The last day for Wild Rice restaurant: After all the meals are served Saturday, Wild Rice in Bayfield will shut its doors for good. Known for its gourmet food choices, fine wine selection and a building designed by renowned Duluth architect David Salmela, the restaurant was one of several created and headed by local entrepreneur, philanthropist and artist Mary Rice. Maggie’s in downtown Bayfield continues under Mary, and the Egg Toss, also downtown, has been sold, reports the Duluth News Tribune. The hope is the Wild Rice space will be used for the arts. On the Wild Rice webpage, patrons are told, "It has been phenomenally rewarding to have provided you the highest quality dining experience in Northern Wisconsin. As this final chapter of Wild Rice Restaurant ends Wild Rice Reborn begins. Wild Rice is exploring a partnership with Artspace, to be reborn as A Center for Arts and Well Being. Artspace is the nation’s leading nonprofit developer of arts facilities. We feel Artspace will be a wonderful compliment to this beautiful building and the arts community of Chequamegon Bay.”
Too much water: Near record high water levels in Lake Superior are threatening shoreline erosion, causing water seepage in Duluth Park Point homes and sinking fixed docks, reports Pam Louwagie of Minneapolis' Star Tribune. Above average rainfall for the past 10 years in the basin likely is contributing to the high waters. According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Lake Superior was up 5 to 6 inches from last year for this week and about 2 feet above chart datum, which is 601.10 feet. The Corps reports, “Lake Superior is up 2 inches from mid-September, while the rest of the Great Lakes dropped between 3 and 7 inches, with Lake Ontario experiencing the largest drop. In the next month Lakes Superior, Michigan-Huron, St. Clair, Erie, and Ontario are expected to decline by 2, 2, 6, 5, and 7 inches, respectively.” The Corps predicts an above-average waterflow through the St. Marys River this month.
Keep on trucking, Wade: A company driver for Jeff Foster Trucking in Superior has found himself hauling for hurricane victims the past two months. Wade Grenke, a Hazmat-endorsed tanker operator, first headed out to help the U.S. Postal Service with fuel delivery in Houston, Texas, post Hurricane Harvey, arriving there on Aug. 27. Two weeks later, he was trucking fuel in Naples, Florida, after Hurricane Irma. At the beginning of this month, Oct. 2, he flew to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. According to the company, his truck and diesel-loaded tanker just arrived via barge this week. Wade showers, eats and hangs out at the FEMA camp and sleeps in his 18-wheeler – one of the special “Awareness Trucks” in the Jeff Foster Trucking fleet that boasts a silver ribbon to highlight awareness for diabetes. With roads in Puerto Rico not passable for a large truck such as his, Wade has been fueling up smaller vehicles to haul the fuel. “Wade is likely to spend the rest of the year in Puerto Rico as the island rebuilds,” reports the company. “Wade left his home and family on Aug. 27 to provide this essential relief and has been on the go ever since.”
Busted for stealing Jim Dan Hill?: At least that’s what librarians at the University of Wisconsin-Superior hope happens as students and others join in searching for the missing bust of the man after whom the library is named. It’s all part of the fun intended to teach research skills, explains Stephanie Warden, information literacy librarian. Clues are delivered in the library by the giant question mark denoting where the
bust should be and also via social media each Monday during October. Participants use the clues when searching the library catalog and databases. “It’s become a little more geared toward accessing people’s ability to spot fake news,” says Stephanie. The winning prize isn’t fake, though. Whoever solves the mystery gets a $45 gift card to Kwik Trip. If you’re curious about Jim Dan Hill the man, and how the library came to take his name, you can do a little research on the About the Library page.
Get your motors running: The Sault Events has sent out the call for a snowmobile parade to surpass all snowmobile parades, reports Soo Evening News. Organizers want to beat the Guinness World Record snowmobile parade currently held by Whitecourt in Alberta. That means getting more than 1,047 snowmobiles to join a 2-mile parade on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018. Mark the date … and get your snowmobile motor running.
A new center with a focus on freshwater: Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, held two “visioning” sessions with local, state, federal, tribal and non-governmental organizations to guide in designing the future for a new $11.8 million Center for Freshwater Research and Education, shown in an artist's drawing here. Groundbreaking for the center is planned for June. The new facility is an expansion, planned since 2014, of LSSU’s Aquatic Research Laboratory. This facility will join other Lake Superior-based research centers, including the Large Lakes Observatory at the University of Minnesota Duluth, the Lake Superior Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Superior and the Great Lakes Research Center at Michigan Technological University in Houghton.
More docs for northern Ontario: Since 2011 when the first students from the Northern Ontario School of Medicine were ready for independent practice, more than 160 additional family doctors now practice in the region. Training and keeping physicians in the region was one major goal of the NOSM branch in Thunder Bay, one that seems to be working, according to a 2017 report cited in a story by TBNewsWatch. “Nearly 95 percent of NOSM graduates who completed both their MD and residency programs at the school currently practise in northern Ontario,” according to the story.
A couple of hauntingly worthy stories: To honor October in general and Friday the 13th in particular, we have two ghostly tales to share.
First, in a story from his book, Haunted Lake Superior, Hugh Bishop reveals the spooky history of Hermit Island in Wisconsin’s Apostle Islands. Whether the ghost of a man named William Wilson treads there is unclear, Hugh writes, “but the history of the place certainly has enough bizarre twists to make it possible that his ghostly presence may still be lurking there.”
Second, Snap Judgment’s special October podcast “Spooked” recently featured a ghostly tale about a real northern Wisconsin tavern where the clients, well, let’s just say when the bartender announces “Last Call,” you don’t want to be the last to leave. True story or overly active late-night imaginings? You decide by listening to “Time Warp Saloon.”
The new span in autumn: Photographer Dennis O’Hara posted this nice picture of the new Highway 53 bridge that was part of the highway relocation project by Virginia, Minnesota. More than 400 people attended the official dedication in September.
Photo credits: Paul L. Hayden/Lake Superior Magazine; Jeff Foster Trucking; UWS Jim Dan Hill Library (2 photos); LSSU; Joy Morgan Dey; Dennis O’Hara