Remnants of Retaining Wall off Lakewalk
Swimming the shallows can be my favorite.
Swimming the shallows can be my favorite.
REI gifted 10 American trail systems a total of $500k. The Superior Hiking Trail “won” a chunk of the money through an online poll. Cheers, voters and REI!
“Rain”
Video by James Holak
Contains excerpts of the recent buoy-diving and swimming the hole at Uncle’s Harvey’s videos. Here you see them in context of the epic day crushing the best dive sites of the outer harbor. Canoe support crew was Jeff Greensmith and Sean MacManus. Dove the buoy and looked at railyard artifacts, ruins of the old breakwater wall, swam the hole at Uncle Harvey’s, and goofed around at its collapsed pillar. All the ruins are around 125 years old I believe. Topped it off with brews at Endion Station.
Depth: 30 feet. This is the red buoy in the outer harbor within sight of the Vietnam Memorial and Uncle Harvey’s Mausoleum. Thanks to my canoe-based support team, Jeff Greensmith and Sean MacManus, who towed me out there on my floaty raft. At the 1:18 mark you can see the concrete block the buoy is tethered to but the shot is brief as I didn’t want to dally.
Video by Aaron Goodyear.
In the ditches of Fond du Lac, near Perch Lake, wild parsnip is flowering and going to seed. In southeastern Minnesota this weed fills every ditch and uncultivated field and I believe this is poised to do the same in our region. I think that with five or 10 willing volunteers it could be possible to prevent or delay this invasion. I have not seen this plant growing in other areas, so perhaps if this patch is dealt with we might avoid a larger problem. The highway department has been made aware of this weed and for now is not mowing the area to avoid spreading the seed farther. The highway department does not have a plan to deal with this year’s seeding plants.
This Sunday, Aug.9, at 11 a.m. I will be in the ditches of Fond du Lac near Perch Lake cutting individual plants with a pruning shear and carrying them up to the roadside to be bagged. The job is too large for me alone and I would like to ask for help. If you can help please show up at 11 a.m. wearing long pants, a long-sleeved shirt and gloves. Some people do have skin reactions when dealing with this plant. If you have a pair of functional pruning shears please bring them. I will bring extra shears. Depending on the crew size I hope to spend no more than two or three hours with this task. I can be reached by e-mail at hanlondm @ gmail.com or by phone at 218-722-4990.
Underwater footage of Uncle Harvey’s Mausoleum off the Duluth Lakewalk in relatively clear conditions. First I videoed the collapsed column in 9 feet of water, Then because visibility was so good, I swam around the base of the building structure too. That is 16 feet deep according to a depth chart I saw once.
New hiking paths pop up in Duluth faster than I can keep track of them. Web Woods Trail was in the news when it opened in 2012, but I didn’t check it out back then, and soon I’d forgotten about it. So when my wife asked if I’d ever been on the trail off Oak Bend Drive in Duluth Heights all I could respond with is: “What trail?“
Ruins of the column that collapsed this winter at “Uncle Harvey’s Mausoleum” off the Duluth Lakewalk. Water is really murky as its proximity to the shipping lanes stirs up a lot of silt this time of year. I intend to keep trying to get clearer shots but this is all I could manage during this initial foray. Water depth: 9 feet. Basically what you’re seeing here is a base of concrete sprouting metal bars and telephone-pole-like wooden posts that in some cases are splintered or splayed. The tops of some posts were sheared off and smoothed by ice sheet movement and lie just below the surface. The concrete top of the column lies on its side at the bottom, along with eroded steel jacketing that sheathed the base.
I was very cautious during these dives as the danger of getting snagged or nicked in the gloom was fearful to contemplate. I heard nearby swimmers claim a member of their party had scraped himself on the posts while swimming. Not to be a bringdown but this area has to be considered a hazard to swimmers and boaters alike. It is also the most interesting thing to look at in Lake Superior right now.
I was freediving Duluth’s amazing rock beach one afternoon, and started finding pot-smoking paraphernalia in a few feet of water just off shore. I realized I was reassembling some poor stoner’s fully stocked stash tray which he/she must have set too close to the waves. Within a relatively small radius I found pieces of two glass pipes (one largely intact), pokie tool, rolling tray, grinder, cigarette roller, and a broken glass jar. Archeological evidence of a beach culture of leisure.
A brief encounter with a Northern Pike in several feet of water. It looks injured as if by a propeller across its back.
I am enjoying a short stint as an author-in-residence at the Food Farm. What fascinates me most about my stay here is that there are several young couples in their 30s choosing organic farming as a legitimate career and lifestyle, though they endure long odds and poverty wages. Learn more about a cross-section of this remarkable community that provides the Duluth area with great food here. Today I was amazed during a short visit at Northern Harvest Farm, and also at Stone’s Throw Farm just across the street. The perseverance of these people is unbelievable. There are lessons here for all of us in choosing our lifestyle rather than letting one choose us.
