Co-Editor          Eddie, Copyboy/Greeter

Several big dumps of snow the last two weeks. Skiing and snowshoeing are excellent. Lots of cabin openings for February and March.

One of the trails after storm of January 23-25:

After this two-day blizzard, hundreds of small trees and bushes were weighed down over the trails. On February 6th and 7th, Ron's son, Steve and two friends, Aaron Mertes and Dan Donnelly, worked hard to remove all of the obstacles, pack the trails, and make them better than ever.

You may want to take a glance at the new bear cub near Ely. The North American Bear Center's researcher, Lynn Rogers, installed a video camera inside the den of Lily, a research bear, and displayed the birth of a cub in late January. You can follow the progress of the cub and mother at www.bear.org. Daily explanations of what's happening appear just below the live video. For now, the cub is content to suckle milk, sleep and grow, but soon it will likely make an appearance. When you visit Snowshoe Country, you may want to visit the Bear Center west of Ely - 30 miles from here.

When you visit - on your way up to Snowshoe Country just before Mt. Weber, which you will view mainly when you're southbound, pause and consider the two-mile stretch of 300+ year-old Eastern White Pines along the road. Think about how when these giants were seedlings, the 3-400 year extended-winter regime of the Little Ice Age held full-sway over Europe and North America. And, culturally, in Europe it was the time of the Late Baroque, and some great composers were busy dreaming up what would become some of the most important western classical music, e.g., Vivaldi, J.S. Bach, Handel, Telemann, Pachelbel, and Scarlatti.
 

A common sight on Co. Rd. 2 lately as people come and go to Snowshoe Country:

Several funny happenings on Christmas week. Some guests encountered a fox on a trail with a snowshoe hare in its mouth. Vixen was so preoccupied she almost walked into the snowshoers.

A couple staying in the Sunrise Cabin had their skis and tracks peed on by several timber wolves sauntering through their yard of an early morning.

And lots of moose on the roads licking that tasty salt. Ron and I (Willie) almost nailed two on a night trip from Duluth. Many guests have encountered moose the past two weeks - on the road - also some wolves, a fisher and a lynx.

Bears are back in hibernation now after a brief period of getting up and ambling around during the warmer part of November. May they rest well and not be confused again by unseasonably warm weather.

Woodchucks (groundhogs) are undergoing a much deeper hibernation in their home dens. There seems to be a record population the past few years, including some black colored ones. Few know how complicated their burrows are, with separate rooms for bathroom, food storage, sleeping, and even a nursery. Both parents tend to the youngsters until they disperse to begin their own lives in mid-summer. They will be out scurrying around again in mid-April. Meanwhile, we will all miss watching them.

From the past:

 Painted and snapping turtles finished laying their eggs in early July in roadways and beaches - anywhere there's gravel and sand. Young frogs and toads are still crawling around all over the place. Here's an image of Amber last year conversing with a snapper laying her eggs by the dogyard. Several months later, some 80 babies crawled from the hole - on their way to the water.

And an excellent winter 08-09 was - with nearly 130 inches of snow. Thanks to all of the interesting folks (and your great dogs) who enjoyed the cabins, skiing, snowshoeing, and trails this past season. We sincerely hope that you will come back for some canoeing and hiking fall. Some cabins are almost always open, even on short notice.

Some remnants of the winter happenings are below:

Greg and Traci Pence, from Lakeville, got close to an otter emerging from a hole in the ice on the Sand River near camp in late March:

On 4/6, Ron was marking a land boundary on a recent logging operation when an adult eagle flew 20 feet above his head and grabbed a branch on a dead spruce. By seeming to fall backward and using its weight, the eagle was able to break the small branch and carry it away toward Steve's peninsula of old pines. This is nest building and rehab time for the big birds, and we suspect that someone will soon spot a new eagle nest on our end of Sand Lake.

Among the visitors enjoying some snowshoeing the first weekend in March were Randy, Willie, Isabel and Meg Hoyt-Niemic.

Snow sculptures
Competent snow sculptors were busily carving in Whiteside Park during the Ely Winter Festival in early February. Bill Defenbaugh of Ely did the work shown in the two left panels. Ludwig is his golden friend.

Music at Snowshoe
Guests Ralph and Mary Brindle of Edina filled the forest around Sand Lake with great music from their alpenhorns (alphorns) on a winter weekend.

Real fox news.
The resident fox is still running around our yard and by the other cabins scarfing up scraps and just gawking at us silently from time to time. He/she appears to have a more difficult time getting through the snow with the short legs. This pictured one is identical to our local "yard fox," before it recently ate a 20 pound (approximately its own weight) bag of dog food left unintentionally in the driveway by Ron. It then tore the sack to shreds and most likely went off for a very long nap, probably appearing like this:

Timber wolf & otter happenings.
Some guests have been viewing river otters at work and play over on the Sand River (where there are holes in the ice) and also around places where folks have been ice-fishing - where they can fetch an easy meal. Erin says this one's name would be Otto the Otter.
 

Ron's twice a day journey to the mailbox up on Highway 1 is usually uneventful except for an occasional moose sighting. However, on Groundhog Day he was reading a newspaper in the Toyota cab when two wolves strolled down the road  almost right up to his truck.

The evening after Christmas, a three or four-wolf choir put on quite the howling concert out by the marsh near the road. When Ron checked out the tracks later, it appeared that the local pack was on the trail of a buck who forgot to migrate from the high country in time (usually by early December). All parties were finding the deep snow difficult to jump through. Conclusion unknown...

Moose.
Lots of moose have been seen eating salt on the highway this season. While Ron was pushing snow on December 12th, a moose walked right in front of the pickup at the base of the driveway. No camera handy, of course. Had there been, the photo would have looked like this:

Lodging as a gift.
If you're thinking of giving a 2009 weekend northwoods getaway to an individual or couple - for a holiday, birthday or anniversary present you can share with the recipient, gift certificates can be easily arranged and quickly sent. Call 218.365.2126 for info. Talk to Willie, Amber or Ron.

Country of endless snow.

Ron, who keeps a precipitation station for the Minnesota Climatology Office, measured a total of 163.8 inches of snowfall here at Sand Lake during the winter of 2007-2008 (November - April). As is often the case, This was one of the higher snowfall sums recorded in the state. For more daily info on relative snowfall, check out:

Early-season ice skating.
After shoveling snow from the ice, skating was fun on Thanksgiving weekend for granddaughters Emma and Erin. Here's Erin and me (Amber) taking a break on the ice.

Fish news.
Some walleyes and a large northern pike taken from Sand Lake recently by Wendell Westberg of Minneapolis.

Fishing has been fair this winter, but was even better last fall. During September, on a day following extremely violent lightning storms with 2+ inches of rain, walleyes were on a feeding binge on the shorelines. Minnows took these from shallow water for John Nelson of Minneapolis.

October 5th was a day of excitement for Perry Noll of the Twin Cities. This northern pike, 38 inches, was caught and released in Sand Lake

The wild rice crop on Sand Lake was good in 2008 and some folks were out in early September obtaining some rice samples for educational project displays - visiting group of naturalists from Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center in Finland, MN. L-R: Josh, Jessamy, Kelly, Alexis, and John in front.

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