The Sand Island bear closure

Our 'first crossing' trip went almost perfectly for our group of 14 paddlers on the last weekend before ‘the 4^th’ in the Apostle Islands.  The weather cooperated nicely with cool temps, partly cloudy skies, and a breeze that freshened at about the same rate as the paddlers skill level increased.  It was obvious we had some veteran campers and it was fun to see people become more comfortable in their boats.  A person can practice strokes and maneuvering all they want but the real test is moving forwards, backwards, and sideways in the sea caves and everyone passed that little pop quiz quite nicely. The mosquitoes were quite active but, like most things, folks got used to them with a combination of DEET and bug nets.  I also noted that mosquito discomfort was inversely  proportional to beer consumed.  A few of us even got a swim in, some (OK, me) after being politely informed, 'you stink!'.  Water on the north end of Sand was at least 15F colder than on the south end, a good reminder of why we dress for immersion on Gitchee Gumee.  We also had some nice talks with at least three rangers and the volunteer on Sand.  The overriding topic was bears.  In particular one bear that had been raiding the campsites for the past few days.  When I got home and opened my email on Monday morning, I saw that the Park Service had closed Sand Island indefinitely to overnites due to bear activity.  This brought back some deja vu from the last time our group were the last ones to use the campsite on an island.  In that case it was Manitou and the closure was for the entire season because of a bear. Then a couple days later, after the bear raided some sausages from a beached boat on Lighthouse Bay, the island was closed for all usage.

Closing Sand right before the 4th of July must have created some incredible disruptions.  Two large group sites and 4 individual sites would make for a maximum total of 48 people per night that would need to be moved. This would require some creative juggling because there just aren't that many options, although it sounds like the rangers and staff were able to pull it off.  If we consider that most of these group sites were chosen by lottery on January 8th of this yea, we can get a bit of an idea of the effect that this closure will have. Like most human interaction, some people will roll with the punches while others will be indignant and pissed off. I do not envy the park staff doing the campsite shuffle, especially when very few extra sites are available during this peak season.

Back to the bear. From what we heard last weekend it was one bear, with the theory being it was a yearling male that momma bear had kicked out on his own.  Even now food is scarce due to the late spring and this guy is exploring and trying to figure out how to survive. So far it has torn up a tent to get at some toothpaste, ripped open a kayak hatch to get at some food that some idiot decided to leave on the beach instead of sticking in a bear box, and stealthily snuck into camp and grabbed food that was left out while the campers were otherwise occupied. Plus the boat incident on the other side of the island.  In other words, campers that were lax in taking care of their consumables have conditioned this young bear that food can be had around people.  Shame on us for being stupid.  Once again irresponsible actions by a few people, whether through ignorance, sloth, or actively ignoring good camping practice, have created a major pain in the ass for the rest of the responsible campers and outfitters. So, as V.I. Lenin asked in the early part of the last century, What Is To Be Done?

The Park Service will attempt to 'train the bear to be afraid of humans'.  Those really loud airhorns (‘like’ the AINL on FB and you can watch a jerky 10 second clip of a bear being chased away from the Oak Island dock area with such a horn), fireworks, and other things to disassociate humans with food are utilized.  Closing the island to camping also automatically culls out the 5% of idiots who don't think the food rules and bear box usage applies to them.  Relocating and shooting are also no longer acceptable, although 'Scarface', the bear that closed Manitou and backed a volunteer into the outhouse a few years back, is alleged and rumored to be peering over a desk as a head mount somewhere.  The islands are open to deer and bear hunting in the fall  but the logistics are such a pain in the rear end that most people don't do it.  That and the fact that there are plenty of bears in Wisconsin elsewhere, 25,000 by last count.

It's a tough situation.  I don't remember the NPS ever closing Sand Island or for that matter, any of the other jumping off point islands, especially those with group sites.  Even though I don't have vote but if I did I'd go for relocation.  The bear is in a condition of fending for itself at this point and it might as well do its exploration and testing in a more sparsely populated area.  Our deer camp was that spot for a number of years.  Bears caught in Bayfield or Washburn were transported to the western part of the county and released.  For awhile we had lots of bears that just weren't that afraid of us, although other than breaking into our shed to steal and maybe huff some gas and biting my ATV seat a couple times as it sat in the woods, we had no real trouble. Just last week however, a bear showed up on the porch and ate some burger, mayo, and ice from a cooler that was sitting there. We may be in the same boat as the NPS with a problem bruin.  If relocated, Yogi may swim back to Sand but that could take awhile.  In the meantime both campers with long term reservations and park service employees who have to tell them they are screwed will have a much more enjoyable summer if the offending bear is elsewhere.  As I've said here before, no matter what you name it or what the Federal Government decides to designate it, it just ain't a wilderness.  Old cars, roads, a couple stone foundations, and cottages all point to the fact that it was a human settlement area years before someone decided it was part of the Gaylord Nelson Wilderness Area.  Deal with the bear.  It was there first, it lives there, it isn't it's fault, etc., etc., etc., are all valid points.  It's also a major human use point in a National Lakeshore during peak season, the start of the most visited two months in  the park. Even a yearling can be dangerous, as my friend the BearWhisperer related to me when a yearlingabout the size of a ten year old kid woke up when they were checking hibernating bears as part of a research project.  He is a well muscled 6'2" guy and told me that this bear was kicking his ass until his partner stepped in to help. Bears of any size are not to be trifled with.  If a week drags into two weeks and then a month and then it’s Labor Day, I don’t think anyone will say the cost/benefit of leaving the problem bear running around on Sand, using it as it’s own private bear preserve and spa, would come out on the positive side of the ledger sheet.

Solemn day at Little Sand Bay

Last weekend fourteen SKOAC paddlers were at Little Sand Bay, preparing to launch for a 'first crossing' trip with the students that took our 'Intro to Lake Superior Kayaking' course in the Twin Cities two weeks prior.  Ours was a very minor event at Little Sand Bay on that last Saturday in June however.  Fleets of kayaks are staging on the beach all the time. This Saturday visitors saw something that has probably never been seen there before or will be seen again; a US Marine Corp Color Guard in dress blues practicing in the knee deep grass on the beach.

On Saturday Lance Corporal Merlin Raye Allen was laid to rest with full military honors on York Island.  The story in the Ashland Daily Press is here and a background story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is here.  Lance Corporal Allen was killed almost 46 years ago to the day when a RPG round hit the Chinook helicopter in which he was riding.  His remains were recovered and identified by a joint Vietnamese-US team in early 2012.  Cpl. Allens parents owned York Island at the time, predating the establishment of the Apostle Island National Lakeshore, and are buried on the island.  Their son joined them last Saturday.  Several veterans organizations as well as the Patriot Guard motorcycle group were at Little Sand Bay for the ceremony.  After the service the funeral group was transported to York Island in another veteran of US service, the Outer Island.  This barge, used for dredging and other tasks by the Park Service, participated in the invasion of southern France in 1944 as a LST, Landing Ship Tank.  It seemed fitting that it landed Cpl Allen on York Island at his final resting place.

We did not want to intrude in the ceremony, felt it would not be proper since we were only at LSB coincidentally.  We launched and just about the time we reached Sand Island, three miles away, we heard the volleys from the Marine Color Guard.  Shortly after the Outer Island began it's journey to York. One more amazing twist occurred minutes after the final volley.  We saw a spectacular ‘sun dog’, a atmospheric phenomenon that most of us had never witnessed before in the summer months.  I don't have an answer for how or why but there it was.

 Coming just before the 4th of July and the accompanying fireworks and picnics, Lance Corporal Merlin Ray Allen's memorial service served as a reminder that the independence celebrated on Independence Day did not just happen nor it is guaranteed. This  year is also the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg which began today in 1863. When I see and hear 'the rockets red glare' in three days,it will have just a little bit deeper meaning for me than it has in past years

Superior Vista Cycling Tour

Cycling had never been a post topic in this blog about the goings on around Lake Superior so I would guess I'm overdue, especially given the friends and relatives that are heavily into this form of people powered transport.  Some long term friends alerted the VOR and I to the Superior Vista cycling tour of the Bayfield peninsula.  The more we talked about it the more we realized that we had other friends that volunteered and local businesses that we frequent that helped sponsor the event.  With an array of tours available from 13 to 100 miles we signed on and our gang of five opted for the 34 mile loop.  All of the tours begin and end at Thompson West End park in Washburn.  Since we had planned to be in that area anyway for the defunct/on hiatus (?) Inland Sea Symposium, it was simple to switch from the paddle to the bad bike shorts and helmet and tour the counryside.

Like most outdoor events in the area, the weather is the wild card.  Gloom and doom was forecast and a line of powerful thunderstorms savaged the Minnesota and Wisconsin area Friday night, just to remind us that Mother Nature was the boss.  Saturday morning dawned, a word that doesn't really describe the gradual lifting of nightfall in heavy fog, gray and dripping.  The VOR had volunteered to help with registration and MadCityMary had to run a wool cape down the hill at 7am to keep her warm as she sat at the registration table.  Northeast breezes over 40F lake water will tend to chill things out along Gitchee Gumee.  We were all pretty happy that it wasn't 85F and humid however, and ride was pretty comfortable with some minor layering adjustments. The routes, the rest stops, refreshments at the rest stops, and the folks volunteering at the rest stops were all top notch.  We saw lots of families including a foursome on a tandem with two kids bikes hooked on behind.  Would that make it a quadrem?  A few maniacs on the hundred treated it like a race but it was indeed a tour, if not one with any Superior vistas.  Fog kept visibility at around a quarter mile, 400 yards, which gave everything a soft and ephemeral sort of lighting and added to what we felt was wonderful ambiance.  Including stops and a short hike by the women at Long Lake to see the pink Ladyslippers that were in bloom, we took about five lazy hours to complete the 34 miles. The traffic was practically non existent and the roads were in excellent shape, even for our group members with distressingly skinny tires.  One of the unofficial stops was for adult refreshments at the Topside Bar out in the country on Ondassagon Rd.  When we walked in with our helmets and obvious bike gear, the lady tending bar pointed and said,  "bathrooms are right there".  When we responded that shots and beer was what we were after, the whole bar kind of perked up and started conversation.  Apparently when people on their $2,000 road bikes and colorful spandex Tour De France style Spandex gear stopped and used the bathroom, no purchases or at times even a polite thanks, it kind of grated on the group at the bar.  Rightly so in my opinion.  I've always thought that the people powered sports crowd were pretty much cheap SOB's with the old adage, 'they show up with a pair of underwear and twenty bucks in their pockets and don't change either' having more than a grain of truth.  A check of The Snug, DiLou's pizza, Patsy's Bar and the book store that evening did not turn up a single sign of any cars with bike racks or patrons who had ridden the tour.  Shame on us.  Enjoy the area and support the sponsors of the event.  Drop a couple bucks on the local merchants. For a paltry $25 we were treated like kings when we returned to Thompson park.  North Coast coffee, Hugo's pizza, Tetzners Dairy Ice Cream bars, and a host of other goodies were offered.  It is indeed a great event on a number of levels.

The group decided that this should join the ever growing list of annual events.  The back roads, county trunks, and even the gravel town roads on the Bayfield Peninsula are great for road biking and have a minimal amount of traffic.  I would estimate maybe two dozen cars in 34 miles and five hours of being on the road.  I can see some non tour event riding in the not too distant future and yet another opportunity for outdoor fun on the South Shore of our favorite lake.

 

Paddle Float or No?

Last Saturday found me at Long Lake, about ten miles west of Washburn, working with the Scouts again on 'real' water.  The now defunct Inland Sea Symposium used Long Lake as a rolling venue on years when the waters of Chequamagon Bay forgot to heat up properly by mid June.  It was a threatening day but the wind and rain spared us and we got in a nice 90 minute session.  We worked on getting in and out of the boats, proper adjustment of foot pegs and fit, moving the boat with various strokes, and we even did a T-Rescue.  What I didn't do, either at the pool or on Long Lake, was teach the venerable paddle float rescue (gasp!).

One of my favorite paddle float self rescue stories took place at the Great Lakes Sea Kayak Symposium, an event that you should sign up for right now.  Justine Curgenven, accomplished This is the Sea series film maker and all round wonderful human being, was in attendance and working with folks on the beach.  When asked if she would demonstrate a paddle float rescue her comment was to the effect of 'A what? I don't believe I've ever done one'.  Apparently the BCU didn't, and perhaps still doesn't, require teaching the paddle float rescue.  BCU paddlers can weigh in with the current skinny on the topic. When we teach the rescue to beginning students, it is invariably on flat water, there is invariably a 'yellow rainbow' or two, and there is invariably a student asking, 'how the hell would I ever do this in rough water?'.  The latter is the question that I have always had.  If the water is rough enough to go over in the first place, the act of emptying the kayak and righting it, getting the float inflated and on the paddle, and then clambering up on the boat, which has likely refilled with water, and successfully snapping on the spray skirt can be a dicey proposition at best.  It is almost easier to teach the reentry and roll because the quirk that causes most rolling students to initially fail, muscling the paddle rather than working the lower body, actually works with a big yellow balloon stuck on the end of the paddle.  The boat is full of water but if you are attempting a paddle float reentry in rough water, chances are good your boat will be full of water in that scenario as well.

Will I wind up teaching the paddle float reentry to the Scouts in subsequent sessions?  Are you going to report me to the ACA?  Will there be fines and suspensions if I don't?  I honestly don't know whether I will work on the paddle float rentry with the boys.  If they have the other skills that they will need to utilize dialed in, then I will consider it.  Part of it is risk management and its close companion, failure mode evaluation and analysis.  We will be paddling as a group out to whichever island we manage to secure a campsite on.  We will not paddle if the wind is over around 10mph and group discipline will be ruthlessly maintained, much more than in the equivalent adult  group where self esteem issues are much more of a concern than with the Scouts.  We will play with some cowboy reentries as these guys are supple and athletic with a marvelous sense of balance.  We will most certainly do an 'all in' and let them figure out how to deal with it.  Since the Scout motto is Be Prepared I guess I have to at least demo the damn thing and see if any of em want to try it.

Even though I have a jaundiced view of the paddle float reentry, that is not to say a paddle float is worthless.  It's excellent to mark where your beer is cooling in the lake, demonstrated above by the BessemerConvivialist, and can make a fine emergency pillow or lower back support in a pinch.  It can also be a stabilization device.  On a crossing from Oak Island to Red Cliff Point a few years back a beginner paddler became freaked at the rebound waves coming off the point, freaked to the point of being frozen and unable to paddle.  His resourceful and more experienced companions inflated two paddle floats, stuck one on each paddle blade for bombproof stability, and clipped on a tow line until they cleared the cliffs.  Given the small space it requires, a paddle float is essential equipment along with the bilge pump.  I just have my doubts about its effectiveness in getting a beginning paddler back into the boat in anything other than small wind waves and fairly calm seas.  To teach the paddle float or not teach the paddle float, that is the question.

Scout Training

There has not been a lot of paddling in the past couple weeks for a variety of reasons that I won't go into here. The continuing weirdness of our non spring, including a 9000 acre forest fire in northern Wisconsin, and then a biblical rain event that washed away a number of vulnerable hillsides, has transitioned the ice choked fishing opener into an weirdly schizophrenic early summer type thing.  It's been so strange that I was forced to schedule a pool session (collective gasp from the readers!).  Don't worry though, it was at the Bayfield Rec Center pool, that 82F, salt water gem only 15 minutes from our joint in Washburn.  I had agreed to help a Boy Scout troop get ready for a paddle trip and a week ago Sunday evening we all got our salt water bath. 

I was a Boy Scout, a proud member of Troop 133 in Eau Claire, WI.  We were certainly the most 'outdoorsy' troop in the council as our Scoutmaster, DonR, had some land outside of town with a shack and a nice fire ring.  No church basements for 133, we met out there 12 months out of the year with the only cancellations due to thunderstorms or anything lower than -10F.  Good training for winter camping I suppose.  I never got a whiff of Eagle, only made it to Star, and blame the opposite sex and the Schlitz Brewing Co for my sudden lack of interest in camping with a bunch of guys under adult supervision.  It did however, teach me how to camp and nourished a life long interest in camping and the outdoors, experiences that I would not have had in the family as the US Army had quickly cured the Old Man of any interest he may have had in camping in tents. I was really interested to meet these guys and see just how the average Scout compared with the range of altar boys through delinquents that we had in our Troop.  I am very happy to report that things have not changed all that much. 

I think we had around nine boys and a couple adult leaders, one of which was a kayaker.  I figured with only an hour, that a quick intro to the boat and then getting right into wet exits and T-rescues was the best use of time.  Everyone was anxious to get wet and  I had a number of volunteers to be the first person to tip over in the water after watching my dry land wet exit demo.  There were some constants, things that we see with adult learners as well.  Most guys tried to pull the spray skirt straight back, even after I had emphasized it needs to go forward and up.  Almost everyone banged on the boat with one hand since the other one was firmly grasping the grab loop of the skirt.  One thing that was different however, was that everyone tipped over with very little drama.  In an adult group at least one or more folks will have serious trepidation about the wet exit, some to the point of having to do it with the skirt loose to gain confidence.  I am sure the peer group pressure with all their buddies watching from the side of the pool is what facilitated those quick wet exits.  I know for certain that the catcalls, smart remarks, and merciless abuse from my peers in Troop 133 would have made me set aside any wet exit angst and get on with it.  I was somehow reassured to see the same dynamic in effect here.  T-rescues were a bit sloppy but in the interest of getting everyone into both the swimmer and rescuer position, we moved fairly quickly since our hour was winding down.  Nuances, refinements, and minor corrections will take place on Long Lake when the water gets above 65F.  My faith in teenage boys was reaffirmed both by the fun that they seemed to have at the pool session and also when I caught a wet towel  being rolled up in the locker room in preparation for snapping an unsuspecting ass.  Some things never change and never should.

I'm sure that with the recent controversial ruling on gays in scout troops, people are anticipating an editorial comment on my part.  It's not a bridge to die on in my opinion and I think Big Gay Al, the former Scoutmaster of the South Park Mountain Scouts Troop had a good take on the subject in the (always) politically incorrect episode entitled, "Cripple Fight".  Dogmatic positions and inflexible rhetoric makes both sides look as stupid as, well, as stupid as the US Congress. I know that I really enjoyed the interaction with the guys and am looking forward to more on the water training and maybe a game or two.  My buddy Chuck up in St Cloud took his Troop on an Apostles trip a couple years back and offered me some good insight as well as some pretty fun skill building games.  Because in the end the reason we work on and develop the skills is to have good, safe fun on the water.  Working with the young guys reminds me that fun in a kayak is indeed the goal that we should all be striving for.
(Since I was kind of busy instructing, the images are not of the pool session but of a trip to Philmont Scout Ranch in 1968, good 'ol Troop 133 in the flesh)