Fishing

Plenty busy around here this past week - lots and lots of canoe trips, lots of people enjoying cabin life - and the fishing is finally improving! Cole caught this nice bass last night right between Cabin 2 and the lodge!

Two gifts

I had a pleasant "gift" when I came down to the lodge yesterday morning - a huge, beautiful, light green luna moth was perched on the lightpole just under our flag. About once a year I see one there... such a beautiful creature!

So I looked around and there was a little girl - I asked her if she liked luna moths and she said "what's a luna moth?" So I showed her and she was delighted.

Two gifts - a beautiful luna moth for me and someone to share it with!

Lots going on...

Sunshine, a bit breezy, but a busy, happy week here! Our boy scout troop from Iowa had a great BWCA experience, other old (and some new) friends also had fun on their visits/canoe trips. Lots of moose wandering around Caribou, Horseshoe and Meeds lakes... one group had a moose visit their campsite to check them out!

Two groups had interesting encounters with turtles, it must be "nesting" season for turtles! I understand it's a little disconcerting to hear an odd scratching noise right in front of your tent door in the middle of the night and look out to see a big snapping turtle busily digging a hole for her eggs! They said that they could hardly tell that she'd been there come morning, she'd done such a good job of disguising her new nest.

Mike's new sauna gets an "A+" rating from our friends from Dallas who are originally from Finland, so I guess he did a really good job on it. It's nice to have it up and running again!

Seems hard to believe it's already mid-July, but it's certainly being a wonderful summer!

Visitors

What a wonderful week! We had some very special visitors. A Canadian Lynx has been wandering around the resort this week... several of our guests have seen him! As one surprised guest reported "That's the biggest, most beautiful cat I've ever seen!" I haven't managed to see any more than something rather large disappearing into the woods, but two guests, two canoeists and our grandson have all seen that long-legged, short tailed, crazy earred creature either walking on the resort road or sitting on a rock next to the road! It's very exciting to see a lynx, we see their tracks quite often in winter snow, but this is the first we've seen in daylight.

Our other special visitors were our son, daughter, and two grandsons - they even brought Mother along for the week! We had a great time exploring and canoeing and just being together. A highlight of the visit was a trip to Grand Portage National Monument. One of the guides was kind enough to take the time to demonstrate a flint-lock rifle for us and explain all about "gunflints". Now we know why the "Gunflint" area was so exciting to the Voyageurs - at the trading post a flintlock rifle only cost 10 beaver pelts, while the English flint to make it work cost a whole beaver pelt all by itself! Finding a source for free flint must have been like finding a whole bunch of beaver they didn't have to trap!

When the guide found out we came from the Gunflint, he got out his tinder box, pulled out one of "our" red jasper flints, his firecloth and his steel striker, and, with the help of the boys blowing on the spark, started a fire with our flint! It was exciting, and really brought the history of the Gunflint Trail home!