A boat trip around Pine Island is a requirement for any visitor, providing the weather permits. It’s about a fifteen-mile ride which would take only half an hour without stops, but the south side of the island faces Big Bay where even moderately bad weather can build up huge swells and whitecaps, so we’re very cautious about sailing there. A few days ago we packed sandwiches and drinks in the Bayliner and started off past Glenwood Lodge heading around the east end of the island. We stop to visit Betty Rouleau who has a house in Canfield Bay on the south side of the island (I’ll talk about Betty in a later post) and continue to Moccasin Point just off its western tip, where we have our lunch on a deck overlooking the water.
Lunch on the terrace at Moccasin Point
This deck used to be part of a great bar that had been there forever, it served good food and was very popular with both locals and visitors. But the property was put up for sale a few years ago and ended up being bought by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (the “DNR”), who turned it into a state campground. It’s nice to have the campground there instead of its having been developed into condos and whatever, but we’re not alone in missing the bar.
Back in the Bayliner we thread a course west of St. Paul’s Island and east of St. Mary’s Island, and eventually through the narrow “S-curve” that takes us back to our neighborhood, the quiet north side. Not far from the cabin we pass two families of loons whose territories are just a few hundred yards from each other.
Loons & chicks
What’s striking is that the two sets of chicks are obviously very different ages. The pair closer to us (on the right) seem to have been very late in laying their eggs, this was the first we’ve seen of their chicks. We get to watch this pair most nights when we’re out on the dock for sunset, and we had thought they weren’t going to have any young this year.
Visitors require entertainment and we’re very accommodating hosts, so on Monday we take Elizabeth and Mac along a trail off of Mud Creek Road to pick berries.
Into the woods, the woods, the woods...
Although the blueberry patch that had been so productive last year turns out to be pretty thin this year, we collect enough (in the hot sun!) for at least a few helpings of pancakes. And the raspberries are abundant, so we’re not feeling too deprived. When we get back home George drops Elizabeth and Mac to pick up the paddleboat that Bill Overland is lending us. It’s actually a lot of work to get the thing moving, and the fact that it’s built for very tiny legs doesn’t make it any easier.
I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll paddle across the bay!
Jan teaches them the proper technique for catching crayfish with a string and some bacon. Unfortunately it gets too late for us to cook them up that night and we don’t have a live trap to keep them overnight, so they go back in the drink. There’s always next year…
The crawdad fishers
On Tuesday Elizabeth bakes a cake for an early celebration of Jan’s birthday (which is next week) and gets to use some of our berries for her wonderful frosting.
Gotta use those berries. Happy Birthday Mom!
Today is Elizabeth and Mac’s last day on the island, we’re driving them back to Hibbing this afternoon so they can catch an early flight in the morning. Before they leave Elizabeth has a final encounter with a large representative of Minnesota’s official state bird…
Away, away vile bloodsucker!
This mosquito was given to Rozzie by Mike McNulty, our neighbor at our first Costa Mesa home. Mike had adopted Rozzie as a surrogate father and produced several welded works of art to decorate Rozzie’s Minnesota cabin.
And, of course, the requisite formal portrait on the cabin steps.
Last day. 🙁
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