Bears and Guns

This morning, one of our guests, prior to his heading out to Wood Lake for a day of fishing, asked me if he should bring along his .45 caliber pistol for bears on the portage.  I said, "nah" because I haven't carried any sort of pistol out there since I was a kid.

When I was 14, I started guiding on Wood Lake, and my dad made me carry an old military .45 semi-auto with me in a leather holster.  I used to put it in my pack and upon setting up in the boat at Wood, I would take it out and clip the belt around a gunwale stay on the seat.  Every time I did that, there would be the sucking of wind and sputtering by my new clients as to the realness of the gun.  "Yup - it's real" I would respond.  Upon their questioning as to why I would bring such a gun along in my pack, I would always tell them it was for bears on the portage.  That response would elicit "Ooooohhhs" of understanding and then the day would progress like any other day of wilderness fishing in northern Minnesota.

As it turns out, the real reason I carried such firepower was not so much for bears as it was for people.  Yes, as shocking as it sounds, my dad wanted me to be scarier to the strangers I was guiding.  With no way to know who they really are and locked in a confined space like a small boat with a 14-18 year old kid, nothing says, "Easy there big fella" like a .45 strapped to the seat within the immediate grip of the kid guiding the boat.  Sounds cynical perhaps, but a healthy dose of cynicism and pistol makes for a consistently peaceful, fun-filled trip all the time.  And, again, the other reason for carrying that 5 extra pounds of weight was bears on the portage.  Ironically, I had no idea that my dad had a two-fold reason for bringing and displaying that pistol until I was about 40 years old when he told it to me.  I always simply thought it was for bears.  I don't believe I ever unholstered it even once in all those times I carried it.

Once I got bigger and stronger as is what happens to kids, plus having seen but never been bothered by a bear ever on the portage, I decided to lighten my load a bit and I began leaving the pistol home.  Spending as much time as we did in the woods growing up, if bears and wolves were ever going to be a problem, we should no longer be of this earth any more.  Don't get me wrong, all of our family members have had some pretty wild times with black bears here around the resort, but under much different circumstances.  I respect bears, but I'm not afraid of them.  Give them space, let them pass.  Don't smear bacon grease on your chest and run around like an idiot and you should do fine.  It's simple common sense and it seems to work since I know of nobody with any bite marks or the more obvious signs of being disemboweled by a bear.  Being in the resort business, that is a good thing, I figure.   I still get the sense that bears would much rather not be interacting with us and that's just fine with me.

I more or less explained this to my guest about going to Wood Lake.  He's from out of state in a large urban area, and I've noted people sometimes are a little on the jumpy side while here in the woods.  I always felt it was a bit more than required because we really don't have animals that attack people as a rule. There are no grizzlies and the wolves (so far) have  attacked very few people world wide.  Now that is not to say that these parameters will never change, but they have been the status quo for the last 50 years that I have been hanging out in the woods.  Plus, sending countless numbers of people on canoe trips has only resulted in about a half dozen bear attacks of their food packs only and that is from 1976!  

So, bears are not really a problem in my opinion.  I suggested he leave his gun at home as it was just extra weight.  He hesitantly agreed and quoted "safe than sorry" and I suggested he'd be fine without it.

He drove off to Wood Lake.  In 10 minutes I saw his car coming back down the driveway.  Did I forget the boat key?...the oars?...nope.  He came into the store and said when they got within 150 feet of the Wood Lake parking lot driveway and he was signaling to turn, a large bear crossed the Fernberg road going north right in front of his car and headed right down the Wood Lake portage.

He decided to come back and get his gun.  I hope he doesn't shoot his foot off or his wife in that panicky, jacked-up, shaky hands adrenaline rush that one gets when being charged by a large bear.

My money is on him never again seeing that bear.  I'll know more tonight.

Free Advice for what it is worth:  Unless you have extensive training and experience in shooting charging bears/animals with a pistol, I STILL say, leave the pistol home.  Shooting targets at the range and shooting a charging bear are not even closely related.   Plus, if you shoot a bear that is not on top of you trying to end you, you may find yourself in a world of hurt legally in Minnesota.   I just think its a problem waiting to happen.  I don't carry a pistol and have spent a lot of time in the woods.  It's never been a problem.


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Nothing says "fun at the beach" like a polka in northern Minnesota.   This is my dad playing the song that I remember most as a child growing up, the Tick Tock Polka.  I was always fascinated at how loud his accordion was back then, and like comfort food, that particular polka is very meaningful to me.

My Dad learned how to play while still a 12 year old kid and I remember the story of how when he was in the army in Korea, some of the brass found out that he could play and they miraculously dug up an accordion for him.

In this video of 2015 he's now 83 years old.  So, for as long as Northwind Lodge (Jasper Lake Resort) has formally been a resort in Lake County, my dad has been playing his accordion.

That's a lot of history at this Minnesota resort.
 

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Painting Dogs in Northern Minnesota

July 5th and another laid back day at Northwind Lodge.  Looks like I'm heading backing to my former life of painting.  I kind of missed it, actually.  It's nice to be back in familiar waters once again.  

Spectacular weather, beautiful days. good fishing and a little bit of paint.  How come you aren't here?

Click Here to see the finished painting of Delilah & Cookie

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Chair #2 for Incredible Ely is finished - Fire!

Chair #2 for the Charish Fundraiser Auction by Incredible Ely is done.  In some ways it was easier and harder than Chair #1 the moose, but I was happy with the end result.  I've noticed that people react differently to different scenes (well, duh) - what I mean is that it is interesting to watch them.  People focused on the eyes of an animal and stay there.  They look at the other parts, too, but the eyes are the center of concentration.  

Scenery with different aspects in the picture, require more time to study it (duh, again), but they focus on the fire and then move around the scene for several long seconds.  The surprise for me was noting that even a painted campfire draws in humans, particularly those who like the outdoors.  A campfire is like a magnet whether real or depicted.

I think that attraction goes back millennia as the fire is where the warmth, food and light were and remain today.  It's in grained into the instincts of humans.  When in trouble or having fun, a fire is a source of comfort and protection.  Hence the reason for the long observances by several people in the store here while I was painting.

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Painting Chairs for Incredible Ely

It was a really slow Sunday at Northwind Lodge today, so with a never ending list of things to do, I got caught up on an Adirondack chair painting that I was doing for Chairish, Incredible Ely's fundraiser.  I shot some video while I was working on it.  I still have a ways to go, but it's starting to turn out, OK.   These are pretty nice chairs built out of cedar buy the shop class at the Ely Highschool.  Rob Simonich is the teacher and he's doing a pretty good job with these kids who build all of these chairs.

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A Landing Net's Life

My dad turned 83 years old yesterday and just to make the younger world feel diminished, I dragged him all the way down the Wood Lake portage and forced him to catch fish on Wood Lake for the day. The portage is 210 rods long or .58 miles long and it was muddy and rugged after yesterday’s heavy rains which is par for the course on portages. For an old guy with a fake knee and a double bypass some 15 years ago, he does pretty well. Of course, I brought along my sidekick Delilah.

Once we hit the trail, she began her Wood Lake portage routine of blasting ahead at full speed, turning off the trail into the woods and running parallel back along the trail only to come out behind me. From that point, she snorts past me again, tongue flopping and nothing but a blurry streak of fur to do it repeatedly for the entire trail. I figure that she runs about three times the length of the trail every time we walk it. In the back of my mind, I’m waiting for the moment she drives out a momma bear and cubs to meet me, but that hasn’t occurred….yet.

As I walked the trail carrying my oars, our rods and my pack, I noted the fresh tracks in the mud – two people ahead of me. As a boy, I was trained to not leave tracks – not in the figurative sense connected to symbolically saving the BWCA, but instead, for real. Hunting and trapping as a kid, we never wanted to be followed and the best way to avoid followers is to never leave tracks as best we could and we still do this to this day. As a result, I observe this telltale “flaw” in others all the time and today’s tracks in front of me were no different. I could tell both were men, in their late 30’s to early 40’s, weighing about 185 lbs. each. They wore big floppy hats, mosquito head nets, blue, white and black, paddling gloves, and brand new long sleeve, nylon button-down shirts with brand new nylon, zip off pants. 

As Delilah blasted silently down the portage, about 150 feet in front of me, up a hill and around a curve, I heard her let loose with the most ferocious, attack-dog bark her nine pound body could muster! First I thought ” bear” but that was immediately corrected. There was a scream and panic as a voice-in-terror yelled, “Gggaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh! GET OUTTA HERE! GO AWAY!!!! ” as Delilah stopped them in their tracks. I tried to call her off, but she was unrelenting, so I picked up my pace to see two guys decked out in nylon shirts, zip-off pants, trail boots, blue-white-black paddling gloves, big hats and bug nets. Delilah finally shut up as her job was done attacking the space aliens. I chuckled and said when they passed, “I bet that scared the crap out of you!” to which one replied “Maybe a little…” Delilah looked back at me all proud and alert for taking down the “aliens” with a good, solid whoopin’. Then, she blasted down the portage once again. 

When we hit the water, we endured a beautiful day with moderate catching but enough to keep up busy all day long.   In a pretty true test, we found that live bait and artificial lures ended up producing about “neck and neck” . There was no real, obvious gain in using live bait over lures. Later in the day, the wind picked up and screamed from the west making for about 1.5 hours of tough rowing with a significant chop and some whitecaps.  I put together this video called “A Landing Net’s Life” since the I had the camera stuck to the net. 

Upon returning to the parking because not much wears Delilah out, she took off and chased a 70 foot long semi roaring past on the Fernberg Road. The present road crew tried to catch her but she blew past them, returning to me and prompting a parking lot visit by a concerned, but laughing foreman looking for “a little brown dog that was chasing one of their semi’s down the new asphalt.” Delilah stood up on the truck seat and smiled at him. 

Good dog, Delilah. Never give up.

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A New Ceiling for Rental Cabin #3

Last fall, we needed to put a new roof on Cabin #3.  That cabin was there since the 40's and as a kid, my brother Bernie and I put at least two new roofs on it years ago after our dad had done the same prior to that.  It finally developed a leak and I patched it but the whole roof was shot.  I decided to insulate it and put a layer of osb sheeting over the top.  Curt and I did that last fall.

I discovered that there were five layers of rolled roofing on that cabin!  The roof itself was simply made out of ship lap pine and that also made the inside of the ceiling which had turned that really dark brown like old, varnished pine usually does.  While walking around on the roof on 66 year old boards we were careful to make our feet bridge two boards while walking to prevent cracking or even going through an individual plank.  I'm always amazed that lumber from 66 years ago still even has structural integrity.  The boards were still springy and after a ton of running around, not one even cracked a little.  I don't think any type of plastic would have held up the same.

I installed a simple framework, laid down the foam insulation, nailed down half inch sheeting and roof edging that I had to build for this job and put the felt layer on along with the shingles.

Upon inspection of the inside, I could see where some of the nails we shot down in the framing became an issue and I decided to put in a new ceiling in the spring.  Well, spring sprang and in between rain, snow and bad weather, I videoed a condensed version of that particular job along with the end result.  It turned out OK.

While I was sitting in Cabin 3 tuning my radio I happened to look outside the window at the spectacular view of blue water on Jasper with a backdrop of wilderness while an eagle soared overhead and one of our loons protested in the distance.  I said to myself, "yeah, I could live here for a week or two!"

It's a pretty cool place.

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