Thunder in the Harbor

Sitting in the blaring sunshine this afternoon, it’s kinda hard to believe that just about fifteen hours ago I was standing in pouring rain on the Ranger dock, watching Rock Harbor be illuminated by fascinating sprays of lightning.

As I’m sure everybody in the area is aware, we had a fantastic thunderstorm last night; something of an Isle Royale rarity, I understand, and for those of us with a nice warm building nearby, pretty darn awesome. I went down to the Ranger dock with my fellow interp-ers Casey and Leah, and we stood in the rain and watched lightning crack the sky on all sides for probably half an hour. All of our hairs were literally standing on end. It was pretty rad.

Another of our interp-ers, SCA Andrew, spent last night in the backcountry, somewhere on his way from Windigo to Rock Harbor; here’s hoping he had a shelter and remained lightning-strike free and reasonably dry.

All of us were in Windigo on Wednesday: the whole Snug Harbor interp staff (minus Andrea, unfortunately, who had to stay behind to man the VC and rescue canoeists, which seems to be a new popular activity in Rock Harbor), along with rangers Marshall, Danny, and Beth, and a slew of other very cool and important people who you’ll have to forgive me for not listing the names of. We had our official customs training, got a tour of Windigo from Mr. Lucas Westcott (I don’t care how gorgeous their visitor center is, I’m staying loyal to Snug Harbor pride), and got to hang with the sweet Windigo crew for a few hours.

Being SCA’s, Andrew and I got lucky enough to hike the island; he’s doing the hike back, and I left last week, hiked the Minong Ridge, and met everyone in Windigo. I would like everyone to know that I found some ripe wild strawberries on the trail between McCargoe and Todd Harbor, and they were probably the most delicious thing I’ve had in months. (Levi’s amazing home-prepared (or “cured” or whatever it is) bacon comes in a close second.)

We started our harbor walk programs this week (along with a couple of traditional campfire programs with Wanda), which have been going spectacularly. We have walks on everything from geology to trees to mining to the wolf-moose study. Beginning Monday, we’ll be on to our full schedule, auditorium be damned, with harbor walks and evening programs every day. We have been acquiring some pretty nifty things for these, such as wolf pelts and butterfly finger puppets. I am also learning to love our laminator. Those things are handy.

For now, I leave you on this beautiful and sunny day, so far removed from last night’s tremendous thunder and lightning – get out there and enjoy yourselves, and don’t be afraid to leave us some comments to say hello or inform everybody of whatever cool thing you’ve seen this week.

Adios –
Liz, Snug Harbor Reporter

P.S. I promise these posts will start including photos very soon. You just wait.