Tag Archives: MN North: Gunflint Trail

The Forest Reborn!

Year 10

I am hard at work writing an article for a large regional magazine about the “Forest Reborn”. I had pitched the editor that while forest fires involve tragedy, these same burns equal new life in the forest … both for plants and wildlife. I am discovering that this is a subject very dear to my heart, and it is hard to keep the word count down to the required number! For years one of my favorite birding / wildlife day trips has been to visit the burned out regions from the Ham Lake (2007), Pagami Creek (2011) and Greenwood Lake (2021) Forest Fires.

Here are two images I took from the same location of the Ham Lake Burn Area near the end of the Gunflint Trail looking towards Canada. Once again obviously forest fires involve tragic consequences for many, but these fires also give new life.

Ham Lake Burn Area: 2011 (4 years post fire)

Ham Lake Burn Area: 2020 (13 years post fire)

The Hygge Hoot! (or Superb Owl Sunday)

Year 10, ,

Hygge: a quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being (regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture … definition from the Oxford Google Languages Dictionary). Given I am a Danish-American with cousins still living in the “old country”, I would expand upon this definition and state Hygge is enhanced by the outdoors.

Anyhow, Molly and I spent much of the weekend up in Cook County which is the region in Minnesota’s North Shore bordering Canada. We were working upon an article about Cook County’s Hygge Festival for a leading regional magazine. Molly writes while I take photographs. I hope you enjoy a few of my photographs and how I ended my day … long after sundown during the dark of night with a “Hoot Hike”. By the time I came home I truly had a sense of peacefulness. My local owl even hooted for over 80 minutes while I hiked in the darkness “following the hygge hoot”!

Hygge

Sunrise

Frozen Cascading Waterfall (Cross River)

Gunflint Trail Red Fox Hunting

Grand Marais Lighthouse and Frozen Shoreline

Hoot Night Hike Stats and Map (i.e. following the hoot)

 

Northern Nights Near Canada!

Background, Year 9, ,

Today will end my Covid quarantine, and tomorrow assuming I mask up, I will be able to reengage with the world. It will be fantastic to spend time with my wife. We have gotten behind in watching “The Crown”!!

As I have noted in prior posts this week, I am hard at work completing the second edition of Snowy’s Search for Color, and have pushed along on my new book … about Smokey the Great Gray Owl! Thus, it should be apparent that my case of Covid is somewhat mild!

Both of my two books on occasion involve using images of the night sky. Thus, after the hard process of making selections and processing edits, there two scenes will be used in the new book.

Milky Way deep in off the Gunflint Trail (It was so dark this night, that when I walked 25 yards away from my car, it was impossible to see my Subaru Outback! The BWCA is rated as having perfectly dark skies by the International Dark Sky Association)

Northern Lights over the Pagami Creek Wildfire Burn Area (I was 18+ miles from the nearest paved road and within yards of the BWCA. During this entire night of Aurora chasing I never saw another person or vehicle … only heard wolves and owls! The Northern Lights had been much more dramatic earlier in the night, but the contrast between the burn area and the Aurora was awe inspiring). The light painting of the wooden bridge in these images was done with the ever so brief use of a tiny flashlight (about 1 second).