June

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Hi,
If you are of Norwegian/Finnish ancestry please
look on the link that i am posting.He has been looking for his family who migrated to Keweenaw
county for several years.They may have changed the name spelling.
Alicia Marshall

http://www.troms-slekt.com/seeking/SKS.htm

Pardon this marital(or is it martial?) indulgence, but I thought some of the Mom's and Dad's out there might get a Children's Kick out of this Fish Story on the First Official Day of Summer 2001.
GO FIELD and STREAM!

June 22, 2001 NY TIMES
Fishing: A Rite That Bonds the Generations
By JAMES GORMAN
Freud is famous for wondering, "What do women want?" He might have asked a much tougher question: "Why do men fish?"

I know, women fish, too, often much better than men. And men knit, although perhaps not with the meticulous attention of, say, Madame Defarge. But since recent literature has proposed that the sexes are indeed from different planets, it should be safe to observe that there is a traditional sort of male outing where the guys go off to a remote cabin or fishing lodge, get eaten alive by insects and compete and argue endlessly over who caught the biggest fish in that endearing Martian way that men have.

That would be me, by the way, the one who caught the biggest fish last week on the trip I took to Maine with my father and 10- year-old son. It was 6 a.m., we had been up since 4:30 and fishing for about an hour when I caught a 19-inch smallmouth bass, the biggest fish I've ever caught on a fly rod. And I don't care what anyone else in the boat has to say, I claim full credit for the catch, even if I was looking the other way when the fish hit my fly.

After all, I chose the fly, a spongy orange popper with a couple of feathers guaranteed to make a fish bite out of sheer outrage at its garish design. I made the cast and caused the popper to gurgle in just the right fashion when I flicked the rod tip. I picked the shoreline where we were fishing. And I made everybody get up at 4:30 a.m. In the words of that profound thinker Branch Rickey, "Luck is the residue of design."

But to return to the big question — "why do men fish?" — I don't think I have an answer. I've been fishing since I can remember, and I'm still not exactly sure why. I do, however, know why I've been going on trips to the same group of lakes in Maine off and on for nearly 40 years: Field & Stream magazine.

I read Field & Stream the way other kids read the sports pages, and sometime in seventh or eighth grade I found a story about fly fishing for bass on lakes near the tiny Maine fishing town of Grand Lake Stream. I convinced my parents to buy me a fly rod and I taught myself to cast in the back yard. Then I convinced my parents to take me on a fishing trip to one of the nearby lakes.

We fished mostly with minnows for bait, but one night, under a bright moon, out in the boat with my father, I caught my first bass on a fly rod. I heard rather than saw it take the popper, and I can still remember my father shouting at me — in a friendly way, of course — to keep the line taut, my rod tip up and not to let the fish go under the boat.

We kept going back, life imitating magazine writing. First I went with my parents, later with my father, and once or twice with male friends. For the past few years my father, my son and I have done what I describe as our annual Norman Rockwell trip.

Sysladobsis (siss-la-DAHB-siss) Lake, where we fished this year, is about two hours northeast of Bangor and 12 miles by gravel road from Grand Lake Stream. The lake is about nine miles long, its blue waters surrounded by rocky shores and evergreens. It is scattered with huge underwater boulders rising to just below the surface — good for fishing, bad for outboard motors. As the owner of the Pines Lodge, where we stayed, said with Down East understatement of one of the more difficult passages: "It gets a little bony there."

We arrived on Sunday around noon and began fishing right after lunch, my father and I casting poppers on a fly rod while my son cast something called a Bumblebug on a spinning rod. We also trolled Mickey Finns.

For anyone who doesn't fish, this will sound as mysterious as baseball's infield fly rule. Here's what actually happened. The three of us took the boat as slowly as we could along the rocky shorelines where the bass are at this time of year, many of them still protecting spawning beds and thus willing to bite almost anything that irritates them. That means letting the motor run very slowly, almost at idle, providing an insistent and unpleasant throbbing noise and occasional puffs of drifting blue smoke. We cast to likely spots, waiting for fish to rise to the surface, or trailed a red and yellow fly (the Mickey Finn) underwater — trolling — waiting for the rod to bend when a fish hit. All the fish we caught we released.

You can avoid the noise of the motor and the complaints of your family members about where you're driving the boat ("Where are you going?" "There's a rock! There's a rock! I told you there was a rock.") by hiring a guide. This makes you a "sport," as in this description from a Maine Fisheries and Wildlife Web site that describes the "numerous nonresident sports who fish these waters each June to do battle with feisty smallmouths."

It's good being a sport. The guide drives the boat, a square-sterned, forest-green Grand Laker canoe with an outboard motor, and turns it off to paddle you in primeval silence when you want to cast, cooks lunch on shore and tells you how and where to cast. This is a great deal, particularly since the guides are very good at preventing the sports from hooking one another in the ear.

I did this to my father once and both of us survived, which is the kind of experience that forms bonds of trust between the generations and serves as a model for successful parenting. My son hasn't hooked me yet, but I know, from my father's example, what to do when he does. You mutter a few unprintable words (well maybe you raise your voice) and then you dig the hook out and keep on fishing. This is the fisherman's version of unconditional love.

This year the fishing was slow at the start. We caught a few fish each day, although there were extended periods where we had to pass the time by recounting earlier catches, questioning fate and discussing why black flies are attracted to some people more than others. On Tuesday my father and son went out with a guide and saw quite a bit of action, while I struggled, with absolutely no success, to catch a landlocked salmon in Grand Lake Stream, for which the village is named. But that afternoon I came back to the lake, and while my family was with the guide, I took a boat along a shore that we hadn't tried yet, trolling a Mickey Finn. I hooked one fish after another.

That evening we caught more fish on the same shore, and the next morning we went out before breakfast, which is when I caught my biggest fish, followed by many others (smaller, of course) that my father and son caught. It was the perfect last day.

Not that all we care about in my family is who catches the biggest fish. That would be sad. No, we also keep track of who catches the most fish and the smallest fish (my son this year). And we do other things than fish. For instance, one night we played Monopoly.

My father was a banker before he retired so I believe this counts as a kind of cross-generational bonding. We sat there under the propane lights in the cabin, talked about the Pennsylvania Railroad and Park Place, rolled the dice and counted our money — a family experience. I would have liked to have let my father off the hook when he landed on St. James Place for the second time and went bankrupt, really I would. But it was getting late and we all had to get up early to go fishing, and, as I told him earlier that evening, the greens are just too expensive to build on.

Besides, it doesn't really matter who wins. The important thing was that we all got to spend some time together.

In defense of Constance(with no offense toward Chuck):
Wind power has been very successful in south-eastern Minnesota where lots of eagles soar.
I say GO FOR IT!
What if the fleur-de-lis' were all planted about a mile off the north shore of said peninsula like sparkling diamonds in the sun?
I know... underwater...much more expensive...
Birds can adapt if land-based propellor-mines are the only affordable dig(unless they truly are dinosaurian relics).
I guess we'll have to roast the dumb ones up on the summer barbie...
'ave a good one, eh?

Charles Buck wrote on Wednesday, June 13, 2001 - 10:04 pm: One of the reasons I think wind power in the Keweenaw is a difficult issue is because of the bird kill problem associated with wind turbines.

Actually, wind turbines may not be a significant problem for birds--even migratory birds. Here's one link that talks about it: Birds and Wind Turbines.

And according to this article: Do Windmills Eat Birds?, "The bird experts at the Audubon Society are more concerned about the 10,000 to 20,000 communications towers expected to go up in coming years. 'In general, the wind energy industry has substantially reduced bird deaths and has been successful in addressing the problem,' Plumart says."

Constance

Constance Petersen,
I agree wind power is preferable to coal-fired power generation, but the difference is not quite so cut and dry. One of the reasons I think wind power in the Keweenaw is a difficult issue is because of the bird kill problem associated with wind turbines. The Keweenaw is a significant migratory flyway as well as eagle home ground. The Copper Country Chapter of the Michigan Audubon Society will understandably have some concerns. While wind turbine manufactures have over time changed their tower and turbine housing designs to minimize bird kills, I do not know if the problem has been minimized enough to allay those concerns. Wind power in the Keweenaw might be found technically and economically viable, but it may have to be shelved for other important reasons.

Charles,

Charles Buck wrote on Monday, June 11, 2001 - 06:09 pm: "The idea of wind power in the Keweenaw is a difficult issue. For example, the wind atlas you refer to is over-simplified..."

I'm sure you are correct. Converting to wind power for the entire Keweenaw Peninsula would surely not be simple. OTOH, I was surprised to learn that it would quite probably be doable. And it certainly sounds more appealing than President Bush's plan to build one new power plant in the USA every week for 20 years!

Constance

Constance Petersen,
The idea of wind power in the Keweenaw is a difficult issue. For example, the wind atlas you refer to is over-simplified. A lending bank, electric utility, or a local government agency will not risk its time or money based on the generalized information in the wind atlas. More concrete and substantial data has to be put in front of them. I would suggest collecting all the available historical daily and monthly average wind speed data from real sources: 1) The airport weather station, 2) the Copper Harbor weather station, 3) the Michigan Tech weather station at the Portage Canal north entry, 4) the former Coast Guard Station at the Portage Canal north entry and 5) the former Calumet Air Force Station on Mt. Greeley. Some of this data is available online, but other sources will require some phone calls and letter writing to procure. Such data will form a stronger basis upon which to move the idea forward.

One of the first efforts such data could be put toward is establishing language in the county land use plan supporting wind turbines as a suitable land use. As a first step - even before collecting wind speed data - you might quickly lobby each of the township land use committees to place a question or incorporate the idea of wind turbines in their land use questionnaires. The question should solicit citizens' opinions about whether they believe wind turbines are a suitable land use and how strongly or weakly citizens support wind turbines as a potential land use. Questionnaire results will help determine whether the issue is socially and politically viable regardless of whether it is technically and economically viable. This may also help in the future when determining which townships have a problem with siting wind turbines. Some people may have legitimate objections to siting a wind turbine near them due to aethetics. For example, one would not want to put a wind turbine within sight of historic Fort Wilkins because it would substantially impinge on the the ability of Fort Wilkins to successfully get visitors to travel back in time and imagine what the fort was like back at the turn of the 19th Century.

With wind speed data one could also begin organizing support for a county committee to study the viability of wind power and the many issues wrapped up in successfully constructing and operating such facilities. For example, wind speed data helps when making cost/benefit comparisons to other wind turbine facilities, such as the existing one run by Traverse City Light and Power or the two new projects planned by the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians and Mackinaw City. Such data could also be used to leverage grant funding to study the issue further. Funding could be used to erect more wind measurement stations along the peninsula with the purpose of testing wind power viability and determining the best locations for wind turbine siting. Committee participation by representatives of the Ontonagon County Rural Electrification Association and UPPCO, the current electricity distributors for Keweenaw County, would provide necessary information about the viability of distributing wind generated power. Current distribution infrastructure may limit siting options for wind turbines or highlight additional costs for new infrastructure. The utilities also may have already studied the viability of wind turbines in the Keweenaw. UPPCO and OCREA committee participation would also help when gauging their level of support for wind generated power. The preferable options would be having either UPPCO or OCREA own and operate the turbines jointly or separately or purchase the power from the turbines. OCREA, as a federal agency, might have advantages in procuring construction grants, but they may have political liabilities because they are typically viewed as an agency hopelessly stuck in bureaucratic cement and unable to come together to do anything innovative. UPPCO, on the other hand, can decide and accomplish things faster, but they may be more limited in the amount of construction grants they can leverage or the level of financial risk they may undertake. With so many people wrapped up in the current land use planning process, it may be advisable to hold off on pushing for an intensive study of wind power until the land use process has been completed and more people are available to work on it.

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for the wind power links. I learned a bunch!

Most of the Keweenaw Peninsula has class 4 winds, and the northwestern part has class 5 winds. So wind power is viable for our area.

Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States

I'd love to see a move to wind power on the scale of what Germany is doing. If the most modern turbines were used (similar to those in Germany), I am guessing about 10 turbines placed near Eagle River, Eagle Harbor, or Copper Harbor could supply all the energy needed for the entire peninsula. It might be more, because our homes aren't as energy efficient as Germany's. Or it could be less, given placement in an area of class 5 winds.

In Germany the government provides loans to build these turbines, and gets a minimum payback of 10% per year. So it is definitely feasible.

Constance

Would just like to say Hi from Toledo, OH. My husband and I are planning a trip to the UP in the fall. We have traveled a lot but have never been to the UP. We are enjoying this website so much. We will be up there for two weeks and I am thinking that will not be long enough. We are both bird watchers and I am especially interested in the Gray Jays. The Blue Jay's favorite cousin. Are the any other Gray Jay fans out there? I have been to Algonquin Park in Canada and have hand fed them there. But I also read that they are seen in the UP. They are known as the "CampRobbers". A much smaller version of your black bear. If there are any hot spots for the Gray Jays could someone please let me know where. Thanks.

Constance: Tom Paine, the cyber-journal of Common Sense, is re-running their wind power issue this week:

REVOLUTION IN THE AIR
Wind Power Threatens the Dinosaur Lobby
It's a quiet revolution. No slogans, masked mobs or smashed
windows. There's just a rhythmic whoosh whoosh whoosh -- the
hushed whir of windmills. The wind-power revolution has
arrived. Maybe just in time.
The economic efficiency of wind power blows away fossil-fuel
"dinosaur power," but political leaders resist the wind
revolution. Just look at the energy plan from the Oil Patch
President. It calls for more dirty dinosaur power -- and
more nuclear, although bailing out that industry is costing
Americans more than $100 billion. Clean energy gets short
shrift.
But such willful ignorance will just delay the wind-power
revolution, not stop it. Common sense, like wind, finds its
way through the cracks.

Click here for rest of Op-Ed and other windpower stories

As today's Pasty Cam mentions, there is an open house this afternoon at the E-Center in Lake Linden from 5 - 8 pm. Come and see how the old St. Joseph's school is being re-fitted to help businesses grow in the Keweenaw.

Hi Sandy,

Long time no e. :-)

Would it be possible to make electricity from our powerful Lake Superior winds: Wind Power?

This article notes, "One large advanced design wind turbine, occupying a quarter acre of land, can easily yield a farmer or rancher $2,000 in royalties per year while providing the community with $100,000 of electricity."

Constance

Good to hear from you again, Sandy!
I am a fan as well of Bill Penprase(sic?)when he posts on Pasty Cam with his historical expertise.
My Dad(Calumet High Class '41) taught me and my younger sister how to cast for Copper Country trout back in the late 1950's on Garden City Dam and I was chagrined as well to see it bone dry last summer.
The beavers understand watershed ecology so much better than we human engineers, right Bill et al?

I read with interest Michelle's excellent article on KT covering Phil Musser's talk regarding KC. By and large I think he's right on the money. As to the Mountain Lodge, I've mentioned this idea before, but here's one thought. Perhaps the County Board could contact 2 or 3 of the professional resort management companies for proposals to upgrade and operate the Lodge. It is truly a treasure, and with the right marketing, should be a valuable asset. After all, it wouldn't cost anything to ask and might be very profitable.

As to the motel referred to in the Anonymos section, I have a few thoughts. I've known Rick Olson since 1992 and he is one of the VERY few who actually grew up and lived in LacLaBelle all his life. He's a straight shooter, knows and loves the area, and would I'm sure not put in anything garish or intrusive. The old Wilerness site has been in his family for years, and is about the least-worst spot to put such a motel. It is within walking distance of the store and restaurant, and is kind of in an out-of-sight corner. This is a long-held dream of the Olson's, and if they can put it together, I wish them luck. Someone asked about jobs created. It would take a staff of 6 to 8 (3-4 housekeepers, 1-2 maintenance, 1-2 office) to operate. As to wastewater, I would think that one of the new on-site treatment systems, which are very compact and equally efficient, might be a solution.