Just as the shoreline of Lake Superior is varied and different from one end to the other, so is the way the ice accumulates along her beaches each winter. We've seen a variety of shoreline ice the past few weeks and today, Melanie Hakala Rossi takes us out on the Gay-Lac La Belle road for a look at the ice along Superior's beaches there.

I love the first three photos, showing the ice, thick and white, coating just the beach, no real ice built up yet past where the beach begins. It always amazes me how it can freeze almost in mid-air, like in the third photo.

Then Melanie captured some ice sculptures with a clearer type of ice, looking like the branches of the trees are coated with glass. Take a good look at the two "portrait" orientated photos…the first one of those two has some interesting freezing going on there with the long tentacles hanging down and at the end of each one a bulb has frozen there. Then the second of these two photos gives a close-up look at the glass-like ice frozen in sections to the branch.

In the second to the last photo, Melanie snapped a picture of a tree that is heavily burdened with dirty ice. It's a wonder that those small branches don't just break right off with the weight of those "bags" of ice they're holding. Nature really is a talented artist.

Melanie's last photo is on the pier at Big Traverse. You realize that Lake Superior has to really be rocking and rolling to get the splashing waves to freeze this high up on the irons. My first thought when seeing this one, was that those railings looked like some type of hairy critter standing out there, enjoying the sunshiny, winter day. Look out past them at the surface of the Big Lake. All those whitecaps out there, tell you that she is all stirred up. Perhaps she was getting ready for another art session on her majestic shores!

The first few of those pictures had me wondering, Mangroves in da UP?

Superior's ice sculpture...they do a great job of ice sculpturing in the local communities, but nothing like this.

Brreautiful!
Love 2014 - true winter!!

Some very interesting and beautiful ice formations. Thank you for sharing such beauty.

Stunning photos. Thank you, Melanie.

Thanks for the great pictures, Melanie. I just
love seeing the ice formations near the lake and
surrounding area.

The 1999 picture is my boys' Uncle's sign. Kind
of cool. I have no idea if that is punctuated
correctly or not. If not, don't be afraid to let
me know :-)

Happy Saturday, everybody! It's -2 here today
and I don't think it's supposed to get a whole
lot warmer. Tomorrow we'll have -35 wind chills.
I can hardly wait. Real feel today is -18.
Lovely!

Deb: Your punctuation is 100 percent correct. You get an A in English today:) Here is a handy dandy website for checking punctuation.
http://www.gingersoftware.com/punctuation-checker#.VpqTVzbSnct

As a senior in high school, I had a Business
English teacher who stressed punctuation. I never
learned so much in any other class. He was
awesome!

The third picture looks like a gathering of the White Wizards;

Very icy beauty!