Welcome to the Big Lake

by Konnie LeMay, editor

Undertaking New Journeys

The sign at the edge of the cliff promised a “Scenic View.”

Just beyond the sign was a singularly uniform sheet of gray so solid that it seemed as if God had taken an eraser to the landscape.

The blank canvas, introduced by the optimistic sign, awaited the touch of some wondrous landscape artist. Raised on Disney animation, I could almost imagine a big hand with a paintbrush starting the work.

“Not too scenic,” I chuckled to my husband as I stared into the thick fog bank that had risen off of Lake Superior and smothered land and sky all the way to this edge of Oberg Mountain.

At this moment, my own personal canvas was excitingly open for artistic suggestion. Just conjuring the words “my husband” felt fresh, this being our honeymoon getaway.

Bob and I planned a fall stroll or two along the Superior Hiking Trail while we escaped for a few days to test drive this marriage thing. Actually, with the rings on the fingers, it was too late for a test drive. We were off the lot and cruising life’s byways. I wasn’t worried. With both of us taking the plunge in our “middle ages,” by the time we might discover that we aren’t compatible, we’ll be too old to care.

But this short hike around the mountain seemed more and more like the perfect metaphor for a new start. And it got better (as has the marriage after almost seven years). On the other side of Oberg Mountain the fog had lifted, leaving eerily beautiful tendrils of thin mist rising between the thick evergreens below us. Oberg Lake shimmered as the sun won the battle for the sky.

By the time that we made it full circle around the mountain, the bright sunshine opened into that promised Scenic View, and that mystic Disney artist had already used up the blue, painting Lake Superior in a wide swatch reaching to the endless horizon.

This is how it is beside this extraordinary Lake - ever changing, ever intriguing, often challenging, always worth the effort to get out and enjoy.

In this issue, our Summer Recreation Guide includes a story on urban hiking and some good information on the major trails, like the Superior Hiking Trail that Bob and I got to know a little about as we got to know more about each other.

If you really want to fly - really - we have a story on bush planes and pilots and their historic beginnings in this region. We even list a few opportunities to fly away.

“My Dad’s Canoe” is a tale from Julianne Johnson that starts out with the challenge of discovering who made her father’s cherished canoe and ends after a few missed turns with valued knowledge and appreciation of her family heirloom.

So this issue is filled with journeys taken or journeys open to be taken.

That theme fits quite nicely with what we at Lake Superior Magazine are doing, probably just as you are reading this. We are setting out on a new journey - moving out of our office space in Duluth’s Canal Park.

Physically, the hike is not a far one (unless you’re carrying the boxes from my overloaded office). We will be moving less than a dozen blocks into the heart of downtown Duluth. You can even wave through the windows of our new storefront offices, better yet, stop in for a visit. In the box on this page is our new address.

Yes, our new space is something of a blank canvas and a work in progress. (We will need to paint.) But I know that Lake Superior Magazine will arrive as usual with its June/July issue … and I can promise you a truly Scenic View of the Big Lake!

Konnie LeMay, editor
Address e-mail to kon@lakesuperior.com