Lake Superior Journal: The Vanishing Act at Pebble Beach

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Lyle Nicol

Pebble Beach

The beach is usually littered with the pebbles for which it is named, but Lake Superior occasionally pulls off a vanishing act worthy of a David Copperfield show.

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Lyle Nicol

Pebble Beach

Pebble Beach near Jackfish, Ontario, remained pebble-less a day after the towering waves.

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On a recent trip along Minnesota’s North Shore, my wife, Vicki, and I drove from our home in Thunder Bay to dine in Tofte at a restaurant with a Lake view. The blue water was calm, with tiny wavelets lightly tapping the shore.

This is one face of Lake Superior, one summer visitors may believe is its only mood. I live here and know the Lake’s varied moods and personas – centred guru, laughing friend, mischievous youth, angry dragon.

I’ve also seen a role beheld by few: Lake Superior as magician. David Copperfield can make an elephant seem to disappear, but, believe me, that’s nothing compared to what Lake Superior can actually cause to vanish.

That might have an ominous tone, given the Lake’s history of swallowing vessels and crews, but this is not a tale of terror. No, this is more a story of astonishment, true awe for what the Lake can do. But I’m getting ahead of the punch line.

I witnessed the Lake’s major magic trick on a routine trip to my family property in the abandoned village of Jackfish. May to November, I make several pilgrimages to the old home site, a three-hour drive east of the city.

This October day, I arrived at my comfortable bivouac, Jackfish Lake Cabins on Highway 17. After settling in and eating, it was early evening. I decided to drive to one of my favourite places on earth, Pebble Beach, a 20-minute hike from my property.

Here, Lake Superior seems to open endlessly. In a boat from Pebble Beach, you can make a beeline to Michigan’s Keewenaw Peninsula, some 130 kilometres (about 80 miles) off on the Lake’s south shore. The view here is of vast water and broad horizon.

I drove to the gravel road near Jackfish. This was a leisurely trip; the next day would be soon enough to visit my old cabin. The evening was quiet, overcast, mild with no wind – perfect for a relaxing visit to the Lake.

Let me repeat this – there was no wind. When I parked and hiked to the beach, I turned off the engine and got out of the car. The air was hushed; something else rumbled.

I recognized it immediately, but doubted my hearing. It was the boom of a pounding surf. The sound was deep, almost earthshaking. It gave me pause, like the roar of a lion must shiver the spine of an antelope.

As with any Lake resident, I’m well familiar with the sound of a surf. Especially in late fall, you can expect at least one of the infamous gales to churn the waters into a visual and audible frenzy. Here’s the thing: When I hear that sound, I also feel the winds whipping at my jacket, slapping my face, swirling around me and probably pelting me with darts of rain. This night, the sound of the seething surf was the only sign of an agitated Lake.

I headed to Pebble Beach. What I saw coming over the ridge was not one, but two incredible feats of Lake Superior magic.

First, despite the still air, huge waves, the biggest I had seen in years, crashed against the shore. Towering walls of water reached up, paused, then broke onto the land, generating foam, mist, spume and those roars.

Pebble Beach is a long, wide and crescent-shaped cobbled shore – most days. Magnificent wave-rounded stones give the beach its name. Large drift logs, moveable only by The Hulk in a rage, often are strewn from the shore to the tree line. Gracefully scalloped edges from old waves usually etch the sand far from the water’s edge, marking how high the waves roll. These all point to large wave action; intellectually, I’ve always known this.

The second trick I saw – a disappearing act – brought to mind the scene from “Lord of the Rings” where a raging river turns into charging horses, sweeping everything away. Magically, the Lake’s surging waters had swept the sands. Pebble Beach was almost devoid of its billions of pebbles. It had become Sand Beach.

Yes, I’ve seen the face of this beach change season to season, but this was the first time, I saw the magic happen.

As I stared in disbelief, I pondered the weight and number of these stones, how the ephemeral waves cleaned them away and, I knew, would bring them back. A sense of ancient times came to me, that this cycle has occurred as long as the Lake could generate waves – about 10,000 years.

Again, I felt the twinge of the hunted antelope, imagining the staggering power of this water.

Some waves were 3 to 4 metres high, about 9 to 12 feet. They gathered up, rose and paused – hunting stones? – before hitting land, creating a cacophony of liquid hisses and roars and the tinkling sound of countless pebbles pushed together.

Then, in final defiance of solid ground, the wash raced up the slope of the beach, often reaching the trees. “I own this beach,” the Lake seemed to growl. “I’ll make of it what I wish.”

Overhead, a moody sky hung with low, dark clouds. I both regretted and thrilled at being here alone. How I’d love to share this moment, to remember it later with someone. Yet how blessed to be the only person on the entire sweep of the shore. Today, this was a private showing.

Still, I’m never quite alone at the ghost town of Jackfish. Departed residents linger, and I thought of how they might view such a spectacle. Would they marvel, as I did, or would the hardscrabble community of fishermen see this onslaught as a threat to fishing boats coming home or an impediment to them going out?

I listened for their whisper, but heard only the Lake.

The waves at Pebble Beach take on a special character. The water quickly becomes deep, so waves don’t break into whitecaps until they hit the shore. Dark watery swells come, often in trios, and do not crest and break until there is nowhere else to go. From Michigan, no land or island stops these swells from gaining a head of steam.

As I watched from an outcrop of rock, a written work came to mind (perhaps not unusual for an aspiring writer). I felt like King Lear on the Heath during the Storm. I hollered toward the Lake and would have yelled the lines to Lear’s famous “Blow winds and crack your cheeks!” soliloquy … if I actually knew them.

I became quiet like the air around me. I wasn’t cold; no wind beat spray into me or drenched me. Yet I felt elated, full of the Lake’s energy. Corny and cliché, that’s what the Lake does to me. I stayed until late dusk settled, returning to the car in near darkness.

The next morning, I returned to the same parking spot to prepare for my hike into Jackfish, the reason for my trip. The clouds had parted, the day was fair. There was a light breeze.

Before heading to Jackfish, I trekked to the beach. Where there had been towering, awesome waves 18 hours earlier, the water was flat calm. Wavelets gently lapped the shore.

The only evidence of the earlier magic show – a mere sprinkling of pebbles, escapees from the night’s cleansing, lingered at the water’s edge.

For today, Lake Superior had decided this would remain Sand Beach. Tomorrow … well, tomorrow the Lake may change its mind.

Lyle Nicol was born in Port Arthur, grew up in Terrace Bay and now lives in Thunder Bay. He is a member of the Northwestern Ontario Writers Workshop. His story “Jackfish Memories” (Lake Superior Magazine, February/March 2009) about his family ties to the ghost town was nominated for the Thunder Bay Museum’s George B. Macgillivray Award.