Full Moon Thaw

The last cold snowy Alberta clipper left in a wind-driven torrent.  Since then the wind has shifted from the south.  The breezes now carry mild air.  For the first time in months the thermometer surpasses thirty two degrees during the day.  The sun once again warms the skin.  The air smells different.  Melting snow trips off the corner of the house.  The gravel roads are a slippery muddy mess.  Water overflows the river ice along certain reaches where the channel cannot accommodate the surge of new melt.  A couple of remnant cluster flies have stirred to life out of their winter dormancy and fly frantically between the plastic and the window in the temperate sunny light.  The first thaw of winter has begun.

By night the air is chilled and back below freezing.  Frost coats the trees leaving frosted limbs in the morning light.  Over the lake Orion shoots his arrow into the Superior vastness.  To the North Ursa Major is completely upright- perfectly perpendicular to the horizon below.  A full moon rises in the east.  Wolves howl...

Full Moon on the Homestead

Harsh, cold wind buffets the North Shore.  Fifty mile per hour gusts make the minus ten degree air feel like forty below.  Facing the wind, the force of the air into your lungs makes inhaling for a breathe difficult.  Lying in bed listening to the storm my mind raced and construed every possible contortion the surrounding trees could make to hit the house.  My worrying was unwarranted.  We woke to debris-ridden forest floor and snow drifts across the road.

There has been a surge in Boreal Owl sitings on the North Shore.  This small bird is only about 10 inches in length with a wingspan that can approach 24 inches.  Like many owls, it's nocturnal.  The fact that most of these sitings are during the day alarms me.  The home range of the Boreal is further to the north in the coniferous forests of Canada.  However, an apparent plunge in rodent populations  have forced the owls south in search of prey.

Fresh wolf scat is on the road. A couple of nights ago we woke at three AM to them howling nearby.

Successive clippers have brought a series of snow storms across the region; easing the concern of a dry winter and prolonged drought.  Up until the wind storm the ski trails have been perfect!  Now they are littered with fallen twigs and downed trees...

Valentine's Day Sunset Over Superior

Grey Wolf



Lynx and Hare

My stride was strong.  Despite breaking trail through a foot of fresh snow the glide was great and I was skiing along at a respectable clip.  With the recent snowfall the trail had evened out and was prime for making back county ski touring miles.

That's when I stopped dead in it's tracks- literally.  Immediately beside my tracks lined perfect snowshoe hare tracks punctuating a full running get away.  The crude hour glass tracks denote a hare catapulting its way over the trail.  The hare was jumping up hill with strides eight to ten feet apart!  Imagine a two pound animal barely twenty inches long bounding more than one hundred inches each stride!  Snow shoe hare are one of the only species who's nutrition improves as the snow pack deepens.  Their large hind legs provide float and allow the animal to walk atop the snow.  The "pickings" get better as the snow depths build and they are able to access vegetation higher up the trees.  Unfortunately for them they fall prey to just about everything bigger than them.

Further down the trail the broad upward curve of the land directs the trail towards the draw.  The land has been climbing this minor ridge for some time.  Drainages line both sides no more than one hundred feet distant from another.  Each time I round this broad swoop of a immature poplar and balsam fir I study the understory for beaming yellow eyes and black drooping toughs of pointed ears.  This is snowshoe hare country.  In turn, it's perfect Lynx habitat as well.  A specialized predator, the Canadian Lynx preys almost exclusively on hare.  With it's over sized paws and ears, the population of this elusive and solitary cat directly correlates with the ten year cycles of the hare.  When the hare population increases so does the Lynx.  Conversely the same thing happens when Hare become less abundant.  Northern Minnesota is the southern extreme of its range.  Like most large cats the lynx is known to wander.  When prey is scarce home ranges upwards of 300 square miles have been documented.

I see hare on most of my daily ventures into these woods.  While I was fortunate enough to have seen a lynx on a road in the interior Alaska, I have yet to see one in Minnesota.  I know that they're here.  Perhaps one of these days those yellow eyes will great me along the trail...

The thin sliver of a waxing crescent moon rises in the east over the clearing skyline of the Superior shore.  The light of a snowblinded day fades into dark.  Snow blowers hum in the distance.  The scraping of shovels on pavement course in the foreground.  With "town duties" complete the truck lugs in four wheel drive away from the lights of cilvilization and into the woods. The forest is still.  A heavy mantle of fresh snow depresses the world.  At home I step outside and breathe in the cold crisp air.  Slowly I shovel my way out of this storm...

Snowy Night

Snowy Night

The last four hours have practically doubled the entire season's snow pack.  A strong band of heavy snow moved in with the setting sun and has loaded the North Shore with it's first mentionable snow fall in years...

 

 

The North Shore of Lake Superior rarely freezes.  I've only seen it freeze over "99%" in 2001.  As I was traveling east of town today I noticed a thin sheathing of ice on the lake.  The ice, even more so than water, reflects the color of the sky leaving the viewer with an illusion of merging horizons.

 



Looking over Lake Superior- where ice meets air...



Contours

There's something addicting about staring at maps.  My mind wanders along the meandering contour lines with imaginary scenery and adventures to come.  I try to spot faults, contacts of different formations, glacial landforms like moraines and eskers, ancient lake shores.  I route trips and daydream of how to get to the most remote locations the map conjours up.  Visions of year-long trips engulf me looking at major waterways to the north.  Distant mountain ranges, barren lakes and miles of empty terrain fill me with wonder.  I dream of traversing the passes, shooting those rapids and running dog teams along those far-off contours.  

Explorers are drawn to locations where the contours meet. They're places where hills meet lakes, where mountains meet the sea, where cascading rivers tumble over waterfalls.  Most of the time, however, we just follow the contours out our back door.  Today we skied up the Devil's Track River gorge...