Punching Up the Pancakes: For its 100th anniversary this year, the much-loved Hoito restaurant in Thunder Bay will turn over its signature thin Finnish pancakes for a “pancake hack” each month, adding a new flair to the old favorite. This month’s offering is the “bacon date marmalade pancake,” reports the CBC Thunder Bay. If you can’t get to Thunder Bay this year (though really, you should), but want to try some Finnish pancakes at home, there are a number of Hoito “copy cat” recipes online. An “I’m Turning 60” blogger got the recipe and some helpful tips in 2015 from Hoito cook Darlene Granholm. Still, pancakes at the Hoito remains the best because we believe that nothing beats the pancakes whipped up in a kitchen where the cooks are speaking Finnish; the pancakes know a welcoming language when they hear it.
Icy Edge to Coming & Going: The Detroit Free Press along with others reported this week on the difficulties being faced by residents of Sugar Island on the St. Marys River. Ice jams have made the river frequently impassible by either snowmobile or ferry service, sometimes stranding island residents on the wrong bank to get home. Last week school children were stuck on the mainland overnight. Island resident Jennifer McLeod, a tribal council member with the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians, told the Free Press her 11-year-old granddaughter spent the night with friends on the mainland. “Everyone who lives and works on the island and has to get back and forth, we all prepare for this. We all have contingency plans,” she said. Another resident, Gregory Rowell, told the Free Press that in 18 years on the island he and his wife have only missed four days of work on the mainland, but this has been a highly unusual year. SooToday reports a meeting between the U.S. Coast Guard and Sugar Island leaders to work out ways to minimize ferry delays.
Meanwhile on Madeline Island in Wisconsin, the only year-round inhabited island on Lake Superior, the Madeline Island Ferry Line ended ferry service for the season and Windsleds Inc. has been operating its windsleds (in photo). KBJR6 reports that this is the first time in three years the ferry has been able to take a winter layup for broader maintenance and service.
Locks Sans Water: Winter work on the Soo Locks, run by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is underway and after 16 hours with several 300+ horsepower pumps, the impressive Poe Lock was drained (photo above). Added to the work crew are the members of the Corps’ Soo Area Office multidisciplinary dive team, this one (at right) sealing the stop logs with a dive tender’s help. The water, the Corps tells us on its Facebook page, was a brisk 33°F, but the divers’ special suits pipe in heated water to keep them warm for work. Go to Facebook for 40 great shots showing the work.
Attendance Topper: On the other end of the Lake at a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers facility in Duluth, the Lake Superior Maritime Visitor Center topped its December attendance record with 18,465 visits. The Lowest December visitation was 697 early after it opened, and the highest recorded for the month until 2017 was 12,291.
Bridge Bill: Negotiations are under way to determine who will pay for the multimillion-dollar repairs to the bridge spanning the Nipigon River. The $106 million bridge failed in January 2016, less than two months after opening, causing disruption in the east-west travel across Canada. Canadian Press obtained documents that show actual costs will end up well above the $8 million to $12 million repair estimates. “Engineering reports found that a combination of design and installation deficiencies of several key components caused the bridge to fail, severing a critical Trans-Canada Highway link,” according to a Canadian Press story posted on Battlefords Now. “Improperly tightened bolts on one portion of the bridge snapped, causing the steel decking to lift about 60 centimetres.” The four-lane bridge first operated on one-lane after opening and is up to two lanes now, but will not reach full capacity until later this year.
Bigger Ways to Fly: Starting in March, United Airlines will be using larger mainline aircraft for two of its direct service flights from Duluth to Chicago, the Duluth International Airport announced. The airline has seen continued gains in passengers on the Duluth-Chicago flights, with a 4 percent increase just last year.
How to Explain Lake Superior: U.P. Supply Co. in Marquette, which showcases made-in-the-U.P. goods, posted a cool journal entry about an old book that can help to describe our Inland Sweetwater Sea to those who have never seen it before. Along the Bowstring, Or South Shore of Lake Superior by Julian Ralph was published in 1890 and covers his travels from Sault Ste. Marie to Duluth. As the journal writer points out, Julian’s prose gives an eloquent image of the Lake: “But the seas of the world are salty, this lake is like a colossal diamond – clear, pure, sparkling, lying like a heaven-lighted gem in a bowl of rich greenery fringed with a lace-work of chromatic rocks that take on the most weird and enchanting shapes.”
On the Cold Front: The Minneapolis Star Tribune featured a story on Duluth’s newest idea for celebrating its outdoor action even in the chilly month of February. Cold Front February will start with the city’s largest coffee break outside at Lake Place Park on February 1 and continues with pop vendors in Canal Park and merging into fat tire biking and the Duluth Ice & Mixed Fest for climbing and polar plunging. Our editor Konnie LeMay plans to help out during the opening weekend in Canal Park, so drop in to say “Howdy.”
Moving on the Snow: American Snowmobiler visited the Upper Peninsula for an episode of its AMSnowTV program. If you can't get out to ride, this may hold you until your next trip out.
Photo & graphic credits: Paula Haapanen; Madeline Island Ferry Line; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District; Lake Superior Maritime Visitor Center; Paul L. Hayden; American Snowmobiler.