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Along the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, everyone waits for a big freeze.
Only when temperatures stay low for a long time will the edges of Lake Superior freeze enough for people to walk out to the mainland ice caves, whose beauty is renowned. Even when ice is sufficiently solid — and it was only once in the last three winters — wind may suddenly split it, and snow may block the access drive. So when park rangers say it’s okay to go — well, then you’d better go.
Borrowing a pair of snowshoes from the innkeeper at the Fo’c’sle B&B in Cornucopia, I drove four miles east to Meyers Road, parked near the lakeshore and started picking my way over the lumpy path. The whole world was white, except for the frosty blue of the sky, and it was hard to tell where lake ended and shore began — especially since a 4-foot-high wall of snowy boulders sat where I thought lake should be. Then I passed Craig Mealman of nearby Russell Township, who explained that the “boulders’’ were blocks of ice pushed toward the shore by wind.
As adults, we sometimes forget how great it is to be a kid.
People give you toys to play with. They show you new games and explain things in interesting ways. They feed you freshly baked cookies and s'mores.
Kids take it for granted. But I didn't one January, when I got to stay at Deep Portage Conservation Reserve, in the woods north of Brainerd.
In winter, ice comes with the territory. You can curse it — or you can play with it.
Kids know how. Climbers and skaters know how. And skiers know how — to stay away from it, that is, at least when they have waxed planks on their feet.
One New Year's Day, after an ice storm turned northern Wisconsin ski trails into screaming luge runs, I cut short a ski weekend and headed home through glazed forest. But Amnicon Falls State Park was on the way, so I stopped to explore.
In the wilds of northeast Wisconsin, winter always looks like winter.
It's the kind with snow — snow that comes early, stays late and blankets the forest in heaps, supplying reliable skiing and snowshoeing to people from less-blessed locales.
But in 2003, the heaps of snow didn't come there or virtually anywhere, and skiers were desperate. So was Pete Moline, who runs Afterglow Resort on a lake near the Michigan border. With no snow, he had no skiers and no livelihood. Then, he decided if snow wouldn't cover his trails, he'd bring it there himself.