History Up in Smoke: A spark took just five minutes to ignite a blazing inferno that destroyed what once was the largest grain elevator in the world, the owner of the building and the wood-recovery operation in it told Ryan Juntii of WDIO TV. The estimated damage to the 1887 structure was $2.5 million, Gordy Oftedahl said, including $450,000 in recovered wood that had already been sold. At the time the fire started on Monday, workers were in the decommissioned elevator in Superior, but no one was hurt. Two cranes on site also were destroyed. For nearly a decade, the elevator’s old-growth timber was being recovered and sold for premium projects, currently by Old Globe Wood, which reclaims timber, paneling and flooring from old grain elevators. The structures frequently contained now rare old-growth pine and other vintage timber. On its website, the company noted: “Many wooden grain elevators were lost to fire during their operation. Of those that survived, most have been demolished or burned to enable redevelopment. Old Globe Wood rescues antique granary timbers, dimension lumber, and architectural pieces and gives them new life.” The photo here before the fire shows how the construction stacked boards of old-growth wood. The fire on Monday caused a temporary closure of the nearby Blatnik Bridge.
Huff & Puff & Reel Those Fish In: When spring comes, our Big Lake wolves are the same as all regional anglers – they go fishing. That's what you see in some trail cam videos released this week from the Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota. It is the first known video footage showing freshwater fishing by wolves during sucker and pike spawning in streams. Wolves have been documented taking saltwater salmon. An abstract of the park's publication "Do Wolves Hunt Freshwater Fish" dives a little deeper into the subject.
Great Day for a Rescue: Earlier this week, members of the U.S. Coast Guard in Duluth took advantage of moving ice floes in the harbor to do a little practice on ice rescues and posted pictures on the USCG Cutter Alder Facebook page. They participated in the real thing already earlier this month, when about 35 ice fisherfolk had to be rescued from Superior Bay when northeast winds and a seiche shifted the ice, as reported by the Duluth News Tribune.
Another Kind of Ice Rescuing: Ice coverage may be diminishing on the Great Lakes during winter, but less ice doesn’t mean less of a need for ice-breaking services to keep maritime traffic moving, especially at the end and beginning of each shipping season, according to a story by Kaley Fech for the Great Lakes Echo. The winds often shift blocks of ice and can trap or inhibit vessels. “In 2014, I was on an icebreaker on Lake Superior in March and the ice was very thick,” George Leshkevich, a physical scientist with the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, told Kaley. “We were opening up the ship track for the opening of the shipping season, and it took us a day just to get through Whitefish Bay. We started making our way from Whitefish Point over to the Keweenaw. We didn’t make very much headway because when the icebreaker opened a track up, the winds would close it up behind us.” Both the U.S. and Canadian Coast Guards aid in ice breaking, generally at the end of the maritime season and at the beginning once the locks reopen.
A Healthy Dose of Gingerbread: The staff at UP Health Systems in Marquette participated in a gingerbread house contest and came up with some trés creative entries – including the iconic red lighthouse, a luxury gingerbread cabin with a blue frosting pool and a cheeky poke with four slices of bread stacked around a container of ground ginger with the title: Work Smarter – Not Harder (Administration). See all the entries online.
Better Than a Patridge in a Pear Tree: The Sault Ste. Marie Christmas Bird Count spied two rare sightings: a lesser black-backed gull (the first time the species was officially recorded during the count) and a northern mockingbird (in photo), considered rare in the area anytime of year, according to a press release from the Sault Naturalists published by Soo Today. The Christmas count, on Dec. 15, took place on both the Canadian and American sides of the border. The count circle had a radius of 12 kilometres, centered at the middle of the International Bridge, and included 67 field observers and 20 feeder watchers. The project counted 57 species and a total of 6,204 birds. Other interesting sightings included cooper’s hawk, belted kingfisher, peregrine falcon, song sparrow, and rusty blackbird, all not typically seen in the area in winter, the Sault Naturalists reported. To see the full results, visit the naturalists’ website.
Stories of a Mall Santa: A couple of years ago, we sat down with Santa, aka Brian Thiry, who served as Santa for the Miller Hill Mall in Duluth. Here's one of our favorites from his tales and you can read others in our story, "Santa's Adventures in the Mall":
"Santa loves when parents are able to help him make the best experience possible for the children who visit. He recalls one time when a determined little fellow marched boldly to him, hopped into his lap and demanded, 'If you’re Santa, what’s my name?' Glancing at the mom nearby, Santa saw her mouthing 'Mason.'
"'Hmm,” Santa told Mason. 'I know so many children. Let me think through the alphabet. A, B, C … does your name start with an M?' Then he proceeded to spell out Mason’s name. With each letter, the little boy’s eyes got wider. Just when Santa was sure he had persuaded him, Mason suddenly scowled again and said, 'Sure, but what’s my last name?'
"A lesser fellow might have panicked, but Santa kept calm, and Mason’s mom came through again. With a smile she lifted up Mason’s hockey jersey that she was holding … with their last name emblazoned on the back."
Santa, Music & Magic: At Maricia Hales' "Holiday Spirit in the Lights" tonight, you can visit with Santa and hear the carolers from Northwestern High School in Maple, Wisconsin. Since 1998, Marcia has strung up lights – now around 300,000 – in her Park Point backyard at 3739 S. Lake Ave. in Duluth. They will be up until Jan. 5. There are even sprinkles of green twinkles along the Lake Superior shore (as in this photo). This, Marcia says, will need to be her last year for the display, so in tribute to all those decades, all those lights and all those stories, we've been excerpting stories from Spirit of the Lights, a book by Chuck Frederick about that walk-through display and how it's inspired, amused and comforted visitors from around the world. This week, we meet Rudy, an exchange student from German who befriend Marcia and her late husband Alan. "Unplugged" opens with Rudy heating a cup of coffee in Marcia's microwave . . . and thus extinguishing the entire walk-through display.
Our Merry Christmas to everyone heading into our final weekend before the big day. Our outlet store will close at 1 p.m. on Christmas eve. Drive safe, hug lots of friends and family, and be kind among all those other last-minute shoppers.
Photo & graphic credits: Nancy J. Lindberg; Old Globe Wood; Voyageur National Park; BM2 Hochstaetter; NOAA; UP Health Systems; Carter Dorscht; courtesy Brian Thiry; Amber Popplewell