Lake Superior Profiles: People on the Big Lake

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Contents Preface xi Acknowledgments xv Prologue: Shining Big-Sea-Water 1 Lake Superior is not as old as the hills. The hills around the lake date back 1 billion years, while Lake Superior dates back just 9,500 years—to the last thrust of a 2-million-year-old ice age, when glaciers advanced and retreated across much of North America . . . 1. Paddle, Pipe, and Portage 5 (Grand Portage, Minnesota) Each August, three hundred or so people travel to a campground at Minnesota’s Grand Portage National Monument, where they participate in a four-day reenactment of the days of the voyageurs . . . 2. A Work Farm 35 (Grand Marais, Minnesota) Harley is fishing for herring. It is near spawning time, and the herring are congregating and moving close to shore, and the catch is concentrated and fruitful—ripe with eggs, which Harley’s wife, Shele, processes into herring caviar . . . 3. Sturgeon 52 (A River on the Keweenaw Peninsula) The sturgeon’s Achilles’ heel is its life history. In contrast to modern fish—which mature quickly, are relatively short-lived, and produce massive numbers of offspring to perpetuate the species—sturgeon produce few offspring and bank on a long life, rather than reproduction, to maintain the species . . . 4. The Fable and the Fate of la Truite de Lac 60 (Marquette, Michigan) The lake trout are at the top of the food chain. In 1800, they lived in all the Great Lakes, usually associated with the lakes’ many reefs. Some of these fish adapted to a specific reef’s water depth and temperature cycles, and they differed from the more general population in looks and sometimes even in behavior . . . viii % contents 5. Coaster Brook Trout 70 (Ahmeek, Michigan, and Ashland, Wisconsin) Coaster trout are brook trout that leave the river and spend time in Lake Superior, where they get bigger than fish confined to a creek or small stream. Brook trout spawn in the fall and hatch in the late winter or early spring, depending on the water temperature; the warmer the temperature, the faster the process, just like a vegetable garden . . . 6. The Wildflower Child 77 (Isle Royale National Park) This is a world where Joan Edwards is Paul Bunyan; where the harebell flower, the size of a dandelion, is a towering white pine; where a four-inch-high facet of rock is an escarpment; where a crack is a canyon . . . 7. Rock of Ages 92 (A Reef West of Isle Royale) “When the foghorns were blowing with all the engines running, or the winds buffeting the tower, it was not a pleasant place to be. With all this, you had better get along with your fellow man and have no problems ashore with family. It’s a lifestyle that only someone who has served here or at a similar light station can explain. Many have said it’s a lost time in their life” . . . 8. The Lakehead 101 (Thunder Bay, Ontario) The dominant feature of the landscape is the last four miles of the Sibley Peninsula. With bluffs up to seven hundred feet high, it’s a dead ringer for a person lying face up. It reminds me of Colorado’s Sleeping Ute Mountain. This lump of land, called the Sleeping Giant, is the subject of an Ojibwe legend . . . 9. The Start of Something Big 127 (Duluth, Minnesota) At this stage of his inquiry, based on surface data, oceanographer Jay Austin knows that the lake is warming up about five times faster than the global atmosphere and about two times faster than the Upper Midwest atmosphere, which is heating up twice as fast as the global average. He describes the lake’s warming as “spectacular” . . . 10. “Madmen, Mysteries, and the Pursuit of Jacques Cousteau” 133 (Houghton, Michigan) “If we were to lay out all the lakes of the world in whatever fashion,” says Marty Auer, scientist, engineer, and teacher, “Lake Superior is at the end. It’s one of the poorest lakes, nutrient-wise. It’s one of the coldest lakes. It’s one of the biggest lakes. It’s one of the most violent lakes. It’s one of the more unpolluted lakes. So Superior is really special” . . . contents % ix 11. Looking for the Edmund Fitzgerald 141 (Whitefish Bay, on the East End of the Lake) On the night of November 10, 1975, on the way from River Rouge to Duluth to pick up a load of...