Finally on the water, 2009

After a couple of false starts a half dozen of us managed to hit the water last night for a nice leisurely paddle and a bit of fresh water rolling. The air temp was in the high 40's F but the water temp was likely in the high 30's F. The ice that remained had blown to the south shore of the lake which made the lake like a giant cocktail in which the ice had not quite melted. We were all rusty, although it didn't take long for folks to get back in the paddling groove. It felt good to have the trusty Greenland stick in my hands and the waves lapping at the sides of the Q boat. GalwayGuy was particularly in need of a paddling fix since he had been at school in St Louis, an area devoid of lakes close by, plus its tough to store a 17' boat in a dorm room. He figured his previous time on the water was last August and said he wasn't sure if he would paddle at all, that maybe spending two hours rolling might be what he really needed.

We did, of course, have to do a few rolls. Both of us were wearing Bughead tuliqs, which kept our core nice and warm. 3 mil neoprene is no match for 39F water when it comes to keeping the brain pan warm and functioning though. The cold on my exposed face didn't bother me a bit, after all the water was 50F warmer than some of the stuff I had been skiing in last winter. After a couple rolls I could feel the blood vessels in my head begin to contract and constrict like a giant rubber band around my skull. GG must have had a tougher head than I since he kept working through his repitoire of rolls, cold water be damned. I didn't see him miss one. I managed to miss my first reverse sweep of the year by forgetting to drive my knee up when I came around but corrected the flaw and hit the next one. After about an hour I was ready for an illegal parking lot beer. The Minneapolis Park Board, which a significant number of people want abolished, pretty much makes everything illegal including talk of their abolishment. GG was not done though, and wanted a few quick stick rolls in the Q boat, a 'cheater boat' in his mind. I went the beer route and it capped off a pretty good night on the water.

My next paddle opportunity will likely be Easter Sunday as I'm off to Washington DC in a few minutes for the NCAA Frozen Four hockey tournament. The improbable Bemidji Beavers are in the tourney as a huge underdog and major Cinderalla team. They managed to beat Notre Dame to get there, a school whose yearly athletic budget ($60 million) is 5 times the total endowment of Bemidji State. I have a very nice 'Beaver hockey' T shirt which was sent to me by the MayorOfTurtleRiver and Nipper, residents of that fine area. I'll be wearing it at 5pm in the Verizon Center, assuming NW Air gets me there within 5 or 6 hours of when they say I'm supposed to arrive.

The northern paddle season is officialy open! Now if RonO can find some open water on the south shore of Gitchee Gumee this weekend we are home free.

Reefer Creek wildlife update

Since I couldn't find any water to paddle in and was not smart enough to throw the 'rock skis' in the car, the next best thing was to hike around the property looking for shed antlers and seeing just what was out and about in the wildlife category. All signs pointed to a good winter for our deer herd. The logging of the previous year left plenty of aspen tops on the ground for the deer to feed on. Innumerable new aspen stems are about 3' to 4' high, the perfect height for deer browsing. Not only were no winter killed deer found ( a couple years back we found around two dozen), but I saw some of the smallest deer tracks I've ever seen in the spring of the year. Even the small and vulnerable deer made it this year. For the most part, that is. Two wolf kills were found on our walk, both young bucks. Mama doe tends to give the young boys the boot befoere that crucial first winter while allowing the girls to hang around in the matriarchial family group. These young single deer are perfect wolf prey. We found a large eagle feather near one of the kills which indicated some scavenging had been going on as well. Just past the carcass we found a very large bear track, shown next to the GurneyGranny's hand. He must have got tired of hibernating and decided to check out the food situationand discovered the kill, which the wolves had conveniently left in the creek bottom. We also cut bobcat track which is a first in the area. Its always good to see a new species in the mix. The fisher population seemed to have made it throught the winter just fine as well.
We were unable to cross the creek to check the land on the east side. Like the Red River in Fargo that has been causing so much trouble lately, the Reefer is a north flowing stream and the mouth at Lake Superior has a giant ice plug in it. Attempts to bridge it have been an abject failure (sorry boys, the Nada bridge sucks!) but we just need to wait a bit for the ice and snow to melt and the water recede. It seemed like forever since I had been to camp and that's a bad thing. Sometimes a guy needs the rejuvenating power of getting back to the basic, electronic (and electricity) free, elemental lifestyle. Pump some water, start the fire, stoke the sauna, light the propane Humphrey lights, and kick back with a beer and a book. I've always said I'd like to see how long I could stay out there without getting tired of it. Ten days is not enough and I'd like to see if maybe twenty would be. Right now it's one of the great unanswered mysteries of life and I don't know if I'll be in position to answer it any time soon.

No liquid water to be found

I managed to execute my weekend plan to head up to the deer camp, Q Boat on the roof, to check out the winter deer kill situation, make sure the camp is still standing, and get in the first paddle of the year in Lake Superior. The first two elements of the plan were accomplished but I was unable to find open water to complete the third part. I was confident when I left home, even though I had not looked at a satellite photo since Monday due to thick, depressing cloud cover for most of the week. I should have known I was screwed when I came down the hill into Duluth and noticed the flags were all aimed due south from a steady north wind.

My first stop was the mouth of ReeferCreek and it not only was frozen in but there was a 20' berm of sand encrusted ice to prevent me from getting anywhere near the water with out an ice axe and crampons. No problem I thought, I'll just head down to the Port Wing marina and launch in the mouth of the Flag River. Things were a bit icy there as well.

Due to the volume of water, I figured the mouth of the Iron River might be doable but no luck once again.I headed east toward Herbster, WI and thought that might be OK, but........

I finally decided to give up on paddling, head out to camp and get into the hiking mode. I brought my uninsulated rubber swampers, thinking it would be sloppy in spots but pretty firm for the most part in the woods. Wrong again! There was enough snow to skate ski the trails, had I brought my skis instead of the kayak. We took a stroll around the property on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning and I took off back toward Superior, figuring I'd find some open water for sure in a couple stash launch spots I know near Superior. Once again I was dead wrong.
Even the Superior Entry was iced in to the point that I couldn't get in the water. I headed down to the lift bridge, reasoning that if the wind had been from the north and blown all the ice toward the south shore that I should be able to launch just over the bridge on Park Point but..........you can see how that theory worked below.


The ship canal was full of ice, but a vessel much larger than my kayak, the John D Leitch, a 730' Canadian laker that came to load coal at Midwest Energy, sailed right through the stuff. As interesting and fun as it was to watch, it would have been a lot more fun to get out for the first paddle of the season. On the way back I checked Snail Lake, scene of many an instruction session, and hallelujah the ice is off! With GalwayGuy scheduled to roll into town tomorrow, there could be some more rolling that takes place before the week is out. And I don't mean in chlorine contaminated water either!

Stuck in the ice

I will admit to having thoughts of heading up to the deer camp this weekend and then throwing the Q boat in along the south shore of Lake Superior for the first Gitchee Gumee paddle of the new season. I may need to rethink that scheme after reading the Duluth News Tribune this morning. It would seem that a strong east wind blew some big floes and pack ice into the west end of the lake. The combination of below freezing temps and the wind combined to make an ice floe two feet thick and 90 square miles in area, three times the size of Manhattan. The above photo and story were in the Duluth paper this morning. The three ships are the Lee A. Tregurtha, the Alpena, and the Coast Guard cutter Alder, which is attempting to free them.

You can follow the progress of ice breaking up and melting on the NOAA site here. Its been so cloudy and miserable the last three days that clouds are the only thing that can be seen in the most recent images but they add new ones daily. It would appear that Lake Superior had its little April Fools joke yesterday. I still may see if all that ice came from around Port Wing and Cornucopia. There could be a paddle in the forecast yet!

On the positive side: Two fine companies

Just so readers don't think I'm more curmudgeonly than I actually am, I figure I'll forget that an airline with red tails even exists (and it won't very soon) and write about a couple of companies that actually realize that it's their customers that provide their paychecks. The first one is a small local company and the other a somewhat larger entity on the west coast of Canada.

I've gotten used to hearing the gloating and abuse from TheCommish and FrugalFisherman as they ram their plastic Prijon boats on to the rocky north shore of Lake Superior while I gingerly land the OreFreighter (Valley Aquanaut HV) to protect the delicate gel coat. TheCommish is particularly brutal with his Prijon, dragging it up the rocks like a caveman would drag his prospective bride by the hair back to the cave. I always tell him he should kick it a couple times too, just to show it who's boss. Gel coat is not quite as delicate as everyone would believe but on popular cobble beaches there are significant gel coat deposits on the rocks, especially when there is any kind of swell. Sometime last year the BessemerConvivialist told me she was taking her boat down to Northwest Canoe to have a silicon carbide keel protector strip installed. She was very happy with it and before I knew it, I was hauling the GurneyGranny's boat down there from beautiful suburban Gurney, WI for the same operation. I was familiar with Northwest Canoe since they had repaired the OreFreighter when I attempted to break it in two by driving over a bow line in Marquette, MI a couple years back. After checking out this keel strip I began hauling the fleet down there, a boat at a time. Not only was the installation reasonable ($90) but it was done on time (ahead of time actually), I was thanked for the business, and told that if I ever had a problem to give 'em a call. All by living, breathing human beings, Dennis and George; no humanoid with voice recognition software anywhere to be found.


The other example of fine customer care was from Feathercraft out in Vancouver, BC. Last spring I sold my Big Kahuna to the ZumbroFallsImpressionist so she could lower her carbon footprint by folding it up and transporting it in her Toyota Pious. While playing in the pool this winter she realized that the cockpit coaming would sometimes come loose from the skin in the back. I suggested she email Feathercraft and they got back to her with in a day. Not 4 days like a certain transportation firm. Much to Ms ZFI's surprise Feathercraft 1) admitted the problem, 2) carefully detailed the fix, 3) and offered to complete the work at cost. Absolutely refreshing. I've had the same experience when I've called or emailed with questions. And once again, a real live person picked up the phone and answered my questions knowledgeably. I kind of feel bad that I didn't get to visit the plant when we were in Vancouver, even though I was across the street from it. I knew they were located in Vancouver, I just didn't know where and when we were on Granville Island I found myself drawn to the Granville Island Brewpub. Due to poor research on my part as well as an excellent bitter, I didn't realize that the Feathercraft shop was right across the street. Oh well, gotta get back out that way I guess.

Both these companies are worthy of yours, mine, and everyones business. They have proven to be honest, fair, and they do what they say they are gonna do. I'm not sure what more a person could ask of a company.