Wild Rice Ripening: It looks to be a mixed harvest for wild rice in northern Wisconsin this year, according Jason Fleener, wetland habitat specialist for the Wisconsin DNR. Wild ricing starts this weekend in some locations. “After relatively poor rice crops in consecutive years, the 2018 crop generally appears to be faring better in northwest counties, despite heavy storms and flooding in June,” Jason is quoted in a DNR weekly news report. The earlier flooding did affect Radigan Flowage in Douglas County, which remains “de-watered” after a dam breach, and Crex Meadows State Wildlife Area in Burnett County appears to have below average rice likely due to floods. Several lakes in Vilas, Oneida and Price counties continue to have low wild rice production, most likely from continued high-water levels. The DNR has a video introducing wild rice harvesting and ethical considerations while harvesting. The Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC) has a webpage summarizing wild rice harvest regulations and with a survey of the expected harvest on Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan waterbodies. Lake Superior Magazine Recipe Box contributor Beth Dooley writes about her wild ricing experiences and gives cooking tips for a Wild Rice Pilaf with Dried Cherries and Walnuts recipe.
A Blackfin Back on Lake Superior: Tony Kennedy of the Star Tribune had a nice story about Minnesota DNR fishery division’s replacement of a more than 30-year-old fiberglass Boston whaler for work on Lake Superior. The new aluminum 31-foot-long, 8.5-foot-wide Blackfin was born beside the Big Lake, manufactured by Lake Assault Boats in Superior. The custom-built boat, including two offshore outboard motors and special trailer, cost $231,805 and will be stationed at the French River Hatchery. This spring, fishery staff already used Blackfin and its hydraulic net-puller to assess lake trout from 25 fathoms (about 150 feet deep). Blackfin, Tony reports, “is the name of a large cisco and a species of whitefish believed to be extinct in Lake Superior.”
Landmark Group: The recent merging of the West Wisconsin Land Trust and Bayfield Regional Conservancy has created a new group concerned with environment and land use over a 20-county service area. Landmark Conservancy, based in Menomonie, Wisconsin, set a goal “to lead an expanded and more strategic conservation effort across our region,” according to a release announcing the merger at the end of July. Lindsey Ketchel, the nonprofit group’s executive director, has worked 15 years with land-use groups, first in Alaska and then in Leech Lake in Minnesota. (Lindsey, pictured here, also poses with the conservancy’s board of directors and staff.) Among the conservancy’s local land-conservation and restoration projects continuing from the earlier groups are creation of Tyler Forks Community Forest, a 590-acre preserve near Copper Falls State Park in the Penokee Hills, and completion of a three-year community effort to protect 100 acres along the Siskiwit River in Cornucopia, including a 1,200-foot stretch of the scenic Swenson waterfalls, with a land donation by Brent Surowiec and Cheri Swenson Surowiec.
A Last Chance for Norgoma?: So far 778 people have signed a petition to keep the Norgoma museum ship afloat in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. The City council already voted in April to terminate the ship's berthing right at the city site, contending that it is an eyesore on the waterfront. But supporters of the one-time cruise ship, long retired to the Sault, have started a petition drive to raise 3,000 signatures and to ask the council to reconsider because the ship is "a tourist attraction, symbol of Sault Ste. Marie's history, culture and heritage." Tours are still being given at the ship in the Roberta Bondar Marina.
Touring Da Yoop: An ambitious bicycle journey of 1,200 miles around the Upper Peninsula in 10 days should be wrapping up Saturday, full circle in Manistique, where Tour Da Yoop, Eh started August 23. This “inaugural” tour is the brainchild of Call of Da Yooper founder and Manistique native James Studinger to showcase the U.P. as a “biker’s paradise.” Corey Kelly of the Mining Journal caught up with the group, which has had bikers drop in to join them, during a tour stop in Marquette on Wednesday. “The trip is meant to highlight all the paved road opportunities for bikers in the U.P. and to enjoy the beautiful scenery,” James told Corey. “It’s been a pretty big adventure. We’re having a blast.”
Two Four-legged Adventures: Two happy-ending stories of pets gone missing got news time on U.S. and Canadian shores. First, a runaway tortoise (yes, you read that right) traveled about 9 miles from his home in 11 days, stopping at the home of Duluth Mayor Emily Larson for a bite to eat before ambling toward the St. Louis River near Spirit Lake Marina. The mayor did not realize that Flash (yes, you read that right, too) had journeyed from his East Hillside home and that flyers had been posted asking for his return. She tweeted this photo of Flash, mistakenly calling the Rio Grande tortoise a turtle, but apparently guessing correctly what he’d like to be served for dinner. According to a story by Jimmy Lovrien in the Duluth News Tribune, a family spotted Flash on the railroad tracks, picked him up and found him listed on the Missing Pets in the Northland Facebook page. “We knew he was someone’s because he wasn’t afraid of people at all and clearly not a species found in Minnesota,” Coralee Thilges wrote on the page.
Meanwhile all the way on the other side of Lake Superior at Wawa, Ontario, Tifa the cat (on left in photo) decided she’d had quite enough of the cross-country road trip her family had undertaken on its move to Edmonton and jumped ship when they stopped in Wawa. Ashley Hammill was sure she’d never see Tifa again, according to a SooToday story by James Hopkin, but after a fruitless search, she called the Municipality of Wawa to leave word about the cat. Lindsey Greene, who answered the phone, took up the cause and with her boyfriend searched for Tifa and set up two live traps in hopes of catching her. Two weeks after her escape, Tifa was captured, a little beaten-up looking (who knows what she encountered in the Wawa wilderness) but happy to be with people again. Currently everyone’s trying to come up with a way to get Tifa off to Edmonton and a GoFundMe page has been started, having raised $70 of the $500 necessary to have someone fly with the cat (an Air Canada rule) to Alberta.
Photo & graphic credits: Amy Larsen; Minnesota DNR; Landmark Conservancy; Save the MS Norgoma; Emily Larson; Ashley Hammill
Around the Circle This Week editor: Konnie LeMay