Shooting Snow with the Toy Canon

 

In memory there still exists a photo of my grandmother as a girl. She stands indomitable on the front sidewalk of the Shefka house in Bessemer, dwarfed by the two towering walls of snow that flank her close on either side.

Save for Grandma and the bit of house behind her, it's an entire universe of snow.

 

That may have been the same winter her brothers jumped out the building's 2^nd story window into the snow, but nobody who'd know is left around to ask.

 

The first time I visited the northwoods in winter, we didn't die. Neither the 2^nd, though both times were life lived on its edge.

 

The evening after Wil and I got stuck, I returned by myself to the scene. So wondrous was the place, I needed to see it again and wander around some on my own.

That 2^nd night on the ice, I was more isolated than I've ever been in my life.

 

 

But as always in the wilderness, never for a moment alone.

These are frighteningly deep, impossibly dangerous caldron holes on either side of the falls. And the snow around that brutal cold maelstrom is positively littered with fresh track of the otters that dove in to hunt the fish that live there…

 

 

The same proved true at the semi-open water where my beloved river poured into the big lake:

 

Having learned my lesson the night before and left the car all the way out at the edge of plowed road, I trekked from the woods in semi-darkness. Orion rose in the sky over Superior behind me.

I stood there looking at the stars, listening to the profound silence across all the world beneath them.

 

Ten years ago this month seems like ancient history, today.

 

Damned glad I was there.

 

And that the images captured then, including my collection of snapshots, mean I'll always remember.

Light Reflection Over Blues

 

And doesn't this image just about say it all…

 

That's the cover art for my dear friend Avital Gad-Cykman's latest collection of short fiction, illustrated by Revital Lessick and available now, hot off Ravenna Press.

You should buy it.

Avital is a master of words and my favorite living writer. How she does what she does with so few simple words is one of life's mysteries, but all the complex magic of human existence is right there on her page.

I'm reminded of why I've so loved the writing of Norman Maclean and a very select handful of other old, now dead white men. Except Avital's a multicultural, multilingual woman with a modern world full of experience, writing for the 21^st Century.

And that makes all the difference, today.

 

Writing's a tough, often thankless business. No less so, publishing. The transference of ideas from one brain to another has never been made easier or more fluid. That we keep this creative exchange of ideas free flowing is perhaps of greater importance now than ever, too.

 

Did I mention you should buy my friend Avital Gad-Cykman's new book? On Amazon if you must. Better for all concerned at Ravenna.

Either way, you'll be doing your part to help keep the finest fine art alive.

#Avital Gad-Cykman #Light Reflection Over Blues

The Dead of Winter

 

Way back during my youthful Neanderthal era, when camped out at Bobcat I came to buy my bait minnows from an old man named Albert Sailey. Mr. Sailey trapped his own minnows from a creek on his property. Even during winter, or so I was told.

Mr. Sailey's bait business was 24/7, self serve and on the honor system, as needed.

Driving to the back of his garage where the minnow tanks were kept, you'd pass over one of those hoses like full service gas stations used to have and the sharp -Ding Ding- of prospective commerce broke the northwoods silence.

Born in 1907 and tough like weathered leather, by that time Mr. Sailey was well into his seventies. Sometimes he'd come ambling out of his house, often he wouldn't.

It could be that after a few years of regular business during my annual autumn visits, if Albert saw it was me, he might choose to stay inside. Mr. Sailey was the only authentic northwoods codger I'd ever met and I wasn't shy about sharing my enthusiasm for the area and the tough life that entailed, though I was a prairie kid on vacation and he, the genuine U.P. article.

In other words, I absolutely was a pest.

Maybe someday I'll tell the story of how in winter Mr. Sailey prevented porcupines  trying to get at the accumulated road salt from chewing through his car's brake lines. Maybe not. When it came to varmint control, Albert Sailey was definitely old school.

One year late in September and winter bearing down hard on the season, I regaled Mr. Sailey with how dearly I wanted to move up there, from my childhood prairie. Enraptured by the overripe autumn woods, my enthusiasm for the place fairly overflowed.

The old man peered at me through milky blue eyes for what seemed like forever. Had I possibly said something to offend?

"Yep. Petty nice," he said. Then he paused, as if giving the thought all due consideration. "Winter's kinda long though."

Indeed.

So here's to wise words once delivered by Mr. Albert Sailey to a pesky young enthusiast blinded not by cataracts, but by the land they both dearly loved. The young man now nearly as old as the old man was then, but with said northwoods wisdom well remembered by me.

"Should Old Acquaintance be forgot,

…and never thought upon…" – Robert Burns

Back when, great diners fairly littered the western U.P. A handful of those still exist to this day, often in other forms.

The others are just gone.

The diner we prized most was called Scotty's, located on US2, between Bessemer and Ironwood. A long, dark drive from Bobcat in the woods, but so worth the effort.

And it's likely, long about the time of The Bear Story, that's where I first met a sixteen-year-old waitress named Chris.

Much later, Chris and her family saved the Black River Pub from dissolution and for a while, she short-ordered the only fresh Superior fish fry you could get without driving maybe 30 miles.

Though not 'all you can eat,' it was one of the best Northwoods fish fry's I've ever had. 

Chris has since moved on from the Black River Valley. At last report the restaurant remains, but not the same. Never again, the same.

*

For perhaps thirty years, when Heather & I needed a clean, dry place to stay on the Gogebic Range, our home away from home was the Travelers Motel. This is from our front door:

The other sign read "Squeaky Clean." So it always was.

Stays at Traveler's ran the gamut from our settling in for comfy weeks at a time, to us getting unceremoniously swept out of the woods and very much needing safe haven.

Coincidentally, up this bluff behind the motel and tucked into those trees was once my Uncle John's farmhouse.

It's not there anymore either.

But for decades, at the end of full days spent pursuing wilderness adventure, when sitting in the chair outside my door at the motel so to relish the nightshift chorus, its ancestors had once sang likewise to mine.

This long term sense of connection to a specific landscape is no small thing, as it turned out.

Pandemic Year 3 and The Traveler's Motel is gone.

It's replaced now by a national chain store peddling cheap goods to everyday folk, though no longer as cheaply as their name implies.

'Times long past' indeed.

Onward

Some folk believe a white moth and/or butterfly represents spiritual growth, transition or even good luck. You know, depending on who you ask.

In any event, it's an old belief.

So for today let's just say that's true, then I can share this little bit of good fortune with you...

A better new year to us all.

The Season of Light

 

It's always struck me odd that northerners refer to the dependably darkest time of their each and every year as 'the season of light.'

 

Like with everything else we do, there're a host of compiled reasons. Cultural, scientific, you name it. Dating all the way back to probably before the Pagans and in various forms sailing on clear through to today.

Believe whatever you want, for whatever reasons you wish. Regardless, this far north winter solstice spells deep dark and lots of it.

 

And it'll stay that way into March, so far as anyone'll notice on a daily basis. Then, as if the sky turned on a spigot, light and life will return.

 

Before that, winter promises a long climb and that's where we're at today.

 

This project is called "In Search of Perfect Light" not because perfect light's particularly rare. It isn't.

Many/most days feature some, however briefly.

But you must be looking for it.

Then willing & able to take what unexpectedly comes your way, and make the most of that.

 

My most perfect light of 2021 occurred during the last days of October. It was wholly unexpected, but I'd put myself in place to see it and when the opportunity came, I didn't miss.

 

Fungi are old. Way older than the human race. Ridiculously older than any mere belief. That pretty much by definition means fungus is more successful than we, at least to date.

 

Fungi are among the largest life forms on Earth. There's one in the U.P. that's three times the size of a Blue Whale.

Fungi are inherently collaborative. Imagine that.

 

Right down to their core existence, a fungus understands that life requires collaboration and without it, the community that sustains life dies.

 

I don't suppose most people give the 'lowly' fungus much thought, unless it's in their salad.

 

So I saved my most perfect light of 2021 to share during our communal acknowledgment of regeneration. A rich, stark light to pierce the dark season's most impenetrable days and remind us of what's to come.

 

What was there remains, even if hard to discern.

 

What is there still will be, when better light returns for us to see.

 

#winter #solstice