Boreal Access

Skiers Unite; attend Cook County's Gunflint Trail and Northshore Volks Ski Fest- January 31, 2009 - Sunday, February 08, 2009

The Volks Ski Fest is a fun, laid back, skiing and snowshoeing festival for the whole family! All week-long, all over the county, there are events and contests designed to help everyone get out and enjoy hundreds of kilometers of beautiful northwoods trails.

You can try to be the person to ski the most km in a week...or enjoy a leisurely ski just one day. You can get your festival booklet stamped to show you've made it to all of the trails...or you can just go to the events that feature food. Whatever you enjoy the most. Check out the list below for the details on the many events planned.

This is turning out to be a really great winter for snow. It is like the ones we used to have several years ago. The best estimate we have is 24-30 inches so far. A little of this variance comes from whether you just measure the number of inches that have fallen or whether you measure the depth of the snow on any given day. This picture shows you the snow bank on the main dock. The truck in front of it gives a way to gauge the depth.


Down at our house Bruce is happy to have the high snow banks. He calls them his bumpers. Our driveway is very steep. On really warm days when the snow is particularly slippery, we come to a complete stop at the top of the hill, put the car in neutral, and coast down. Even so the car occasionally gets going too fast. That’s when the bumpers come into play to stop it.

Going uphill on those days is also great fun. It can’t be done without four-wheel drive. If the driver is inexperienced with driving on snow, Bruce gives them a little help. We save all the ashes from our fireplace and use them to make a path for the wheels. It works every time.

All the snow has made slush pockets on the lake. In fact we have not been able to run any dog sled rides until a slush-free trail was established on the lake. Today was our first day to run this trail. Here is a picture of Linda and Neal with two guests. You can see how the dog team is tethered front and back to the trees frozen in the ice.

I left the lodge before they came back, so I’ll find out tonight how it went.

As I looked at the pictures, it surprised me how dark they were. I took them about 1:00 p.m. on a bright day. I suppose that even this early in the day, we are starting to darken down. It's 5:00 p.m. now and almost totally dark.

Once a trail is established, it will stay free of slush all winter. This is because the ice gets thicker on the trail than other places. That makes it stronger and less likely to crack from the weight of the newly fallen snow. Slush is created from the weight of the snow pushing down on the ice until the water beneath is under so much pressure that the water is able to crack the ice and seep out into the dry snow. It rarely seeps out through all the snow which is why you can’t see it. All you see is dry snow. Although this year there is so much snow that several slush pockets have soaked through all the snow. That is the best thing because it will freeze up that night with no insulating snow. As you can tell, I think all the changes that occur in the ice over the winter are quite interesting.

Bruce and I were in Duluth yesterday. It snowed most of the way down but wasn’t too bad coming back. We saw one moose going down and 2 moose coming back. The two were running on the road, one on each side. One was a young cow and the other was a young bull. We were only about 3-4 miles from home and had decided that we were not going to see any moose. Suddenly we saw lots of tracks on the road and slowed down. It was a good decision because this pair thought they owned the road. Remember when you drive the Trail to look for fresh animal tracks and slow down if there are lots of them.

As we turned off the main trail at the lodge corner, Bruce noticed that someone had gone into the ditch. It is a common happening at our junction. In fact, we have all done it too. You have to slow down almost to a complete stop before making the turn. Then you take your foot off the brake and make the turn. If you keep braking through the turn, there is a good chance you will end up in the snow bank.

One of Bruce’s errands was to interview some high school students who are applying to Cornell University for next fall. Bruce is an alumnus of Cornell. He has interviewed 6 students so far and it has been most interesting. His report back to the school will not make or break any student but it just gives a human face to the application process. Listening to the scores of the kids on the ACT’s and SAT’s, all the activities they are in, and all the jobs they have had just makes me feel tired. If these are our college-bound kids, we have nothing to worry about.

Reservations are coming in steadily for the rest of the winter. As part of our monitoring process we keep track of how many days of cabin rentals we have for each month. Right now January has passed last year’s mark at the end of the month for nights of cabin rentals. That is really good news because it means we can expect a nice increase in business for January. I am sure that a lot of this is due to all our snow. So, let it snow!

1/8/09 - Wonderful winter weather continues here at Sawbill. Cold, soft snow is falling on a regular basis. The temperatures have been cold and another cold stretch is forecast for the coming week. Of course, being true Minnesotans, when it... sawbill

Radon is a colorless, odorless radioactive gas that naturally occurs in soil. Radon causes around 20,000 lung cancer deaths annually, making it the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States.

The EPA has declared January National Radon Action Month - a time to raise public awareness of the dangers of radon, and how to test for Radon in the home. Radon can occur in any home, but homes with basements are more at risk for elevated radon levels. Radon can enter through cracks in the foundation or the blockwork, or through the sump, or through an uncapped block wall like is commonly seen in Grand Portage. The only way to know is to test your home. Even homes that are side by side can have different radon levels.

If you would like your home tested for radon or would like to learn more about it, please call me at 475-2415 ext. 35, or stop by my office at the Trust Lands building at 27 Store Road.

     I continue to be amazed by the beauty of my surroundings.  One would think after time the scenery would grow old but each day it looks a little different.  The angle.. (191 words)

This morning will find us doing dog chores, having breakfast, packing up our clothes and the rest of the supplies for the White Oak Race and running the dogs the six miles to the dog truck. We’ll run them in front of the snowmobiles towing Otter sleds full of gear and then once we get to the truck unharness and load the dogs and the gear before heading down the road to Duluth for the night. I sure do miss the days when we used to be able to load the truck in the driveway and then back it into the dog yard to load the dogs!

Along the way to Duluth we’re making a stop in Two Harbors to pick up dog food and a few supplies from 10 Squared Racing and to drop off Johnny  and Cleo who will be running the White Oak six-dog race with owner, Troy Groeneveld. We’ll be staying overnight with good friend, Karl Tarnowski and his fiance Bev before picking up handler (and webmaster) Tone Coughlin to head to Grand Rapids on Friday. Handlers Bob Baker and Beth Gagnon will head out of Grand Marais tomorrow morning and meet us in Grand Rapids tomorrow afternoon. Tomorrow night we’ll hook-up with our first-time handlers, The Luttinen’s, who will be traveling up from Roseville after work tomorrow.

Saturday morning will find out at the start staging area before taking off from the start sometime around noon. I’m still not looking forward to the below zero forecast for the Deer River area Saturday night, but I guess if I get cold, I’ll just have to do some running with the dogs!

I guess it’s time to start packing. I probably won’t have time to do any updates on the blog until I get back to work on Tuesday, so you can follow the race progress by logging on to the White Oak website. Wish us luck! 

Daylight Watch: Tomorrow will be 1 minute and 37 seconds longer than today!!!

Received about 2 more inches of snow; regroomed this side of the system today.  It’s all good.

      

     I guess I should have made yesterday's blog a two parter so I could have posted the other half today and not have been so late with this post.  But I didn't.      .. (308 words)

Sunday’s additional 7 inches of snow has added another inch or two to an already fantastic early season base ( 8 to 12 inches). A 25 year Bearskin guest reported that the trails are the best that she has ever seen them. Skate lanes are firm and level throughout the system; tracks are hard and fast. Light additional snow and more moderate temperatures are expected for the remainder of the week. Conditions couldn’t be better.

      

After receiving a phone call from Aunty Cristy worried about Calvin getting lost in the last snowstorm, I thought I should post some pictures for all his fans. Calvin has decided to write today’s post to let everyone know how he and all the puppies are doing.

Hello Everyone!

It’s me Calvin. It’s been waaaaay too long since my mom mentioned anything about me (and the other puppies) in her blog, so I thought I should take over today to let everyone know how we are all doing.

The boys and I have been staked-out now for about three weeks and after the initial shock and horror that I wouldn’t be able to go visit all my canine friends wore off, I have been doing great. Actually having a house to myself is kinda nice. I now also have my own food dish so I don’t have to eat as fast as I can. I now get a little extra food and have been putting on weight. I’m also growing like a weed with my legs growing the fastest. My mom and dad are wondering if my legs are going to be as long as Valor’s!

I also really like being at a house by myself so I can get attention and not have the other puppies jumping up and trying to get it at the same time. My mom has taught me how to “sit” and “shake” my left paw and now is working on having me shake “the other one”. I loooooove all the pets I get.

The rest of the boys have adjusted pretty good too, but Murphy and especially Mons have big mouths and make a lot of noise until it’s their turn to get a pet (Aunty Lindsey, can you do something about that?). Murphy isn’t a huge fan of his house and sleeps outside most of the time. He’s doing fine though as unlike me, he’s a fat little fart! The photo at right is all of us: me and Murphy on the left and Worf, Spock and Mons on the right.

Rose and Lily are still a little “too little” to be staked out and have their own kennel to hang out in. They are doing pretty good, but I do have to admit, I miss puppy-sitting them. With all the snow that has fallen this winter, occasionally the door to their kennel won’t close tight and they sneak out and run around like madwomen playing with us boys. Having us boys staked out has helped Rose too as she has been catching up to Lily in size, although she’s still not as fat! So Aunty Sandy…the girls are doing just fine.

The humans have been busy around here moving snow and training the dogs in preparation for races. I hear mom and dad are taking 20 dogs this weekend and are going to the White Oak Race in Deer River. Mom’s not too happy with the extended forecast in Deer River as on Saturday the high is only supposed to be in the single digits above and the lows Saturday night (while she’s running the second half of the race) is predicted to be in the teens BELOW. If you ask me, it’s good for her, she’s been such a “fair weather” musher the last few years that this should toughen her up a bit.

Oh well, I guess I should get back to hanging out with the boys. I wanted to let everyone know that we the puppies are all doing fine. Although I sure miss having people stop by just to see me! I can’t wait for this winter to get over so I can show all my Tom Lake friends how much I’ve grown.

Happy Trails,

Calvin
(Murphy, Mons, Spock, Worf, Rose and Lily too)

Daylight Watch: Tomorrow will be 1 minute and 32 seconds longer than today!!!

     It was January in Northern Minnesota near Grand Marais. The thermometer read 8 degrees above zero and the sun was only a couple of hours from being done with it's short work for.. (1692 words)

Wow, it really snowed last night...isn't it wonderful?

Everything familiar was disappeared! The world looks brand-new.

A new year....a fresh clean start!

It's like having a big white sheet of paper to draw on!

A day full of possibilities.

It's a magical world Hobbes, ol' buddy.

Let's go exploring!
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

We’d like to introduce Hannah Beane, our newest handler. Hannah has a month off from her  environmental studies at Prescott College (Arizona) and wanted to live with us and run dogs (is she nuts?). She is an Outward Bound Alumni who has been on one of their two-week dogsledding trips a few years back. I borrowed this photo from her Facebook page and according to her profile she is much more active than the rest of us Off The Beaten Path. Her interests: running, climbing and hiking. As mentioned yesterday, in the 24 hours after her arrival that I was home, she worked hard and was fitting right in with the humans and dogs.

What was amazing to me is Hannah’s mom, Anne, dropped Hannah off on Saturday night and when we met her I wondered what Anne was thinking to herself. Here she was dropping her daughter off out in the middle of nowhere at night,  in a snowstorm. Then out of the woods comes Mark and Mary on snowmobiles (one with a headlight out) bundled up so she really can’t see what we look like. We talk for a few minutes, load Hannah’s stuff in the Otter sled, make sure our machines and Anne’s car start and away we take her daughter deeper into the middle of nowhere! Thanks for trusting us Anne, we’re happy to have her even if it’s just for a month. We’ll be sure to send her back safely.

Since it was so blasted cold again yesterday with windchill warnings, Mark gave the dogs the day off and the handlers took the opportunity to come into town for laundry and hanging out. In their absense Mark went out and broke open our 32-mile loop and then brought in a sled to get it ready as a spare for the White Oak Race. He was still working on it when I talked to him last night at 9:30 but said he was almost done. Today, I think the plan calls for Mark and Rob to take the 22 dogs in contention for the White Oak. The forecast is calling for temps in the high teens with another 1-2″ of snow possible. Hopefully that’s all it will be with the snowblower in the shop.  

Daylight Watch: Tomorrow will be 1 minute and 26 seconds longer than today!!!

1/5/09 - Happy New Year to all. It has been a great winter so far with mostly very cold temperatures (-15 last night) and lots of snow (24" on the ground right now). The snow has stayed on the trees... sawbill

     Does it sound like I'm speaking a different language?  It seems like every day there is a new website to check out and become a member of.  Whether it's Classmates,.. (283 words)

I have to apologize as I promised I would introduce our newest handler, Hannah Beane today but someone (me) forgot to get a picture of her before leaving yesterday. I have to ask Mel to get one and e-mail it to me so I can tell everyone about her tomorrow. What I can tell you today is that Hannah seems to be fitting in great with everyone, is getting to know the dogs and worked hard yesterday moving snow. Sorry Hannah, your fans will have to wait one more day!

As you can guess, we spent a few hours yesterday moving snow. We started by Mark hopping on the roof of the cabin to get it shoveled off. Mark would push it down to where Rob could reach it with the roof rake. While the guys were doing that Mel, Hannah and I shoveled out entrances to the dog houses. When the guys got done Mark fired up the snowblower to blow the snow away from the cabin so we could get in our door. He then handed the snowblower over to me and I worked the area between the cabin, dog shed, sauna and outhouse. I was just getting ready to make a pass over to the handler cabin when it started to smoke. I shut it down thinking an oil leak was the culprit. After Mark took a look at the oil level, which was fine, we started it back up again and it ran fine, the only problem, the auger wasn’t turning. Turns out, we smoked the auger belt! Mark took a look at it thinking he could easily change the belt, but it looked like something a little beyond what he has time to deal with right now, so Rob and he loaded it in the Otter sled and Mark and I loaded it into the back of the truck along with gas cans, recycling and laundry last night. Hopefully I can drop it off somewhere to get fixed this week…and hopefully we won’t need it!

After the snow was moved, it was off to the garage to try to get our meat band saw going, which is no small feat. Our 4500 watt generator isn’t quite strong enough to get the blade turning so it takes us putting a heater under the saw for a couple of hours, me turning the saw on, Mel holding the saw so it doesn’t shake too much, Rob revving up the generator and Mark with a dowel getting the blades going. After a few swear words and sweat it finally started turning on it’s own to cheers by everyone! Thank goodness we got it started as we had 20-50lb. flats of fat, 20 flats of ground chicken and a bag of beaver meat to cut up. It sure would have been a bummer to use an axe to chop it up!

After sawing meat, it was time for the yearly dog immunization clinic. Hannah and I filled the syringes with Hannah only poking herself with a needle twice (for the record Mom Beane, she did it with a clean needle). Mark then got the job of giving the shots.

After shots, Mark and Rob geared up to break out the trail down to the truck with the snowmobiles. Since Mark and I would have a heavy load in the sled with the snowblower in the back, we thought it best that they pack the trail first. While the guys were gone Mel, Hannah and I added straw to all the dogs’ houses in preparation for the below zero temperatures predicted for last night. Again the forecasters were right as according to the thermometer in the truck on my way down the hill this morning it was -10. Then it was time to give the dogs their dry before heading in the cabin to put together dinner for the crew and so I could eat before heading into town. After dinner the handlers gave the dogs their chicken soup while Mark ran me down the hill to the truck. The plan for everyone up there last night was well-deserved showers. After a full day of working around the yard, it sure feels good to take a shower in the nice hot sauna. I only wish I could have been there as a shower in the sauna is better than any “on the grid” shower. Thank you to the gang for all their help yesterday. If it were just Mark and I we probably only would have been able to get the snow moved and the dog chores done yesterday. You guys are awesome!

Daylight Watch: Tomorrow will be1 minute and 23 seconds longer than today!!!

The forecasters were right again, we got snow…and a lot of it. While feeding dogs this morning the fresh powder was up to and over my knees. It’s hard to tell by the photo of the sauna, but it’s well over a foot. Can you guess what we’re going to be doing today?

Yesterday we were able to give clients Tom and Diane Anderson the “time of their lives” by driving their own dog teams before it snowed too much. Mark and Rob picked them up at their truck at 10:00 and by 11:00 Mark took them out on a practice sled run behind the snowmobile. He will take them out the driveway, around our little loop and head back through our backtrail. Our backtrail is a narrow, windy bugger and Diane had a bit of a spill on what Mel calls “the corner of death”. Fortunately Diane was unscathed, but the sled she was on suffered a crack in the handlebar. After a backwoods repair with duct tape it was good to go for our run. We hitched up four teams: 8 dogs for Mark, 6 dogs for Tom, 4 dogs for Diane and 6 dogs for me. We had Rob follow us on snowmobile for part of the way to make sure all was going OK. Good thing we did as we had to do some dog switching around to get the teams traveling at a somewhat equal speed. After making it safely through the “lunch loop” Rob took off for the cabin and we had a nice run home. We did however have a bit of excitement…

On one of the last turns home, Diane’s team that was following Mark’s, decided to not follow him and take a left at a fork in the trail. Fortunately there is a way to get back around on the right trail, but not without taking a “more than a 90″. Diane made it around the corner hanging on to the handlebar for dear life with her feet dragging behind the sled. I anchored my team to a sign post and ran up to help her. I got her team stopped and once she was back on her feet she looked at me and nearly completely out of breath looked at me and said “I didn’t let go, I didn’t let go!”. She said all she could think of while her feet were dragging behind her was Mark’s instruction of the cardinal rule of dog mushing…no matter what, don’t let go. Way to go Diane!!! Both her and Tom said they had the best time and for Diane it was her best birthday present ever. We found out when they got here yesterday that it was her birthday! We’re happy we could give you a great time. They said they are going to tell all their friends and family about it. They also said our handlers are awesome…so a huge pat on the back for Rob and Mel.

Oh well, I guess I best get some breakfast made so we have the energy to move all this snow. Tomorrow I’ll introduce our latest handler addition, Hannah Beane. Hannah is going to get broken in this morning shoveling snow. Welcome to Off The Beaten Path Hannah.

Daylight Watch: Tomorrow will be 1 minute and 18 seconds longer than today!!!

     Winter is in full force on the Gunflint Trail and the wildlife is aware.  The moose have found their favorite salty spots and they can be seen on their haunches licking.. (327 words)

Jaret had a friend up from town (Grand Marais) for the past two days.  They have been frolicking in the winter fun.  Sliding and skiing and playing with the dogs.  Yesterday got "bored" as is typical of 10 year olds so we suggested they go out ice fishing.  They gathered ...

Thursday, as the first day of the new year came to an end, I tested the snow depth with my trusty ruler once again and we ended up with a total of 4 inches for the day.  Bob had groomed some of the ski trail system but quit by late morning ...