the spiritual experiences she’s had while watching water. She grew up in the Midwest and said she wrote the poem thinking of the rivers she knew from childhood. “I would love to visit sometime after the pandemic!” Nelson said.

Barb Huberty, St. Louis River Area of Concern coordinator for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, offered this comment in the Zoom chat, “I never knew that poetry could unite people across the globe.”

Sharon Moen, Eat Wisconsin Fish outreach specialist for Wisconsin Sea Grant, offered, “Thank you to all the poets and organizers! I am inspired by the depth of your thoughts and stories.”

Remaining River Talks will be held on April 14 and May 12. For more information, visit the River Talks page: go.wisc.edu/4uz720.

The Horses Nobody Knows

/ mariezhuikov / 1 Comment

If you didn’t get a chance to see my article in “Lake Superior Magazine” about the rare and endangered Ojibwe Horses, the same story has been reprinted in a different magazine: “Equine Monthly.” Click here to read it online.

An Ojibwe Horse, also known as a Lac LaCoix Pony. These horses are well-adapted to life in the northern wilderness.

If you’d like to hear the story behind my story, read my blog post here. These animals are so special. I felt privileged to be introduced to them.

A River of Poems

/ mariezhuikov / 3 Comments

This Wednesday at 7 p.m. Central, I’m co-hosting a Zoom event that will showcase a dozen poets from around the world and across the country reading their powerful, evocative and beautiful poems about rivers. The March 3, 2021 reading is an evening program of the annual St. Louis River Summit, which brings together hundreds of people who work on and care about the St. Louis River in Minnesota and Wisconsin. It’s also part of our monthly River Talk programs, which are free and public-friendly. Details are below. Come experience different perspectives on our waterways!

Here is the Zoom link:
https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/93264788373?pwd=amRqSWgvT1ZxNW03WFBnU2ZYclZUQT09
Meeting ID: 932 6478 8373
Passcode: 776905

The selected poets are:

Tyler Dettloff (Michigan) “My Stars”
Heather Dobbins (Arkansas) “I Held us on for 36 Hours after the Levee Broke to Hell”
Ben Green (New Mexico) “Immersion: A Prayer of Intent”
Lorraine Lamey (Michigan) “Catching Your Drift”
Joan Macintosh (Newfoundland) “The Current Feels”
Kate Meyer-Currey (England) “Timberscombe”
Rebecca Nelson (California) “Of the St. Louis River”
Stephanie Niu (New York) “To the Beaver’s Eyes”
Diana Randolph (Wisconsin) “Knowing the Way”
Ron Riekki (Florida) “It Took a Long Time to Discover”
Derold Sligh (South Korea) “Rouge River”
Lucy Tyrrell (Wisconsin) “Talking Water”

The reading will last an hour and will include time for comments and questions. The talk will be recorded and posted afterward on the Reserve’s Facebook page and YouTube. A summary will also be posted on Wisconsin Sea Grant’s blog.

River Talks are sponsored by The Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve and the Wisconsin Sea Grant Program.

Bog Wonder

/ mariezhuikov / 2 Comments

For the holidays, Russ and I decided to get away from it all – so much safer for us and for others, especially with this new variant of Covid-19 going around. Where better to avoid seeing anyone else than in a bog?

At our cabin in northern Minnesota, we walk regularly past a bog. It’s right next to a gravel road, enticing us with its remoteness and untrammeled nature. The plat book we consult signifies the bog is privately owned, however there’s no owner’s name listed, so we weren’t sure who to ask for permission for access. So, we just took a chance, donned our snowshoes, and trammeled it, just a little bit.

Although they look sterile, bogs are places of unparalleled abundance and life. The vast peatlands of northern Minnesota cover more than ten percent of the state. Unlike the clearing of the prairies and white pine forests, efforts to drain and develop the peatlands were mostly failures, although unnaturally straight ditches in some bogs testify to this toil.

The bottom of a peatland is a breathless place – cold, acidic, anaerobic – with no oxygen to decompose branches or the small, still faces of the weasels interred there. Sphagnum mosses wrap around the fur, wood, skin, casting their spell of chemical protection, preserving them whole. Growth is impossible, and Death cannot complete his spare work.

Minnesota’s peatlands formed over five thousand years ago when the climate cooled and rain increased. The state contains more peatlands than any other in the U.S., except its Alaskan stepsister. (A surprising number of Minnesotans spend time in Alaska and vice versa.) Although in the U.K. and northern Europe the smoky glow of peat still heats many houses, the trend never caught on in Minnesota.

In Europe, bogs are portals to distant worlds, wilder realms. Gods travel the bogs. In America, peatlands are just an inconvenience to be drained or avoided. Even the Ojibwe let them alone. Maybe that’s why birds love bogs, like the nearby Sax-Zim Bog. They are places where people are not. Owls can hunt voles, mice, and moles to peaceful content.

We saw many deer trails crossing the bog. Shrubby bushes of Labrador tea poked their tips through the covering of snow. We investigated an island of red pines at the bog’s edge – an upland out of sync with the rest. Climbing a short way, we came upon a human-made square wooden platform covered with a thin layer of snow. A cache of short, fire-ready sticks lay piled between two tree trunks nearby. It looked like a tent platform, ready for use.

We vowed to check the plat map to see how people could access this red pine “island” in summer. It was surrounded by the bog, but perhaps not too much bog for a person to cross when conditions are more liquid.

Back on the bog, we passed stunted black spruce trees and tamaracks, denuded of their needles by winter. A gentle snow began to fall, consecrating all with a layer of white.

All was silent. All was good.

We completed a circuit around the area, which was surprisingly much larger than we could see from the road. As we took off our snowshoes and walked back to our cabin, we were suffused with the peace of this wild place.

Imagine our distress when, a couple of weeks later, we walked past the bog again, only to see snowmobile tracks leading out onto it. The snowmobiles had run ragged circles around the part nearest to the road that was clear of trees. They churned up vegetation, spewing spatters of green “blood” across the snow.

It made me wonder what the snowmobilers were thinking of when they chose to motor around in the bog. They probably thought it looked like a fun place to tear around in – a wasteland, devoid of life, useless to humans. Why not have some fun in it?

Agh. It hurt my heart to see it. Thus, this blog post – letting people know that just because something looks useless to humans doesn’t mean it has no value. Bogs are home to countless creatures and many rare plants. Please, please don’t misuse them.

Paddling into Deep Summer

/ mariezhuikov / 7 Comments

DSC05846FixedI 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!”

DSC05814Opening 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.

Now, where are those blueberries?

DSC05805

The Power of Spring

/ mariezhuikov / Leave a comment

DSC05773

The Horton Covered Bridge over the Amnicon River lower falls in northern Wisconsin.

Lured by free entrance to Wisconsin State Parks during the pandemic and a sunny day, Russ, Buddy and I meandered down to Amnicon State Park to see the surging waters and feel the power of spring.

We weren’t the only ones. Many others had the same idea, and almost all of them brought their dogs, too! However, everyone was careful to keep the six-foot distance rule while hiking and enjoying the view.

The Amnicon River did not disappoint.  Standing so close to such power is a reminder of forces we have no control over, and that nature does just fine without us.

DSC05770

Upper Falls, Amnicon River State Park.

The river is thirty miles long, flowing from headwaters somewhere near Amnicon Lake, through eight counties and into Lake Superior.  Along its journey, the river’s elevation changes 640 feet, about a third of which happens in the park.

DSC05768

Huge ice chunks piled along shore of the Amnicon River. Each one is about half the size of a car.

The picturesque Horton Covered Bridge has graced many a calendar page and no doubt hosted many a wedding ceremony.

Happy spring, everyone, despite everything.

DSC05767

A Touch of Wilderness Near the City: The Superior Municipal Forest

/ mariezhuikov / 4 Comments

DSC05751Crop

Mike Anderson, Natalie Chin and Friends member Ruben enjoy a hike through the Superior Municipal Forest.

As we walked across the frozen bay, a dark shape appeared. Nearing, we could see a large chunk of deer hide lying wrinkled in the snow like a rich lady’s carelessly discarded fur coat.

Were we deep in the wilderness? No. We were just a 15-minute drive outside of Superior, Wisconsin.

My Sea Grant coworker, Natalie Chin, Russ, and I were treated to a tour of the Superior Municipal Forest last week, courtesy of the Friends of the Lake Superior Reserve group and naturalist Mike Anderson.

This green gem offers 4,400 acres of the best remaining example of a boreal forest in Wisconsin and it’s the third largest municipal forest in the country.

Although I’d driven through the forest several times, I’d never had time to actually walk out into it. So, I jumped at the opportunity for this outing, and invited Natalie, who is new to the area.

DSC05738Vignette

Coyote tracks on Kimball’s Bay.

We met in a parking lot for a motorized winter trail. With snowshoes and highwater boots on, we hiked with several other Friends members down the trail to a frozen bay, which Mike told us was Kimball’s Bay. All was quiet except for the crunching of snow under our boot. We found several old red pines on the shore that had fallen recently, their trunks snapped due to high water levels in the St. Louis River, which caused the shore to erode. The trees leaned and leaned until they could lean no further, and snapped from the extreme physical forces.

Along the way, Mike described the area’s history. Although the ends of many of the peninsulas that poke into the bay are developed with homes, the municipal forest is preserved from development. Anderson was active in efforts to protect the area. Only cross-county ski trails, hiking trails and a campsite point to human use of the forest.

DSC05747

Deer hide in snow.

We trekked across to the other shoreline, passing an ice angler and coyote tracks. Two deer bounded across the ice ahead of us. We clambered up and over another point onto Cedar Bay, which is a narrower inlet. A short walk led us to the dark shape of the slain deer in the snow.

Soon, it was time to return to our cars and the demands of urban life. Reluctantly, we headed back, savoring views of the slanting setting sun and a rising waxing moon.

The Friends of the Lake Superior Reserve hopes to organize more tours come spring. The group acts as ambassadors and supporters for the Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve – the same folks in the building where our Sea Grant Lake Superior Field Office is located. They are a nonprofit group of volunteers who love the St. Louis River Estuary and work to highlight its importance to the community.  They even help with the reserve’s science projects sometimes. Find out more about what they do here. If all this sounds interesting to you, consider joining their group. It might give you a whole new perspective.

Besides being a great guide, Anderson is an accomplished nature and event photographer. You can view some of his municipal forest and St. Louis River images here:

Deep fall paddle https://singingcanoe.smugmug.com/Nature/Deep-Fall-Paddle-in-the-Forest/

St. Louis River https://singingcanoe.smugmug.com/Nature/Deep-Fall-Paddle-in-the-Forest/

DSC05748

Snowshoeing Up North

/ mariezhuikov / 6 Comments

20200120_134001Russ and I visited a northern Minnesota lake last weekend. Spent part of an afternoon snowshoeing on a frozen lake. The morning’s hoarfrost floated down from the trees, looking like snow magically falling from a clear blue sky.

Oh yeah, that’s the way to do winter!

Scamping in Canada’s Quetico Provincial Park

/ mariezhuikov / 7 Comments

DSC05536Russ bought a 13-foot Scamp trailer about a year ago and we hadn’t had time to use it until now. Scamps are cute little lightweight campers made in Minnesota. Ours has all the comforts of home in a compact space. The only things missing are a bathroom and an oven.

I needed to travel overnight for a freelance magazine story assignment in Canada, so we decided it was the perfect opportunity for the Scamp’s maiden voyage.

On our way to the Dawson Trail Campground in Quetico Provincial Park, we left Duluth and drove across the border on the North Shore of Lake Superior with our two doggies. Note that to bring your dogs into Canada, you need to have a rabies vaccination certificate. The border agent didn’t ask us for our dogs’ certificates, but we had them along, just in case.

Just outside of Thunder Bay we turned north to Kakabeka Falls. Since the falls are close to the road and we’d never seen them, we decided to stop. At 131 feet, these falls are even higher than the ones on the Pigeon River on the border of Minnesota and Canada. They are truly spectacular and well worth pulling off the highway to see.

DSC05466

Kakabeka Falls

Then we were off to find the Trans-Canada Highway. This impressively maintained road looks totally out-of-place as it takes drivers past pine-lined undeveloped lakes, bogs, and beaver homes. Imagine the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness with a freeway through it, and that’s what driving this stretch of Highway 11 is like.

There are not many services along the road in this part of the world. In fact, warning signs advise drivers to check their gas at certain points because if you run out, you’ll be stuck in the middle of nowhere.

Counting a lunch stop and the waterfall stop, it took us about eight hours to arrive the campground. The campground is actually two campgrounds, a canoe launch, several log cabins, a visitor center, picnic grounds and a bunch of hiking trails.

We parked our Scamp in Ojibwa Campground, which features a small beach, electric hookups, and a bathroom building that offers free hot showers and a coin laundry (if you bring some loonies along). As we checked in, the ranger warned us of bear activity in the campground. The park had a cage trap out to catch it.

DSC05515

A log cabin for rent at the campground. Pretty sweet!

We stayed for three nights, discovering along the way that yes, you can fit two adults and two large dogs into a 13-foot Scamp.

After my writing work was done on our last day, we took a hike to The Pines, which is a picturesque beach lined with a stand of red pines. After being spoiled by hiking among giant hemlocks in the Apostle Islands last fall, we were a bit disappointed by this hike. From the descriptions, we expected giant pines to line the trail, not only the endpoint. And the pines weren’t all that old. But don’t let our expectations stop you from exploring the area – we are just nature snobs, I guess.

Our doggies loved the beach, however. Buddy the Wonderdog ran in crazy circles, he was so excited to have reached this sandy destination. Russ’s dog Bea waded into the water and drank her fill from Pickerel Lake.

DSC05521

The Pines at the end of The Pines trail.

During our hike back to the campground, a drizzle started to fall. We slogged along for several hours and were super happy to have a dry and cozy Scamp to climb into at the end of it. With my only pair of jeans sopping wet, I took advantage of the dryer at the bathroom and was soon able to climb under a blanket in dryer-warmed pants. This truly felt like a magnificent luxury in the wilderness.

While I was gone on this task, Russ said he saw the campground bear being driven away, trapped in the cage.

Our route back home took us farther west along the highway to Fort Frances and International Falls, where we crossed the border back into America again. Once we crossed the border, the dogs, still worn out by the hike the previous day, perked up. Russ and I joked that it was like they could smell America.

If you’re thinking of upgrading from tent camping to a Scamp, I would say, do it! We are looking forward to our next Scamping adventure. I wonder where it will take us?

DSC05541

The beach at Ojibwa Campground and canoe landing.

Wilderness Sailing in Canada, Eh?

/ mariezhuikov / 5 Comments

DSC05356Russ and I had the privilege of crewing on the sailboat Neverland on a Lake Superior cruise during the 4th of July week. We sailed from Grand Marais, Minnesota, to Red Rock, Canada, which is as far north as you can go on the lake.

I learned more, not only about sailing, but about my feelings for my country. Before we left Duluth for Grand Marais, we happened to see a beat-up pickup truck driving around town with two American flags stuck behind its cab. Instead of inspiring feelings of patriotism, the sight of the flags struck me as aggressive, pugnacious, and a little redneck.

I have never felt that way before about the flag, and suspect it has something to do with our current president and the political/cultural climate in which we find ourselves. Suddenly, missing Independence Day fireworks because we’d be in Canada didn’t seem so bad. But I brought along several old packages of sparklers I had just so we’d be able to celebrate a little bit on the boat.

The Neverland left Grand Marais on a calm, cool morning. Although the air temperature was in the 60s, the Lake Superior water temperature was around 40 degrees. Brrr! Plunk yourself down in a boat in the middle of it, and it feels like fall in July.

Calm weather means poor sailing, so we motored for most of the day across the Canadian Border. You may be wondering how one can cross the border if there are no customs stations in the lake. Well, you need to fill out a remote border crossing permit beforehand. The permits cost around $30 and you have to provide copies of your passport along with it. Allow a month for processing.

If all goes well, your permit will arrive in the mail a few days before your trip. You need to bring the permit along with you just in case your craft gets stopped once you’re over the border. Thankfully, we never got stopped, but it was good to know we had the proper permissions with us, just in case.

Our first anchorage was at Spar Island, near the entrance to Thunder Bay. This craggy, piney island has a protected cove, which provided for tranquil waters all night. In the morning, we rowed Tinkerbell, the dinghy, to a campsite on shore and found a trail that leads to the “top of the world,” which is a tall bluff that offers stunning views of the lake and nearby islands.

DSC05366

View from the “top of the world” on Spar Island.

Ever observant, Russ found a metal mailbox nestled in a pine tree. It held a logbook and we added our names to it. After enjoying the view, we hiked back down.

DSC05369

Looking down from the top of the world.

After another cold, calm crossing (we could see our breath!), we anchored at Porphyry Island. We began the Fourth of July with a breakfast of luscious banana walnut pancakes courtesy of Captain Dave. Then we rowed Tinkerbell over to Prophyry Island Cove. We were met by a volunteer who gave us a tour of the new sauna and boat house at the cove. The island also features a lighthouse. I’ll describe our tour of that in a separate posting later.

Our afternoon sail took us to Chapleau Island, which is off the Black Bay Peninsula. Cell phone service is nonexistent here, and would be until the end of our trip. We shared our cove with a bunch of kayaker boys who were using the campsite and sauna opposite our anchorage. It was fun to see them whooping and hollering as they ran from the sauna and jumped into the frigid waters.

We celebrated our successful arrival with gin and tonics below decks, enjoying the music of hermit thrushes, winter wrens, white-throated sparrows and loons from the surrounding forest.

DSC05428

Fourth of July sunset.

Russ cooked us THE BEST maple butter chicken I have had in memory. Maybe it was so good because of the holiday, but maybe it was because we were so hungry from a long day of activity.

DSC05435After dinner, Russ and I went on deck and took out the sparklers. We were heartened to see they still worked. We had our own little private fourth of July celebration as the sparklers quietly hissed and threw their light into the Canadian evening.

The next morning, I practiced rowing Tinkerbell by myself in the quiet cove. I will admit I did it perfectly backwards, but was soon corrected by my sail mates and got myself turned around in the right direction.

We rowed quite far to explore an unnamed island that Russ and Capn Dave had seen on their last trip here. The island was half rock and half trees, sloping down into the lake gently on one side, with a steep cliff on the other. Pools of fresh water collected in depressions on the shore, featuring tadpoles and mysterious shrimp-like creatures. On the way back to the boat, I even rowed. I can’t say that I am proficient, but at least nobody drowned.

In the afternoon, we finally had good sailing weather. We reached 6 knots on the way to Moss Island, which is at the beginning of the Nipigon Straits. However, good wind means a lot of cold – I had to wear four layers on top and two on the bottom, but at least I didn’t need to use hand and feet warmers like last year. The air was beginning to smell like wildfire smoke and the sky was getting hazy.

A flock of half a dozen white pelicans greeted us and flew by several times during our stay. The weather warmed enough that I could wear shorts, finally – as one should during July!

The next morning, we motored up the straits to Nipigon Bay. In the bay, the wind picked up enough to sail. We made it to Red Rock Marina, our final destination, in time for supper and most-welcome showers.

This is my third trip aboard the Neverland. I am finally getting the hang of what “port” and “starboard” mean. I can steer the boat well while it’s motoring, but not so well with sails. That will take more practice. I am learning the boat’s quirks and how everything works. I would not call myself a sailor, though. I still have a long way to go before that happens.

As we drove home the next day, we saw plenty of Canadian flags, since Canada Day was July 1. I marveled at the different emotions that flag elicited within me: happiness, friendliness, and peace – similar to the feelings the wilderness islands and lake stirred within.

Now, I realize that Canada is not perfect (for instance, their treatment of native peoples is deplorable) but on the whole, their displays of the flag seemed glaringly different compared to the displays in my home town.

I can hear the haters now: If you hate America so much, just move to Canada! I don’t hate America. I’m just pointing out that the 4th of July doesn’t feel the same as it used to, but it took time away on a sailboat for me to realize that.

I hope this time next year our culture will have changed enough that I can be proud of our flag again.

DSC05448

Tinkerbell on the unnamed island near Chapleau Island.