Friends of the woods

A few deer in the meadow below the family house. They get a bit of corn in little spread out piles so nothing can be spread from deer to deer like CWD or anything else. The likelihood is pretty rare however in the North land. The problem to date has been in Southern Wisconsin.

The waiting.....

Waiting for three months to pass these stored sailboats sit. Seems like forever away

but May will be here soon enough. Who invented that shrink wrap anyway? Sure is better

then the old fashion canvas and ropes. This scene in Bayfield Wisconsin with Madeline Island

in the distant background.

Bayfield Harbor fishing boat

Another scene from Bayfield Wisconsin where they still have a nice little fishing industry supplying fish to restaurants and others.

Bayfield Wisconsin Harbor

The harbor is icing up for the winter. This year a old tug is parked for the winter in a slip.

The contrast of the red tug with the ice is very nice. Last year the channel froze solid good enough for the ice road to Madeline Island to be open quite a long time. I drove across and it was two feet thick. Still it felt very odd to drive the channel in a car. Also I was thinking about the fact it's 200 feet deep. But somebody said it doesn't matter if it's 50 feet or 200 feet. The result would be the same. The story that has been floating around for years and I guess it's true, is that a house was transported over the ice and broke thru on the way to the island. I'm sure there are pictures somewhere?

I found it! In 1977 somebody was trying to have their vacation home transported to the island and it made it three miles of the four. Down it went! Truck and all. Here is a picture before it completely sank

Viking Motel

Back in the early 1980's the Viking Motel was our base camp for exploring Duluth and even parts of the Northshore. I found his postcard today and had a good giggle about it. What a interesting design this motel on London Drive had. I'm not sure when it was torn down? Perhaps somebody out there knows? I think it was just south of the Black Woods Supper Club on the

west side of the street. I know before it closed there was a shooting in one of the rooms. I read that in the paper years ago. That was back in the day when going to Canal Park was to see the industrial buildings and even junk cars on the shoreline. Downtown had a few red light businesses also. Have things changed for the better! Duluth is a wonderful city in my eyes.

Camp, Cottage or cabin? Or even Yurt in some parts of the Northland.

Adirondack Style, Lundie design, or just plain cabin.

During the winter and long evenings its wonderful to read and research the history of the Northland. The Camps and Lodges and who did what and when. To read about the camps of the early 1900’s which were turned into much more then camps but real luxury. Places like the McCormick Wilderness Tract and the Huron Mountain Club. People that were captains of Industry that found the need to get back to nature and be rigorous in the outdoors. After all Theodore Roosevelt promoted this idea.Henry Ford in Upper Michigan with friends like Harvey Firestone and Thomas Edison. Imagine those fireside conversations. Venturing deep into what was truly the wilderness and old growth tracts of forests untouched. Some still that way today. It really gets the imagination flowing doesn’t it?

Copper Harbor News about Hunter's Point!

Just a wonderful pristine area is now saved for future generations of tourists:

GRANT TOWNSHIP - A long-anticipated land purchase two years in the making in Grant Township has become a reality.

In 2007, the Grant Township Board authorized the submission of a grant application to the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund for assistance in purchasing property adjacent to Hunter's Point Park in the tip of the Keweenaw, said Richard Powers, deputy supervisor of Grant Township and chairman of the Hunter's Point Committee.

In phases, about 45.4 acres were purchased, which extend from the western border of Hunter's Point Park west to North Coast Shore Road, and also from Lake Superior to M-26.

"There's a traditional trail from the marina to Hunter's Point," he said. "A lot of our visitors up here like to go see Hunter's Point."

The purchase also encompasses 76 acres on the north side of Brockway Mountain south of the Copper Harbor Marina and Hunter's Point extending from M-26 south to the Michigan Nature Association's James Dorian Rooks Memorial Nature Preserve, Powers said.

"We looked for some way to get (the land) so that the traditional trail to the marina to the Hunter's Point Park would be maintained," he said.

The township used a $1.1 million grant from the MNRTF to purchase the 121.4-acre addition of land to the 9.4 acres that make up Hunter's Point Park in Copper Harbor. Hunter's Point Park was purchased in 2005 with the assistance of another grant through the trust fund.

"This particular grant was a phase grant," he said. "We put the grant request in ... in 2006 ... and half of it was approved in 2007 and half of it was approved in 2008, and the purchase was made in 2009."

The purchase will assure public access to Hunter's Point over traditional trails that have been threatened by development, he said. The addition of the land will also permit the Copper Harbor mountain bike trail system to be extended over Brockway Mountain to Lake Superior.

"Hunter's Point has long been a destination for visitors to Copper Harbor and keeping access to Hunter's Point available to the public is important to the local tourist industry," he said. "Its flowers and fauna, geological formations and location of the annual bird migrations offers visitors a wide variety of natural features to enjoy."

This acquisition includes 655 feet of Lake Superior shoreline, Powers said, making a total of more than 4,000 feet of shoreline the park has on Lake Superior and Copper Harbor Bay.

"The north shore of Hunter's Point is very weather-beaten," he said. "As you go further inland, there's conglomerate rock."

In certain areas, there is very little vegetation and some pockets of cedar and swamp conifers dot areas to the west end.

"There's a lot of things in there we want to explore and see what we've got," Powers said. "We have to maintain it and make it so the public gets the benefit out of it."

Going into the new year, the Grant Township Board expects to develop a use plan for the land, which appears to be 95 percent forested with white birch, northern hardwoods, pine and balsam fir and 5 percent open, non-forest land cleared for sewer, utilities and roadways, he said.

Right now, plans to build boardwalks are in the making to allow, yet minimize, the public access to keep the land as natural and unharmed as possible.

Democratic Representative Mike Lahti of Hancock assisted in obtaining the grant and Century 21 North Agency of Houghton managed the details of the sale, he said. Grant writing assistance was provided by Bill Olsen of U.P. Engineers and Architects.

Eagle Harbor fall and now winter

Having been in Eagle Harbor at the end of September I tend to keep track of the weather and happenings in the area. I really enjoy the Keweenaw and the small villages there. A fantastic web site to see a daily picture of the Eagle Harbor weather and happenings is this site: http://www.eagleharborweb.net/ People of the U.P are a hardy bunch. When I see the amount

of lake effect snow I think my gosh that is crazy!