Oh, Yeah. Winter Is Here: Sounds and looks a lot like winter in downtown Houghton, Michigan, on this video from FunIntheUP.com. This one is for all you snowbirds who secretly ache for the home country snowstorms. The narrator (who is that brave soul?) tells us the temperatures dropped from 50°F to 20°F overnight, turning all the rain on the road into ice. For the most part, a storm early this week hopped over Minnesota to get to Wisconsin and Michigan. In Port Wing, Wisconsin, 20 to 30 mph winds with gusts to 40 mph churned the Lake brown, Fox21 shows in its video. In Thunder Bay, plowing crews anticipated three days to clean up the snow left by Tuesday’s storm, reports TBNewsWatch.com while the Chronicle-Journal noted closings of highways and businesses, including the Intercity Shopping Centre. Highway 17 between Batchawana Bay and Wawa was closed for a time on Tuesday. Mid-week SooToday was reporting snow squalls dropping up to 5 cm. inland and 15 cm. (about 6 in.) by the Lake, and Wawa Tourism posted a video of pounding Lake Superior waves.
And Then There Was One: Isle Royale was down to two wolves during last year’s winter count, but there might now only be one, Michigan Tech researcher Rolf Peterson told Keith Matheny of the Detroit Free Press. Matheny wrote: “It's more than a tear-jerker for wildlife lovers. The loss of wolves on Isle Royale has thrown the predator-prey balance there completely out-of-whack. It's led to a population explosion to more than 1,600 moose, threatening the fir trees and other vegetation on the island with their voracious appetites, and setting up an ugly potential of mass die-offs of starving moose in years to come.” The National Park Service is in the process of deciding whether to repopulate wolves on the island park. It is considering four plans with its favored alternative being reintroduction of 20 to 30 wolves within a five-year period, according to Matheny. Read about the 50+ years of Wolf-Moose research at IsleRoyaleWolf.org.
Street Smarts: Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, will receive nearly $600,000 in provincial funds to increase the number of bicycle lanes on city streets and other bike-related travel improvements. The city already has a decade-old Cycling Master Plan in place, and this year created an implementation strategy that serendipitously coincided with money becoming available from the province for just such purposes. The requirement to obtain it was a plan (done!) and a city match of 20 percent (done in July). Don McConnell, the city’s director of planning and enterprise services, said the city has agreed to about $125,000 over two budget years for the $580,534 granted by the province. “It’s intended to be a four-year project,” Don says, and to be followed by additional funding for such projects. Among consideration for the bike lanes will be turning some four-lane roadways into three-lane roads (two traffic lanes and one turning lane plus bike designated side lanes). Many of the bike-friendly roads will be those paralleling, rather than on, some of the city’s busiest thoroughfares. “Rather than trying to accommodate cyclists on really busy roads,” says Don, “what you want to do is accommodate alternative routes that are safer.” Already the city has made major investments, adding bike lanes to Queen Street (see side photo) and opening the John Rowswell Hub Trail (top photo), a nearly 24-kilometre, 10-foot-wide paved path linking the urban center of the city, from the downtown waterfront area to the community’s colleges to two major conservation areas that feel much like trail rides through the woods, Don says. "It’s been very popular.”
Partnering On Protection: The Lake Superior Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Superior this week announced the launch of its Great Waters Research Collaborative, “a major project devoted to assessing effectiveness of tools for sustainable industrial, commercial and public use of the nation’s Great Waters, especially green shipping.” LSRI is partnering with the University of Minnesota Duluth’s Natural Resources Research Institute and AMI Consulting Engineers in Superior on projects like assessing the effectiveness of proposed ballast water management systems in fighting introduction of invasive species. UWS and UMD already have been collaborating in an $850,000 freshwater ballast treatment testing facility that opened in Superior in 2007.
Messaged In A Bottle: After the massive late-October storm, Charles Nelson was taking his last walk of the season along a private Madeline Island beach, owned by a summer family who often hired him to pile driftwood into bonfires and remove trash. Soon after making his way to the water's edge, he picked up what he thought was simply garbage: A single, badly beaten plastic bottle filled with water. As he drained the liquid, he discovered a special request.
"Dear finder, My name is Emily, I’m a 15-year-old girl from Minnetonka. If anyone finds this, please write.” It had her full name and address and was dated 1995. In this day of social media, tracking Emily proved to be easier than one might think. Obviously no longer a teen, Emily had grown up, moved and married, but then Charles contacted a friend, who saw Emily’s address and realized she would have gone to the same high school. The friend checked and Emily had graduated two years before her, so she got Emily’s married name from alumni records and found also found they had a mutual Facebook friend. Soon Charles gave Emily Colaizy a wave, and she waved back. “Hi,” he wrote, “call me, I think I have something of yours.”
Within half an hour or so, a bottle tossed into the Lake 22 years ago linked two people. For Emily, it was a bittersweet reminder of her family’s annual trips to Madeline Island, which they did not do this summer for the first time in 25 years due to family situations. (Maybe tossing up the bottle on shore after 22 years was the Lake’s way of waving to Emily, its own sort of social media for a missing visitor.) Emily and Charles arranged to meet up in Duluth so he could return her bottle, and Fox21 recorded their connection. Emily, by the way, apologizes for littering in the Lake and Charles suggested that they each pick up some trash off the local beach to make up for her youthful indiscretion.
Hollywood, Minnesota?: Virginia, Minnesota, was in the entertainment news this month. One movie sharing the town’s name earned an award at this week’s Hollywood Film Festival for first-time director Daniel Stine and another shot in the northern Minnesota town made it to Netflix. “Virginia, Minnesota” won Best Hollywood Film as an official Jury Selection at the festival on Dec. 2 and lead actors Aurora Perrineau & Rachel Hendrix won a Jury Class Award for Exceptional Emerging Artist(s). Much of the movie, released this year, was filmed around northern Minnesota, including in Grand Marais (the Hjørdis schooner gets a cameo), Duluth (Glensheen mansion makes a cameo) and Two Harbors, but apparently not in Virginia. The sound track features several Minnesota musicians’ work. The drama/comedy, also written by Daniel, is about two women, divided by a childhood tragedy, who unexpectedly reunite.
“I’m Not a Serial Killer,” a horror movie that was filmed in Virginia – and in Hibbing and the Twin Cities area – is showing on Netflix. The movie, based on a book and starring Christopher Lloyd and young Max Records, was released last year. The plot involves a troubled teenager with homicidal tendencies who must hunt down a supernatural killer in his small Midwestern town. (If you’re wondering if it’s suitable for you to see, “body parts” is one of the highly rated film’s keywords on imdb.com.) Riki McManus, director of the Upper Minnesota Film Office, says that the producers hadn’t chosen the northern region to film until they visited. “They actually were planning on shooting most of it in the Twin Cities, but once they came up and saw the character of Virginia, they fell in love with it.” She also noted that both films (Serial and Virginia) got “snowbate” incentives through the Minnesota Film and TV board.
Hey, We Know That Guy: Sparky Stensaas, who frequently does nature stories and photos for Lake Superior Magazine, was profiled by Jeff Moravec of the Star Tribune. Most recently, Sparky introduced Lake Superior Magazine readers to some fabulous fungus. His website is The Photo Naturalist and he’s often hanging outside with his sons, Birk and Bjorn (like in the photo here).
Helping Neighbors, Thousands Of Miles Away: Some National Guard members of the Duluth-based 148th Fighter Wing joined those from the 133rd Airlift Wing in the Twin Cities to help out in the U.S. territory Puerto Rico recover from Hurricane Maria. They should be home by Christmas, reports Brady Slater of the Duluth News Tribune.
Warmest Christmas Fishes: Every Saturday and Sunday until Dec. 23, you can see Santa take a dive at the Great Lakes Aquarium in Duluth. SCUBA Santa is part of the Great Lakes, Great Fish show in the big Isle Royale Tank at 11 a.m. those days.
Photo & graphic credits: FunIntheUP.com; Martha Thierry/Detroit Free Press; City of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario; Charles Nelson; “Virginia, Minnesota"; Sparky Stensaas; Great Lakes Aquarium.