Notes From the Field -- Working the Edge of the World

I try always to arrive on the Range with sufficient daylight left to go someplace and see what’s what. So it was on Super Bowl Sunday and that’s why through all the adventure I shot no usable film. It was most important to see and simply given that I’d return.

All the same and in consideration of what happened, I spent parts of the next couple days looking at Superior from Saxon Harbor to Ontonagon. Much of it was fine. None of it approached the stark natural beauty and wild isolation at the mouth of the Presque Isle. Only there did the world end in ice; snow riven wilderness behind, ice roiled sea in front and the opportunity to work a hard slender ledge between.

By Wednesday evening I was well prepared. Knew to wear my gaiters. Knew to park at the end of the plowed road and walk in, thank-you very much. A child’s plastic sled bought at winter closeout promised easy hauling of my full complement of gear a mile in and back. I carried water and trail mix and my Zippo lighter. Extra batteries for the Mamiya were warm in a secure inside pocket, nestled next to a cell phone that doesn’t work on the far side of the shaded hills.

I geared up, took a last look down 519, locked the car as much from habit as necessity and walked into the winter wilderness. The sled riding atop old hard packed snow proved gratingly loud. I regretted that but not near so much as I’d have regretted 60 pounds on my back.

At the shuttered Ranger Station across from where there’s supposed to be an emergency phone but isn’t, I paused to examine the official Emergency Plan of the Porcupine Mountains State Park in winter, which amounts to you’d best be able to get your sorry ass the 24 miles down to Wakefield or too bad for you. I’m posting the picture of these procedures below but you can trust me on this and should read the thing only if you’ve a heightened appreciation for absurdity:

I went through the forest to the first set of falls. There I found river appearing and disappearing from beneath shelves of ice:

That was nice but access to the river trail down from there was uncertain and being mindful of light that fails inexorably every minute past noon put me quickly back out to the road.

At the parking lot to the trail head I witnessed the full extent of damage we’d done to the snow. It was like a football game was played there, with tractors. I replaced the shovel we’d inadvertently left in the road back in the outhouse where I’d found it and pressed on.

The path through the woods at the top of the hill was flat with snowmobile tracks. There’s marked snowmobile trail all the way up the east side of 519 and this is well beyond that but the deck where stairs lead down to the river is as far as snowmobiles go. I ditched my sled in the snow behind a fallen tree, shouldered my load and headed down the precipitous stairs.

At the bottom I crossed the bridge, pausing to shoot the frigid river and unbroken snow on its banks. Then I crossed on over to the island. Tracks were sparse and on the way to the shore I marked only Wil’s and mine from Sunday along with a single cross country skier I was sure had come after us, accompanied by a dog.

Mostly, even the deer don’t make it down there.

Then I set to work, for fleeting hours in perfect light. I’d like to say I stole time to sit and stare and listen, but I labored straight through from long light to twilight and missed nothing save the undeniable benefit of quiet repose spent in a magnificent place. Sometimes the gig is a hard taskmaster and mine is only to serve.

After sunset I again shouldered the load to climb back out. At the suspension bridge I paused as a startled otter scrambled to decide which hole in the ice was the right one to dive through to the presumptive safety of a rushing, mostly frozen river.

I slowly mounted the burdensome stairs to happily retrieve the sled at the top, then made my way the mile back to the car in near darkness without incident, stowed the gear, secured my film and shed layers of clothes no longer needed. I’d worked up a sweat.

Finally I paused for a bit, to consider where I was, stepping out onto the road to spy Orion looming large and brilliant through the tops of barren trees. Sometimes, the gig is the best there is in the world.

I raised my arms to the sky and let loose a single primal cry. Not merely for a job well done, but for a life so well lived that it’d brought me to that moment. Only deer and otter and coyotes and red squirrels and maybe an owl or two were there to hear the echo of me fall softly in the night.

Just at full dark a sizable critter bounded across the end of Co. 519, probably a deer but who can say for sure. It headed off down the path of least resistance, a little road west that leads to a handful of cabins on the lake. Where beginning later this year and for at least fourteen years full bore, Orvana’s Copperwoods is intended to thrive.

I returned to the car and drove back towards Wakefield down the middle of the road. Dozens of deer watched me pass, hovering eyes shining red from black woods. I drove at moderate speed. There was no call to ruin such a day with carelessness.

Later I remembered that by this time next year, the forest won’t be so silent, the wilderness not nearly as remote. That the pups of the river otter on the ice and their pups too will live lives through in the company of King Copper and if ever they know silence like that evening, it’ll be only in short snatches between dark and dawn, sometimes not even then.

And I wondered -- in our rush to create temporary jobs in order to claim minor victory over ongoing Depression that’ll never yield to transient endeavor, corporate ambition or the wishful thinking of desperate, angry people -- who speaks for these?

Northwoods Follies -- A Dangerous Game

Or, Boys Will Be Boys…

I drove to the Gogebic Range on Super Bowl Sunday and by 2:30 was roughly settled in. That left a few hours of light in the day, waste not want not. Ate a quick pasty for fuel then phoned my friend Wil to see if he could come out and play. At 3:30 we headed for the mouth of the Presque Isle River to see what was what. Planned to be back in the motel sixish, grab a hearty supper at the local pub and catch the 2^nd half of the Big Game, proper work to begin bright & early the following morn.

Last time I tried something like this it didn’t go so well but the afternoon was bright and with nary a breeze the winter woods warmed to an almost balmy 38 degrees. I figured that for good luck. Geez, it was a lovely afternoon.

County 519 is plowed to the South Boundary Road and then no farther. No problem. The way to the trail head was barely a mile of six/eight inches hard pack and smooth sailing. We drove in, parked and walked down to the river. I packed light, it being more important to see than to shoot.

And what sights we saw!

 

Wil at work at the edge of the world

Just after sunset and happy for a couple hours well spent, we climbed back up to the car and promptly ran afoul of the physics of snow. Turns out, warm air and steady sun did us no favors and the hard pack we drove in on was flimsy veneer over powder, sheet ice lurking beneath all. The wheels on Wil’s car gained no traction, save to dig clear down to ice and crazily spin.

We pushed. We pulled. We jacked the car up and piled sticks beneath the tires, jammed blankets atop those for traction, no matter. Three hours later and the only thing that’d changed was we’d moved maybe fifty feet -- the entire way trashed with wood debris and deep powdery ruts from which there was no escape. That and the nearly full moon rose on a gorgeous night to light our plight.

Cell phones don’t work on the far side of the hills and there’s supposed to be an emergency hardline at the ranger’s station. We walked down to find the box intact but the phone missing in action, fat lot ‘o good that did us and so much for contact with the outside world supposedly maintained by the State in case of emergency. We returned to our vehicle and tried again to extract ourselves, to no avail.

We talked of hiking the eight, maybe ten hilly miles to the nearest cabin and maybe a phone. We even began the hike but not half a mile in it was plain the day had taken its toll on me. Underfed and overworked, I’d simply not make it out. Neither would I let Wil leave me to press on heroically alone, as that’s what characters in movies stupidly do so the narrative can thin the cast of no name actors leaving only the stars to sally forth. There being just the two of us, I didn’t much like that scenario.

On the occasion of trouble in the wilderness, I ask one question first: Is the situation potentially mortal?

If not then it’s just one more in a string of adventures, all other considerations dependent on the quality of foolishness that led there to begin with. Such was the case on Sunday night. Prudence demanded we stay put as the car had a full tank of gas and we could pass the night safely in it if it came to that.

I thought it likely that when I didn’t phone to say goodnight either Heather at home would raise the alarm or that as the night grew long Wil’s wife Emily would mount a search. We again walked the mile down to the South Boundary Road to leave a sign for any potential rescuer and post a warning that driving father was at risk of being stranded. In the middle of the road we built a tripod of branches maybe eight feet tall, attached two handkerchiefs near the top to draw attention and stuck a note to the thing that read: “Stop! Don’t drive in. Honk and we’ll come out.” Wil also left an arrow of sticks on the blacktop to point the way, just for good measure. As his old Indian friend would have said: “Good idea”.

The moon lit our path and we returned to the car. Content that what could be done had been done, it was time for a bit of play. After all, we’d found ourselves stuck in a sublime place of shimmering shadow awash in subtle sound, a wondrous world not often freely enjoyed because who drives out at night to stand the middle of nowhere in the dead of winter and just for the Hell of it?

Call it an opportunity.

Bathed in silver light we played with our digital cameras, to only modest effect. Soon spent, I retired to the car. It’d grown cooler and the heat from the blower felt good. From Wil I greedily took my dinner; a curiously strong Altoid mint, wintergreen and one of three left in the tin. Wil then regaled me with the tale of his last winter camping trip, an authentic adventure taken some years before and for which bedtime story I was grateful.

Moonlight streaming through the skeletal forest had earlier deceived me but when Wil abruptly leapt from the car I knew it was headlights cutting through bare winter woods and no trick of the eye. Potential rescue had arrived! By the time I’d roused myself Wil was running across the snow while waving his arms to stop Emily from coming any farther in the family van.

She’d driven right past our warning, so much for well constructed wood craft.

I ambled over to the driver’s side and weakly said “Hi Emily. Thanks.” In reply she shot me that withering ‘Momma’ look known to all men and apparently congenital to women, whether mothers or no. As we preceded her back to the carnage of the parking lot and our stranded car I whispered to Wil: “Boy, you’re in such trouble”.

Emily came up, sternly surveyed the situation and insisted we try once again to extricate Wil’s car. With vaguely renewed vigor we got the thing to move a few feet. The temperature had dropped just enough to reform the hard sheen atop the powder. Though we dared not try to turn around, we proceeded with high caution to back down the winding snow packed road, Wil at the wheel of the van, me in Wil’s car guided only by the headlights of his van. Emily led the way by walking, to prevent us from continuing our adventure in a ditch.

We finally managed to right the vehicles at the South Boundary Road. Will looked at the clock and said, “It’s 11:11”. So it was. On the way back to town, he finished the winter camping story.

Safe in the motel, I first called Heather to allay her fears only to find that she didn’t remember whether I said I’d call again that night or in the morning so she’d just gone to bed, no potential savior there.

At midnight I sat shivering while chewing over a pepperoni stick washed down with a chunk of fine Appenzeller cheese and handfuls of Heather’s homemade trail mix. From the TV I learned the Giants had won the Super Bowl in an exciting game marked by missed opportunity.

Somehow, I was unimpressed.

Three nights later I went back in to work the mouth of the Presque Isle River, this time alone.

The Hard, Splendid Season...

Beauty often obscures danger.

That’s sometimes true of women, certainly. But we’re talking wilderness here.

When masked by the inestimable beauty of winter in the northwoods, danger is immediate and exaggerated ‘cause maybe there’s no getting out of it short of being carried by others after the fact.

Never a place for fools, the wilderness frozen is damned inhospitable. I get that skiers, snowmobilers, ice fishermen and businesses built around all that see things different. To them I wish winter in abundance ‘til sometime late in March when it’ll be getting around to my turn and about stinkin’ time, too.

I’ve been in the field all week and am traveling today so you’ll just have to wait until next Thursday to hear why I wasn’t among the billion or so people watching the Super Bowl.  ‘Cause as it turned out, winter was singularly unimpressed by my plans for Super Bowl Sunday.

In fact, you might even wonder whether the Gods of Ice & Snow enjoyed a good laugh at my expense. That is, if the real world can be said to take any notice of us at all, which it doesn’t. Such monumental indifference is a double-edged sword, let me tell ‘ya.

Until then, please enjoy these bits of winter's singular beauty and from the comfort of your own home, no less…

While the dark season is cruel to us and we'd not survive it without the comfort of construct, Other Nations press forward all the same. What falls dead and fast frozen to the forest floor, ravens eat. And if you'll look closely, you'll see the snow on both sides of the river is littered with tracks. Those are left by otters who dive through holes in the ice to course the barely liquid river beneath and feast on trout the winter through.

Life goes on. Mostly.

Uncommon Perspective

For many of us, life in contemporary America is defined largely by our immense technological reach. Distracted by the complexity of modern construct, increasingly alienated from our neighbors and adrift in community freshly unbound, we forget that most of America remains wide open landscape: sparsely populated and lacking ready access to what the rest of us take for granted. For some, a trip to the Superior Basin is at least in part a means to reconnect with the real world and reclaim healthy perspective.

Of all the memories I savor from the northwoods, the most revealing turns out not to be a tall tale at all, but rather a single phrase uttered by a child in a moment of youthful wonder.

Black River Harbor

Black River Harbor once was a thriving fishing village and is now a park complete with marina, the town having long since been moved lock stock and barrel away from the lake and into the woods where there’s no fish at all, which is a story for another time.

Across the bridge and east from the harbor is a long stretch of sandy beach backed by steep red cliffs where miles of forest abruptly end at the shifting boundary of the big lake. An easy drive from Bessemer, in high season it’s a favorite place for families and tourists alike. Then as the sun sets on warm summer nights, young folk gather in groups to make beach fires in hope of burning lasting memory by doing what young folk do when under cover of darkness and left to their own devices.

On the hottest days even the forest sweats. When the sun climbs high there’s no better remedy for it than immersion in the chill waters of Superior.

*

Heather and I were at the beach and the day was fine. Seagulls lent staccato accompaniment to a soft wash of gentle waves over sand. A man walked past toward the glistening water, his nearly adolescent son in tow. Together they stood silently at the edge of the world and peered off into the gauzy horizon, each dreaming private dreams.

Suddenly the boy pointed to the bottomless blue of the summer sky, arm stretched straight, finger fairly quivering in extended excitement.

 “Look Dad, a jet!”

And sure enough, across that shimmering sky, riding so far above and beyond mighty Superior that the roaring engines weren’t even so much as a whisper, there was indeed a contrail wavering through the upper winds. And for the young boy, in that moment all the forest and lake and marvels of the real world that surrounded him fell away. You could see it. Like a serpent wriggling free of its skin, all at once.

Born to the wonders of wilderness, the siren song of human construct flung across the heavens caught this boy’s imagination and the glittering promise of contemporary America must have seemed very real to him indeed.

While certainly possible, it’s unlikely that any temporary job scabbing metals from the hard earth will keep him long from its embrace…

Northwoods Follies -- Johnny

Years ago, I enjoyed the company of a friend named John. A smart, energetic fellow and sympathetic to my character at the time, which sympathy I suppose is the basis for most friendships, lasting or not.

Johnny’s grandparents lived in a splendid vintage home on the shore of a fair-sized lake over in Wisconsin. It was too near the big fiberglass fish and the tourists of fabled Hayward…

Heather, about to be eaten by a giant Musky

…but was a nice spit of wooded land all the same. Once while walking the beach we spotted a bear track big as a pie plate in the sand and cast glances over our shoulders the rest of the day.

For some years running, Johnny, Heather and I tempted the wilderness together. Mostly in late season when the air is cool, the light sublime, weather persistently variable and the whole world knows exactly what time of year it is. That is, time to prepare for a cruel, dark season or suffer the consequence.

It’s said there’s strength in numbers. That isn’t always true, though it’s sure nice to think so when deep in the autumn woods at two in the morning and a serious case of heebie jeebies suddenly arrives. But numbers also sometimes breed false confidence, which often leads to foolishness. And that then leads to everywhere from serious fun to serious injury and/or death, depending on the quality of foolishness.

*

I don’t remember John’s gear but he was proud of it and I’m sure it was fine because that’s the kind of guy he was. After a couple years of rather steep learning curve, Heather and I’d purchased a new North Face geodesic dome (1978), a tent that at the time cost more than my car.

Being a big guy, I’d lusted after the sort of thing you could sit in behind a desk to review the Union troops, but Heather thought the pair of drawstring openings in the back of the dome would make for ideal escape hatches in the event a bear politely entered through the front, so we left the tent store with a revolution in gear nestled in my arms and have never regretted it, regardless of bears.

That tent led directly to foolishness like the week it never got above 45 degrees and rained for five straight days. Sheets of rain, mostly. We dug a trench in front of the fire pit to divert the running water. Spent the week huddled together beneath a makeshift tarp, clutching coffee cups in trembling hands, peering to the angry, sodden sky to offer feeble prayers like “It seems to be letting up a bit”.

Then on the six day it snowed. Four inches.

Back in the city, when family and co-workers asked after our vacation and we told the tale, their response fell squarely along the lines of “What kind of vacation is that?!?”

We just thumped our chests, low grade foolishness well survived and proud of it.

*

We were young. City life was brutish and cruel to our youthful sensibilities. The Great Spirit of the Northwoods intrigued us. It ain’t Disneyland up there, that’s sure.

So we constantly prodded the wilderness of Superior to respond to our interest and whether or not it ever did, we generally got what we asked for and sometimes a good bit more.

Repeatedly.

Show & Tell -- November/December

Select images from when autumn turned to winter. The first snow fell to the woods, we were there and it went like this.

When next autumn turns to winter, it’ll be time to head for the comforts of home. A long time, with much to see and do, between now and then.

Vivaldi, off 40 year old vinyl. Beautifully played by the Academy of St. Martin-In-The-Field:

Show & Tell -- September/October

Mostly, it’ll be show.

The central dilemma faced by photographers of my generation revolves around the revolution of digital capture, reproduction and dissemination. Those sound like three different things but are instead a slender string of craft applied that ends in the achievement of creative purpose; whether that purpose is purely documentary, to reinvent reality or whatever. And with revolution the whole thing’s been made different, in a flash.

Not long ago this Search for Perfect Light would necessarily have taken place in private. Then I’d have completed the year of gathering, collated the material, reproduced the best of it, tied it all together in the finest presentation I could manage and tried to publish. With revolution the whole thing’s been made different and here I am walking a creative tightrope, sorta live.

And of course, not long ago I’d have enjoyed a steady supply of large format film to burn through at my leisure, instead of the last in the world to work through with pride, which is why we’re here.

Fine reproduction is the noblest end for any image, hung upon a well lit wall and appreciated from appropriate viewing distance. That's especially so for any image that wasn’t conceived of pixels to begin with because so much is lost in the translation of film for digital delivery.

The chasm between what my field work on film actually looks like and how it appears onscreen is aesthetically irresolvable. But because I’m asking you to follow along, I’ve a responsibility to deliver at least some of it all the same.

So this is what I’ve come up with.

Later there’ll likely be somewhat higher quality versions of these clips available for viewing through my website, but for now here’s short selection scanned from both 4x5 and 120mm chromes, culled from the hundreds generated to date and set to a traditional American song in an exquisite arrangement by the great Ry Cooder:

Animal Stories -- A Bird in the Hand

A memory plucked from a fast receding autumn, told today lest it fade beneath the complex accumulation of seasons spent in the field, with all their attendant marvels large and small…

I’m alone at Au Sable Light -- just west of the mighty Grand Sable Dunes, a couple of miles in from the nearest road and with some hundreds of miles of open water before me, stretching to Superior’s northern shore.  A bluebird morning in a splendidly remote place, it’s unseasonably warm beneath a high sky.

To reach the lighthouse I pass the site of three wrecks on the beach. Depending on the vagaries of wind, waves and sand, these are the visible evidence of the Graveyard of the Great Lakes, so named due to a treacherous reef off Au Sable Point.  This year, the Sitka is buried while Gale Staples and Mary Jarecki are at least partly exposed.  I’ve gone in just after sunrise in pursuit of long light and some hours into the work am thoroughly distracted by the geometry of light and shadow.

A bird’s eye view of Au Sable Light

Lakeside off to my left flies what peripheral vision takes for a locust.  I’m concentrating on my set up, left arm partly extended, hand outstretched.  The ‘locust’ comes to light on my index finger with the taut, slender grip typical of large insects.

I look down to find a tiny puff ball of a bird clutched tight to my finger. A heartbeat passes, then two. I stare at her and she looks squarely up at me. Then she’s off to the safety and comfort of the forest. I watch until she disappears, a fleeting speck lost to the autumn woods.

After later consulting my Sibley’s bird guide, I figure her for a female Common Yellow-Throated Wood Warbler. Tough to say for certain, as in that too brief moment I saw mostly only the gaze of her dark, liquid eyes and that’s what I’ll always remember.

Considering the season it’s at least possible she’d ridden favorable winds the entire width of Superior, was desperate for safe refuge and once hard to the shore fell in near exhaustion to my outstretched hand.

Or maybe with approaching dotage I’ve come to best resemble a gnarled old tree.

It doesn’t matter precisely what species, how, from where or why. That little bird was a fellow traveler in the wilderness and especially in time of need, those must always be made welcome…

Notes From the Field -- A New Year

Traditionally, the turning of a New Year is occasion for a glance back and a look forward. Maybe that’s ‘cause short days and long nights leave little else to do but contemplate past mistakes while planning new ones.

As many of you recover from holiday merriment and the gauzy hangover of our annual indulgence in peace on earth good will towards men, this seems an appropriate time to take it easy on this blog business for a few weeks, as before us loom hard months stretched through the depths of a dark season.

High noon @ Bobcat Lake

I’ve film to work though, portfolios to compile & and submit, research to dig deeper into and plans to be finalized -- including a February visit to a special place reached only across Superior ice, a foray for which I’d best be well prepared.

I ought also make time to do some printing. Even with the reaper of digital facility leavening photographic excellence down to meager measures like pixels & screen resolution, an image isn’t a work of fine art until laid down on  paper, when its luminous quality can be judged beneath balanced light. After all, the core gig here is to make lasting art. What’s already in hand must be properly assessed before making more or risk being buried beneath a massive pile of undifferentiated effort.

The next ten months or so will demand everything I’ve got and it’d be wise to make myself ready to push on through, so for a few weeks these posts will be…well, shorter at least. Then we’ll more deeply engage this Odyssey already well begun.

These are the most interesting of times around the Superior basin -- fraught with difficulty and offering too little authentic promise to meet the challenge. 

That means there’ll be a lot for us to see. 

Together we’ll take well worn roads to familiar places for a fresh look at those, considering modern times. We'll also broaden our horizons by wandering paths less traveled and even blaze new trail now and again through the complex wilderness of landscape and culture, just to see what’s there.

And of course, because it's Superior, there will be marvels.

So I’ll be back full bore real soon and then we’re hanging tough for the duration, come what may.

Happy New Year, one & all...

King Copper -- Lament

1913 was a hard year on the Copper Range of Michigan.

By December, a worker’s strike against the copper mines was in its 5^th month and faltering. The great Calumet & Hecla Mining Company refused to negotiate with the Western Federation of Miners and many strikers returned to work or left the range. The dispute was as always and is still today: the right of working folk to determine the value of their labor versus the right of Capital to determine what return on their investment is acceptable.

Then as now technology played a critical role. A one man drill was introduced to replace the old drill, which required two men to operate. For labor that meant harder work for fewer workers. To the Company it meant increased productivity and greater profit. All too familiar lines were clearly drawn.

On Christmas Eve, the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Union held a Christmas Party for strikers and their families on the 2^nd floor of Calumet’s Italian Hall. Much of what happened that night remains in question.

Perhaps as many as 500 people gathered in the hall. The celebration was barely begun when person or persons unknown yelled “Fire!” Panic ensued. The single stairway down to street level quickly filled with the dead and dying. Some say the doors at the bottom of the stairs opened only inward, which apparently isn't true. Some say they were held closed. There was no fire.

No one can say for certain how many people died that night, crushed to death by friends and family in a narrow stairwell. Most victims were Finns. Most were women and children. Christmas morning, a local Finnish newspaper put the number at 80 dead, all told.

What’s indisputable is that the worst disaster of its kind in Michigan history was the direct result of a bitter dispute that set neighbor against neighbor over the harvest of copper and it occurred on Christmas Eve.

A funeral procession was held. An inquest during which folk who didn’t speak English were forced to answer questions in English proved inconclusive. No one was ever charged. Recriminations followed and however faint, those echo across the region even now.

The strike of 1913-1914 ended in April of ’14, with only 2,500 of the estimated original 9,000 members of the Western Federation of Miners left to vote on the referendum to call off the strike. Little was gained and much was lost. The town of Calumet never fully recovered and the Italian Hall was torn down in 1984. By all reports, it didn’t fall easily.

*

The good citizens of Michigan receive near to nothing in exchange for their precious resources. If you think Capital pays good value in cash to any community for their irreplaceable wealth, you should think again. What jobs are created last only so long as the resource lasts and that’s rarely very long. Then jobs and the capital to fund them and the resource from which both flow are forever gone.

Always some few hardy people stay, drawn to a land by false promise and remaining for reasons of their own. Some stay for love of place and they put down permanent roots spread wide over hard rock.

What’s true is this: American resources belong to American people before corporations and jobs alone are insufficient to buy them. If the harvest of our resources can’t be made to profit workers and Capital alike, if wealth created from our resources can’t be kept in the communities that earn it and the exhaustion of the resource means the exhaustion of the community, then those resources ought remain untapped until such time as a wiser, more just people can work out better means.

Until we determine what a land and its people are worth when measured in copper or iron or oil or water, we sell our resources and us blindly and our children’s future entirely too cheap.

Because what’s indisputable is that the world and we are one beneath the heavens.

Or at least on Christmas, we’re encouraged to hope and entitled to dream…

A Superior Christmas

They say there’re only two seasons in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan: winter and a couple of days in late July.  That may or may not be, but illustrates the legendary status of winter around the Superior basin all the same. 

Flush with youthful enthusiasm, I once proclaimed to an aged local my desire to live on the range. His grey watery eyes narrowed. He took a long hard look at the kid then replied, “Well…pretty nice up here. Winter’s kinda long, though.” This from a man who for the duration of the bitter season kept a baseball bat handy to dissuade porcupines eagerly working over accumulated salt from chewing through the brakes lines of his car.

Undaunted by tall tales or the skepticism of old men, Heather and I thought to see for ourselves. Christmas is for family but this once we’d go off to create a living gift for just the two of us. A friend of a friend had cabins for rent along the Montreal River and arrangements were made.

Excited at the prospect of seeing familiar sights radically altered by the season, we compiled a mental list of things to see and do. We rode our old Subaru wagon, which modest ride nevertheless possessed a robust four-wheel drive and having previously driven it without incident along abandoned railroad grades, winter gave us little pause.

Our cabin was rustic, cozy and warm. A vintage outbuilding long converted, nestled in the woods outside Ironwood with a Finnish sauna onsite and a waterfall on the river for added ambience. We were the only tenants for the duration and game for adventure.

A frozen waterfall is an incongruous thing, current caught in motion and transported out of time. Being inexorable, the river finds ways to travel downstream under the ice, around it, over it, through it. The mineral content of the Montreal River made our picturesque little falls look like a root beer float.

Accompanying photos are from vintage 35mm images captured during our Christmas adventure

Snowshoes were provided for use of guests. At first it was tough to find a proper gait, what with oversized tennis rackets strapped to our boots, but once you figure it out they’re a damned sight better than tromping your way through knee-deep snow with who knows what hidden beneath. Temperatures headed lower and we set off downriver beside the Montreal, through skeletal trees over snow covered ground.

Apart from the occasional deer track, we blazed trail. Before too long, Heather returned to the comfort of the cabin. I pressed forward alone, exhilarated.

Though evening in the woods is exquisite any season, the blue half-light forest of winter leaves its mark. I hiked a fair piece until near full dark then lingered upon a log, listening to the trickle of water over ice, the only sound in the world. In time I returned to the cabin, path plain by the river through the woods, moonlight shimmering over all. High time for a sauna.

Finns settled across the UP during the 19^th Century, drawn by promises of “streets paved with gold”, which as it turned out meant work in the mines. When those played out the Finns stayed. Many built farms and some prospered but most ended up as rock farmers -- a hard, unyielding land being one reason that today the basin is dotted with abandoned farmsteads. The ‘Yooper’ accent, pasties and Finnish saunas stayed too.

Our sauna sat maybe 100’ across pure Michigan winter from the cabin. Inside, tongue & groove cedar made for a tight seal and benches lined the room. A thick metal basket filled with Lake Superior cobbles adjoined a fireplace, already well stoked. A bucket sat next to a spigot. We got properly naked, poured water over hot rock to raise the temperature beyond steady reckoning, then indulged in the physical and spiritual cleansing properties of abundant sweat.

Tradition dictates a roll in the snow upon leaving a winter sauna. Once done with the heat, I left my shoes and clothes for Heather to carry and stepped naked out into the universe of ice beneath the stars. Snow to my calves, breath hanging in the frigid air, I hurled myself onto the snow and rolled over exactly once, amongst the most deliriously bracing movements of my life.

Then I yelled, “Goodness gracious!!” or words to that effect and beat Heather back to the cabin.

We bundled together to sit awhile, gazing at the picture postcard outside our window. The next day was Christmas Eve. We slept like contented children, secure in the knowledge that whatever gifts winter had in store for us, we’d begin receiving them in the morning.

Snow depth is inconsistent in the forest and travel proved easy. We found our favorite lake asleep beneath a blanket of white then pressed deeper to a high vista over trackless wilderness and a creek that meanders through a tamarack swamp. Many’s the time I’ve wanted to go down there and once hiked alone into those woods to see what could be seen, only to become temporarily bewildered, which is a technical term for “lost” and another story altogether.

The top of the ridge was covered with otter tracks and at its edge snow was tamped to a bright sheen. From there a well worn slide ran all the way down the precipitous hill and across the frozen creek below, ending in a black hole of open water in the ice. Thick waterproof fur covering layers of insulating seasonal fat, a pair of otters had been amusing themselves by climbing up that hill, frolicking around and then sliding back down all the way to that hole in the ice.

Lacking the otter’s fur coat and layers of winter fat if not their sense of play, we soon left them to their games atop that windblown ridge.

Our next stop was the mouth of the Presque Isle River at Lake Superior. County 519 was plowed and clear but at the South Boundary Road such industry ended, unbroken snow on the road into the park proving that no one had recently preceded us. Icy crust scraped the undercarriage of the car as we made our way in to where a trail leads down to the falls.

What a sight awaited us at the bottom!

All was ice and snow, a world frosted over in white. The river ran high and roily, most of it pushed angrily beneath a shifting, groaning ceiling of ice. Never had we seen treachery and beauty so freely interwoven. A dangerous river along its lower reaches, the Presque Isle that day invited disaster, as even the slightest misstep would mean certain death and burial at sea.

We explored thoroughly, ever careful of our step. The hour grew late. As we hiked back up to our car the wicked cold and bitter wind increased its grip on a wild world. Light flurries turned to moderate snow. No sooner did we make it out of the park and onto County 519 than the car balked and coughed, still deep in the wilderness and seventeen miles from the nearest phone with winter bearing down hard. We were reasonably well prepared, the backseat piled high with city folk winter clothes just in case.

This was in the days before cell phones but even today those don’t always work so well on the far side of the hard rock hills. And a forced hike through a nighttime blizzard is an uncertain endeavor under any circumstance.

Though the car grew worse with every passing mile, we limped all the way to Ironwood. Then, late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, smack dab in the middle of the region’s only truly busy intersection, the little Subaru sputtered and died. No amount of coaxing made it start again.

We stood beside our car in the street, feckless and perplexed. The temperature continued to plummet as the wind grew stronger. A State Trooper stopped traffic and helped get us out of harm’s way. Then he stayed with us while we tried to come up with a plan. Time was short, with slender services shutting down by the minute, as people went home for the holiday.

Heather and I worked the phones amidst a steady stream of last minute shoppers in front of the local Kmart. A car dealer in Hurley stayed open late to provide a tow. A used car lot with the only rentals on the range stayed open until Heather could secure the single taxi that worked the area. Strangers stopped to offer help and advice. Everyone bent over backwards to see that we’d be safe.

The mechanic said he’d never seen a carburetor so badly frozen. Somewhere along the way I’d purchased fuel with excessive moisture content and the brutal weather proved more than our old car could withstand. Once thawed they’d fix it, though with the holiday on a weekend that wouldn’t be ‘til three days later, when we were due back to our jobs in the city and a full day after our cabin was spoken for by others.

Still, everyone agreed that had the car died just an hour before it did, there was no telling how or whether we’d have made it out of the woods alive.

Heather pulled up driving a well used mid-seventies land yacht, a lifeboat to us. With best Christmas wishes all around, we guided the beast back to our cabin. After telling our tale of woe to our host, he offered us the comfort of his mother’s home for Sunday night as she was away for the holiday.

*

We’d made reservations at a local ski lodge for Christmas dinner. Warm in the cabin and bathed in relief over a narrow escape, we made ready for our big date. Outside, the weather deteriorated even further.

In the woods it’s sometimes tough to tell just how bad the weather is. A forest acts as a windbreak, trees catch their share of rain or snow and shelter might be found beneath the canopy. Full dark when we left our cabin, we’d traveled only a mile out onto blacktop when we realised exactly where we were, which was again adrift. This time in seventeen degrees below zero with a forty-five mile an hour wind hurling snow every which way across a howling world of fury.

Out on the highway visibility proved all but nil. Then the red glow of brake lights flickered through the white and we came to a halt. A car had come down off a hilly side road and slid across the highway. The resultant four car pileup had the road completely closed. Emergency crews were at the scene. We sat and waited, gleaning the story off local radio, land yacht rocking side to side in the wind.

Time for discretion to be the better part of valor, I doubled back across the closed highway to pick my way through side streets towards Hurley, hoping to find someplace open for a suitable Christmas Eve dinner.

Walter’s Café in Hurley was one of the periodic attempts to bring fine dining to the range. It probably did fine business in peak times, but fancy eats are expensive and outside the reach of many locals, so such places don’t much last. Today the site is home to an antique/resale shop, more suited to the traffic that passed its door. But on that memorable Christmas Eve, Walter’s Café served as welcome haven for two weary travelers who enjoyed a meal of which Walter should forever be proud.

When we left the Café, a full moon hung in the sky south of Hurley and just to the north roared the Arctic. The Superior snow machine was on full bore and outside the woods the demarcation between comfort and risk stood plain in the night. We returned to our cabin and spent the last of Christmas Eve in front of a crackling fire, music of the season playing softly, a bit of fine wine and gifts exchanged between us while outside, winter raged.

If the most precious gift is that of giving and Christmas is the special season for that, then we were made rich indeed that Christmas Eve. In the very best tradition of the northwoods, no one is a stranger in time of need and all folk are neighbors, never more so than when thrown to the mercy of the wilderness.

And two hapless tourists could hardly have been more grateful for a gift so selflessly given.