Anchors

It’s a lot easier to enjoy life when you have some anchors that ground you in times of turbulence. You need to have something that keeps you pointed into the wind as it shifts around the compass. There are several kinds of anchors. Values. Family. Beliefs. Homes. Places. 

That must be what the big lake is to me. A place that calls to me, that feels comfortable and familiar, even given that it is almost never the same, often inhospitable, and at times life threatening. Through much of my youth, I marveled at displays of natural fury and hardship. Marveled because on occassion, thanks to my hurricane-seeking father, we were in the middle of it on a tiny boat. 

It’s shores bore the marks of centuries of abuse. At a moments notice, the water could change from peaceful calm to churning whitecaps, blasting waves of water against rock and beach. In winter, those waves could shift ice from the north shore to the south shore, feet thick in the evening and gone by morning. I still remember listening to stories from Emery Jones, an old commercial fisherman from Cornucopia and family friend, of fishing on that ice. They traveled out into the lake pulling a heavy skiff with their tent and equipment over the disheveled surface, taking hours to get to their fishing holes. The skiff was necessary because at any time a ice sheet could break off and head out to sea. To this day newspapers report of fisherman rescued by the Coast Guard after drifting into open water, their snowmobiles made worthless by the growing gap to shore.

It was the sound of sheet ice mounding on the shore, scraping against itself and against the breakwater and beach, that gave me that familiar sense of place. Fresh, cold wind filled my nostrils as I stood on the beach in front of our new home on Park Point. Even though located next to a fair sized city, it felt like I was out in the wilderness, with emphasis on wild. Another ice scraping sound joined the chorus. This made by the ore freighter approaching the piers to enter the harbor. It’s always amazed me that these huge ships still ply the waters in below zero temperatures, letting massive sheets of ice build on their decks and hulls. When the ice covers the water, especially in the harbor, they just plow through and, when it gets too thick, they follow USCG ice breakers to their berths. It’s hard enough to thread that 1,000 foot needle through narrow canals and locks, let alone to maneuver in intractable ice.

Anxious to watch the interaction between massive steel with momentum and massive ice without momentum, I ran to the Duluth ship canal with my camera. As I approached, huffing and puffing in the sub-zero air, the Kaye E. Barker blew it’s unique horn that at one time must have been powered by steam. 

As the Barker passed under the bridge, she pushed skim ice to the side, which sounded like glass being crushed under car tires. It wouldn't be long for the season to end as scheduled, with ice becoming too think to navigate. Evidence of the impact of cold on the last minute rush of the season came as ships stacked at anchor outside the harbor, waiting for space at the docks. Those docks were struggling to move ore down the stiff and obstinate conveyors, slowing the loading. On this visit, we saw five ships anchored at the horizon, at times hidden by the sea smoke moving across the open lake, making them look like ghost boats.  With ice firmly in place along the lakes shores, it will be another two or  three months before we see them again, hopefully for another busy shipping season.