Nodin Press in Minneapolis is planning on publishing a book of the “best” posts from this very blog. The process received a boost yesterday when I learned I received a grant from the Arrowhead Regional Arts Commission to pay for the book’s editing. I’ve received plenty of grants through my Sea Grant work before but this is my first personal arts grant, so I’m pretty psyched.
As planned at this point, my “Meander North” book will be arranged by season and will celebrate all things northern Minnesotan. Plus, bonus chapters will relate to bookish adventures and brushes with fame. There will also be some content you haven’t seen before. When asked what genre it is, I answer that it will be a blogmoir (blog memoir).
Thank you, Arrowhead Regional Arts Commission, for the grant and for all the work you do to support artists and writers in this neck of the woods!
In my childhood home, my father would sit in front of his ham radio microphone, sending out his call sign to the world. His call letters were W0RXL, which in amateur-radio-speak equate to Whisky, Zero, Romeo, Xray, Lima. (I use the version of “whisky” without the e to honor my Scottish heritage.)
Those of you who have been following my blog for years may remember that my father’s ham radio hobby meant so much to him, we even buried his cremains inside one piece of his radio equipment.
When his call sign made it into some other ham radio operator’s ears in some far-flung place, they would tell each other a bit about themselves and where they lived. My ears would prick up whenever I heard him mention that he had a daughter named Marie. Sometimes he would tell jokes.
I’m not sure how this worked, but apparently, they would even exchange addresses and send each other postcards with their call signs on them. Since my father was also a stamp collector, this transaction did double duty, serving that hobby as well as documenting his contacts across the world.
I swear, he talked more to these strangers than he did to his friends. By eavesdropping on his radio conversations, I learned more about him than I did from our dinner table conversations, which were mainly led by my mother.
Some ham radio operators he contacted regularly. Some he became friends with. I remember we even met a few of them during our road trips across America and Canada when I was young.
The other day, it struck me how much blogging is like amateur radio. We blog authors post our words for anyone in the world to read much like ham radio operators send out their call signs. I’m always amazed how many people from other countries access “Marie’s Meanderings.”
Several bloggers I consider friends and would love to meet with them if I was ever in their necks of the world.
Word Press offers a way to look at what countries have accessed blogs over different time periods. Just for fun, I looked at the stats for countries since I began my blog. Readers from everywhere but a few places in central Africa and islands north of Norway, plus Tajikistan have clicked on my blog at least once. Maybe those places are without internet access.
Not surprisingly, English-speaking countries have the most hits (the U.S., the U.K., Canada, India, and Australia). The country with a foreign language that has the most hits is Singapore, but even so, I guess about half of its citizens speak English at home.
I suppose the comments people leave on my blog (which I appreciate, by the way!) are similar to the postcards my father used to receive. And I suppose if my sons read my blog, they would learn things about introverted me they didn’t know before. I honestly don’t know if they read it. I’m afraid to ask. If they said no, I’d have a hard time with that. Then again, they each have busy lives. Besides, I’m just their mom! What interesting things could I possibly have to say? 😊
Recently, I learned of a new hobby that’s gaining in popularity. It’s called Postcrossing. One of my coworkers participates in it. It’s a project that allows people to send and receive postcards from random people across the world. It reminds me of my father’s hobby, and I bet he would have loved this service.
Through thinking about the similarities in amateur radio and blogging, I’ve come to realize I might be more like my father than I ever suspected. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
The curious fox after I crouched down. No, it did not obey the “Danger Thin Ice” sign.
My office sits on a manmade island in the Duluth-Superior Harbor. Its windows overlook a stretch of water that leads to the mainland. In addition to water, sky and ice, the view sometimes includes animals like coyotes, bears, groundhogs, birds (lots of waterbirds!), otters, rabbits, and foxes.
This winter, a fox has been frequenting the island. I don’t think it lives here – I don’t see its tracks that often, but maybe the island is one of its winter getaways.
The other day as I was transcribing an interview, I saw the fox pass my office window. It was headed toward the slope along ice and snow-covered water. I leapt out of my chair and grabbed my phone to take pictures. It was cold that day, in the single digits, so I remembered to take my jacket but not my gloves (can’t take pictures with gloves on).
I trotted out the office door and carefully looked around the corner toward the harbor. The fox was far out on the ice by now, but as I stepped away from my office building, it must have noticed my movements and it stopped, looking at me intently.
I took a few photos, but (as you can see) the fox was too distant for anything good. My hands were getting cold, so I put them into my jacket pockets along with my phone. I waited to see what the fox would do. It just stood, watching me.
I wished the fox would come closer. Inspired, I crouched down so that the fox couldn’t see me because of the small hill of snow that lined the slope leading down to the ice. Soon, the fox’s head popped up above the snow hill, his/her eyes still trained on me. Appealing to the fox’s curiosity worked!
I took a few more photos from that vantage. The fox was still too far away. I knew that food was the only thing that might lure it closer. I didn’t have any and don’t really like the idea of feeding wild animals, so I just stayed in my crouch, enjoying the fox’s undivided attention. Its fur was fluffy and full, its color a rich red – quite a handsome animal.
Putting my phone and hands back into my pockets was awkward at this angle so, my icy hands soon told me it was time to go back inside. Besides, I also realized the fox probably thought I was going to give it a handout. I’m sure other people must have. I didn’t want to tease it any longer, so I stood and went into the office.
When I looked out my window again, the fox had moved back onto the ice, but it was still staring intently at the office door. Maybe it thought I was going to come back out with some food. Maybe it missed me, ha ha. It waited a few minutes, walked further, stopped and stared again. This went on several more times before the fox gave up and trotted back to the mainland shore.
Despite the interruption in my work for pay, I felt like I accomplished a lot that day during a few minutes spent communing with a fox.
All I can say is that these cross-country ski trails are terrible. They were noisy and crowded. The other skiers scowled at us and muttered oaths most foul. The snow was coated with soot, the scenery filled with skyscrapers. The forest was mangled and misshapen. The grooming was awful – tracks all over the place. And the air held a lingering stench, reminiscent of dried pickles.
If you enjoy the Korkki Nordic Ski Trails near Duluth, you’ll intensely dislike these ski trails because they are like Korkki but with frozen ponds everywhere.
By all means, you should never ever go on these classic-only ski trails. Really, don’t go.
Pergrine falcon. Photo by Frank Cone on Pexels.com
One summer, not long ago, I was walking down my home street in Duluth when a pigeon came streaking above it, like the proverbial bat out of hell. A flock of pigeons lived in an old school building on the end of my street. Seeing pigeons around was not unusual, but I’d never seen one fly so fast. In another few seconds, a peregrine falcon zoomed by in pursuit.
This minidrama was a first for my quiet neighborhood, as far as I know. The birds were too far away for me to see if the pigeon was doomed, but witnessing the chase was definitely exciting.
Not long ago, peregrines were classified as an endangered species in Minnesota and the rest of the country. They were delisted federally in 1999 and in Minnesota in 2013, although they are still considered a species of special concern.
I’ve had the privilege of documenting and even helping a bit with their recovery, so seeing one fly down my street did my heart good. It all began in the spring of 1985 when I was the environmental reporter for the University of Minnesota college newspaper, “The Minnesota Daily.” A photographer and I were invited to the top of the IDS Tower (also known as the Multifoods Tower, the tallest structure in the city at that time) for a peregrine falcon media event. Staff from the university’s raptor center and biology department were going to install chicks that had hatched in a hack box that had been newly established atop the tower.
Hack boxes are large wooden boxes with a nest inside them. Young birds of prey grown from eggs that were either captive bred or taken from wild nests are placed inside the boxes a couple of weeks before they fledge (start trying to fly). In the meantime, the birds are closely looked after and provided food without too much human contact. In a few days, the box is opened, and the birds can start stretching their wings, so to speak. They are still fed until they are self-sufficient.
Why was it a good idea to introduce falcons into the middle of the city? Well, Minneapolis contained plenty of food for the falcons (pigeons), the skyscraper mimicked their preferred habitat (steep cliffs), natural enemies were scarce, and it was an easy place for researchers to access.
I remember the excitement when one of the researchers (Pat Redig) took a squawking, fluffy baby falcon out of a carrier to put into the box. As he did, he described the plight of the birds and the concept behind hacking. Photographers clicked away and reporters scribbled in their notebooks. We were able to wander around atop the building and look over the impressive edge, 51 stories high – a memorable experience in itself.
A pre-event story I wrote about that news conference ended up being 40 newspaper column inches long. This was longer than usual. My editor (Doug Iverson) asked me to justify why he should give me such a large space. I don’t remember what I said (probably something like, “because peregrine falcons are cool!”), but it must have worked because he didn’t cut its length. The post-event story I wrote made page 1 of the newspaper, which was a big deal to this cub reporter.
The next time peregrines came into my life was a couple years later when I was a summer volunteer for the Forest Service on the LaCroix Ranger District in Cook, Minnesota. My boss (Steve Hoecker), was a falconer and he was involved in the recovery effort. A hack box was being constructed on one of the iron ore mine pits nearby in Virginia, MN. Like the IDS Tower, the mine featured steep cliffs that peregrines prefer.
My memory of this experience is hazier than the IDS Tower event, but I think I helped Steve scramble box construction materials down the steep banks of the mine. I took photos and covered the story for the local newspaper.
The next time I saw a falcon, it was in the wild. I was hiking on Isle Royale, a national park island in Lake Superior in the early 1990s with a group from an Audubon Society camp, when a peregrine shot across and above the trail in front of us, like a kamikaze jet. The island features some steep cliffs as does the Canadian shore not far away where the falcons could nest. I remember thinking that maybe all the work being done to restore the falcons was beginning to pay off.
After that, my last experience with a falcon (before seeing the one on my street) was in downtown Rochester, Minnesota. It happened during the winter of 2009 when I was working at Mayo Clinic in public affairs. I lived within walking distance of my office. As I trudged along on cold winter days and evenings, a strange call of a bird echoed loudly against the clinic building walls. The call was familiar to me, but I couldn’t quite place it. And what kind of bird would still be in Minnesota in February, for goodness sakes?
It took me a few months, but I finally figured out that the obnoxious bird call that accompanied my walking commutes was a falcon. They had been hacked atop one of the clinic buildings. I think I was even able to attend some sort of celebration event about the project at Mayo that year.
If you’d like more information about the history of peregrine recovery in Minnesota, a good article can be found here.
So, it seems like peregrines have been following me around ever since my first encounter with them in downtown Minneapolis. Or have I been following them around? Maybe we’ve been following each other. In any event, their recovery is a good news story in a world beset by so many environmental problems.
Marie skiing on one of the trails in the Superior Municipal Forest.
If, like me, you live in Duluth and you’ve cross-country skiied every trail and want something new, consider meandering across the bridge to the Superior Municipal Forest for some “superior” skiing in Superior, Wisconsin.
Russ and I tried the ski trails there for the first time this weekend. Since Russ doesn’t quite have his ski legs back yet (after not skiing last season due to an injury) we stuck to the easy red trail, going around both the outer and inner loops for a total of 4.1 kilometers.
The trail lives up to its beginner status. It’s fairly flat the whole way, sporting both classic and skating tracks. The trail winds through a forest filled with big ol’ white pines and birch/aspens. The views are inspiring, especially as the sun starts to slant through the trees in the late afternoon.
One thing to note is that you’ll need a ski pass to go on these trails. You can either purchase a seasonal one or a day pass. We purchased a day pass at the self-service kiosk at the trailhead for $5. See the web link in the first paragraph of this post for details. I hear that the city grooms the trails every day, so they are usually in good condition.
And, if you need a dog fix, this is the place for you. The city dog park is right at the trailhead, so you can visit with the dogs as you come and go. You don’t get that with just any old ski trail. Truly superior!
I saw an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune yesterday saying that Owamni Restaurant was designated as the newspaper’s top restaurant for 2021. It reminded me I still needed to follow up on my promise to write about Russ’s and my experience at this Native American eatery during our weekend Romancing the Minneapple.
I’ve wanted to eat at one of Chef Sean Sherman’s places (he has a food truck, as well) ever since I saw him speak at a launch for his cookbook in Duluth. Sherman focuses on precolonization food (food that Natives used to eat before all us Europeans immigrated and mucked up their lifeways). This includes ingredients that Natives grew themselves or foraged, like squash, wild rice, venison, chestnuts, fish, berries, and cedar boughs.
He’s trying to reconnect Natives to their pre-European culture, so much of which has been lost. I suppose it’s also a way to show us nonnatives what life used to be like in America historically, plus the food is super healthy – no wheat flour, dairy, or refined sugar.
Several recipes from his cookbook have found their way into my permanent recipe file, notably the squash apple soup with cranberry sauce and cedar-maple tea.
Russ and I were late in planning our trip to Minneapolis and only began making reservations for it a couple of weeks beforehand. Owamni has been featured in the New York Times, Lost Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, among others, so, as you can guess, reservations are booked months in advance. But, they have first-come, first served bar seating, so we decided to take a chance on that. If it didn’t work out, we had a Plan B restaurant in mind.
Wild game salad
We took a snowy ¾ of a mile walk under a full moon over and along the Mississippi River from the Nicollet Island Inn to get to Owmani, which is housed in an historic water works building. We figured if we got there early in the evening (5:30 pm), the wait might not be as long. I think this was a good strategy. We only had to wait about 45 minutes for seats at the bar.
One of the first things you’ll notice is that the menu isn’t typical. There are not separate listings for appetizers, plus the entrees are sharable. When I expressed confusion to our friendly bartender, he explained that the concept is like a Tapas Bar, where you end up ordering lots of small plates and sharing. That way, you can sample a variety of selections.
To begin, we ordered (and shared) the cedar maple baked beans, the wild game salad, and the bison pot roast. They also have a good selection of wines and nonalcoholic drinks available. Everything was wonderful. The beans, because they are flavored with maple syrup instead of brown sugar, aren’t as sweet as usual, but that allows the natural bean flavor to come through, with cedar lurking in the background. The wild game salad featured dried duck and turkey, which could be a bit chewy, on a bed of kale garnished with a duck egg. Russ is normally not a big fan of kale, but he said it was delish and ate it all!
The bison pot roast was the piece de resistance – a slow-cooked and tender hunk of bison surrounded by natural gravy, hazelnut-crusted carrots, a mustard green sauce and a horseradishy sunchoke (Jerusalem artichoke) puree, topped with an edible purple violet. The meat melted in our mouths. It’s the first time I’ve had bison and it was truly memorable.
For dessert, I had a chocolate chia cake with sorbet and a caramel honey sauce, and Russ had a berry-walnut milk parfait. Both were excellent.
The cedar maple baked beans, berry walnut milk parfait, and the chocolate chia cake
The neat thing about sitting at the bar is you can watch the workers and see the other dishes and drinks they are preparing. I noticed a cranberry nonalcoholic drink that I’d like to try if I eat there again. Diners with reservations got tables near windows that overlooked part of the river (Owamni Yomni) considered a site of peace and wellbeing for the Dakota and Anishinaabe people.
Most of the workers looked to be of Native American descent. Most of the diners looked like well-to-do white people. That felt rather weird to me. Is this just another way for white people to appropriate Native American culture? Have we turned these Natives into slaves serving us food we want to eat just because it’s the latest trend?
Although I was a bit uncomfortable with those feelings, it seemed like it was high time that Native American foods were celebrated. After all, we have Mexican restaurants, Chinese, etc. However, these cultures haven’t been oppressed like the Natives have. Part of me feels like this restaurant should only be for Native Americans at first. I felt like I was taking the chair of someone who might need this food more than I did in order to feel whole.
I am still struggling with these feelings and I’m not sure what to make of them. But I probably wouldn’t let them stop me from eating there again.
Alas, the restaurant is closed for a mid-winter break right now. But it plans to reopen on January 19 (2022) for a winter dinner series. Proof of vaccination will be required to enter.
Thank you, dear readers, for meandering around with me again this past year. Although our travels and musings were not as far-flung as in the past, we tried to make the best of things despite Covid. We narrowly escaped being infected just recently and hope you have remained healthy.
Here are the five top posts from this year, along with news about an exciting project I have in the works.
But first – a couple more numbers: views almost doubled again this year, with 47,600. My blog has about 700 followers.
An image of one of my favorite commercials, courtesy of Progressive Insurance.
The #1 new post this year was “A Keen Grasp of the Obvious.” I wrote it in homage to the Progressive Insurance commercials that feature Dr. Rick,” a pseudo-therapist who tries to ensure his customers (patients) don’t turn into their parents once they become homeowners (a.k.a. parentomorphosis). The commercials earlier this year reminded me of a saying one of my high school friends used to espouse. Several more commercials in the series have aired since then, and I still like them all! Other people must like them too, if they are finding my blog. If I had a second chance at a career, I’d like to work at whatever agency produced these ads.
#2: “A Review of the Lungplus Device.” This gadget is distributed by a Duluth-area woman. It’s a mouth-worn humidity and heat exchanger you can use while cross-country skiing to make your lungs happier. Yes, it works, and yes, it makes you look like a dork. But it’s worth it to have happy lungs.
#3: “Letting go of the Past.” The elevatorized Baby Butler was a combination highchair, play table, and bed for young children that was manufactured in the 1950s and 60s. I survived being placed in the contraption as a baby and in this post, describe the process of letting go of it.
#4: “A Time for Photography: Madeline Island.” This was about a life-changing photography class I took at the Madeline Island School for the Arts on a small island in Lake Superior. It features some of my favorite photos from the trip. Because I took the class for work, and I work for a public university funded by taxpayers, the photos are available for reuse. BUT, just a reminder that photos appearing in my blog that have my signature on them are ones I took on my own time with my own equipment and are not for reuse without permission.
#5: “The Path of Totality.” One of my short stories based on the 2017 eclipse was printed in a local literary journal. This post is about how I developed the story idea and what I hope to do with the collection of which it is a part. I’m still looking for an agent for this collection, hint, hint. Although I’m not having much luck with that.
Since you’ve read down this far, I have news to impart. During a bout of insomnia in the wee hours of the morning about a month ago, I got the idea to create a northern Minnesota memoir collection of the “best” stories from my blog over these past eight years. I thought “Meander North” would make a good title. I’d arrange the stories by season, plus add a couple of other miscellaneous chapters.
I developed a book proposal and sent it out to a couple of well-known Minnesota publishing houses. I heard back from one, and they want to publish it! EEEEEeeeee!
In 2022, I’ll be polishing up a bunch of these posts and they’ll be coming out in a book. I must say, I’m pretty darn excited for the new year. It’s about time one of those crazy insomnia ideas paid off.
Russ and I meandered south to Minneapolis the other day, in search of a little romance, and to visit relatives. For the uninitiated, Minneapolis’ nickname is the Minneapple as opposed to New York City’s Big Apple nickname.
We took my 100-year-old Aunt Marguerite to the Como Conservatory for its poinsettia show. All that red color and dewy warmth sounded like just the thing to offset the winter blahs and a good way to spend time with Marguerite.
But did you know that poinsettias come in colors other than red? During the show, we saw yellow ones, pink, and even orange. While we were enjoying the sights and the smells of soil and water in the sunken garden, a commotion caught our attention. A family that had been strolling along stopped. Gasps of surprise could be heard as a young man got down on one knee and held up a ring to his very tall and willowy girlfriend. Hyperventilating, she finally got enough air to say, “Yes!” and the family and audience clapped.
The proposal amid the poinsettias
Doesn’t get much more romantic than that! But wait, more romance was to be had. After shuttling my aunt back to her place and visiting for a short time, we headed to the Nicollet Island Inn, touted as “Minneapolis’ most romantic hotel.” Situated on an island in the Mississippi River, the inn is in an historic building that was once a window sash and door company. It has survived fire, several other business ventures, and even time as a men’s shelter to become the charming venue it is today.
We booked the bed and brunch package, which provides for a Saturday night stay and a $60 voucher for brunch at the inn’s restaurant the next morning. There’s also an “Ultimate Romance Package,” but we didn’t do that one because it involves dinner at the inn’s restaurant, and we had other plans for that meal. These involved taking a snowy evening stroll under a full moon to Owamni Restaurant (by the Sioux Chef), which is on the riverbank not far away. (More on that experience in a post to come.)
I must say that one decidedly unromantic thing about the inn is that they seem not to be able to process or communicate about things that go against the grain, like the bed and brunch package and gift certificates. The people checking in before us had a gift certificate, which caused no end of issues. The manager had to be called to the front desk to give his blessing. Not romantic.
Our package was not noted on our reservation for some reason, even though I had called beforehand and talked to the person in charge of such things and she assured me it would be noted in their system. This necessitated a call by the clerk to this person for verification. Not romantic.
And then, when we checked out the next day, the same gift certificate people were in front of us and the same issues came up for them. We quickly left our keys on the front desk and got out of there before we had to wait around for a manager to reappear.
The Nicollet Island Inn restaurant
BUT all else at the inn was romantic. The Christmas decorations were classy and glowing, our room was high-ceilinged with a view of the river and city skyline. Our brunch in the chandeliered restaurant was filling and delicious. I had the American breakfast with sausage and eggs over-easy plus a mimosa. Russ had the breakfast Reuben, which featured eggs and hollandaise sauce. It’s hard to believe the restaurant used to be a factory loading dock.
The breakfast Reuben
After brunch, we strolled around the small island, marveling at the parkland and quaint Victorian clapboard homes. I found myself thinking that if, for some reason, I was forced to live in Minneapolis, Nicollet Island wouldn’t be such a bad location. But the wilds of the north are my true home. We were glad for a short visit to the big city, but just as glad to return home.
After 9 years of free blogging, I finally filled up my Word Press account space. I needed to make a decision to either stop blogging or keep doing it, but pay for an upgrade. I decided to pay. So, I will continue my blog, and you’ll get to read it without the ads. Yay!
I have at least two posts in mind before the year ends, so stay tuned. More to come.
Marie's Meanderings 