Starting the New Year

The holiday season is over.  It has been one of our busiest times.  Some of it, I am sure, was due to the way Christmas and New Year’s fell during the week. New Year’s Eve we had about 100 people for dinner.  That is a good number for us.  So tomorrow (Sunday) things will settle down a bit.  Everyone on the staff will take a deep breath and get some days off.

On New Year’s Day Don and I went out to see how thick the ice was.  Here is a picture of him in his dry suit ready to go.  I have a 150’ line attached to his waist.  Everyone says that there isn’t much I can do if he starts to go down.  His suit will keep him dry and floating until help can come.  Luckily we have not had to face that issue.

 

Just out from the dock we had about 10 inches of solid ice.  We then progressed in 150’ increments.  By the time we got 750’ out, the ice was 4” thick.  Tonight the temperature is supposed to drop to 27 degrees below.  That will help tighten the ice up and make more ice.

People ask us all the time, “Is the ice safe?”  All we can do is report what was found when and where we drilled holes.  Because of the way everything froze on Gunflint this year, we are fairly confident that east of us the ice is not as thick.  As a result we will continue to tell people it is OK to walk along the shore but not to go out into the middle of the ice.

Snow is coming down fairly steadily as I write this.  The forecast is for 100% of heavy snow.  Who know exactly what that means.  The next couple of days will have lots of time devoted to plowing, shoveling and grooming.  It is unbelievable how much time it takes to clean up after a snow fall.  Every step and every porch has to be shoveled.  Every road, path and car park has to be plowed.  That means moving a lot of cars.  It is one of those jobs that as soon as you get it finished, there is more snow coming down.

Of course our resident animals love it.  The other day during breakfast a pack of wolves was seen on the Canadian side of the lake moving to the west end.  As soon as I said something, the entire dining room moved to the windows for a good look.

And it is just not on the ice that we see wolves.  Neighbors down the lake commented that they had been awakened the other night by a wolf howling right outside their house.  They couldn’t see him but they could sure hear him.  It is a sound that brings out feelings from deep in our past.