Major, Major Updates

I have a lot of big news for you guys today, so hold onto your seats and get ready to learn many both exciting and melancholic updates.

NUMBER ONE: Our amazing, fearless, and super-skilled leader, Andrea/Mama, has returned from her training in Wisconsin. She arrived on the seaplane yesterday afternoon, startling Andrew as she excitedly hollered from the plane's window. She came bearing a large box of donuts, and was thus very eagerly greeted by all. We can all breathe easily and laugh happily now that she's back. (Although Casey did do an absolutely stellar job as acting lead in her absence.) As far as the training went, it sounds like the hotel room lamps were decorated with small moose, and most people from other parks think that our own Isle Royale is very "weird." But in a good way. Regardless, Welcome home, Andrea!!


NUMBER TWO: Chrismoose, as it should have been, was a blurry conglomerate of Rock Harbor sunset and tequila sunrises, hot food and ice-cold KBC, starlight and firelight, hugs and whoops, games and gifts. Photos (from Cherie on Mott) are forthcoming. Games included the ever-popular "butt darts" (many congratulations to Ranger III's Paul for his exquisite marksmanship); there was also a white elephant gift exchange that began with 28 strangely shaped presents under the festive Chrismoose tree. I am proud to say that, as number four, I walked away with a delicious Tootsie Pop and a sizable chunk of bubble wrap.

It was a warm, moist night, and Mott truly came alive with good company, even though I understand that there wasn't quite as much pre-planning done as in previous years. ("There wasn't that much food," is what I heard from the Col Plumer, who, granted, is a thirteen year old boy with, presumably, the appetite of one.) I must admit, I was previously unaware that so many people existed at this end of the island. Like moths to a bright light, we clustered around this glowing, fictitious holiday - and instead of zapped to death, just got - ahem - zapped? And spent a merry night with friends new and old. Merry Chrismoose!!

NUMBER THREE: Our interp ranger Wanda, our very own native Californian, has left us. She left the island Saturday morning on the Ranger III - a sudden departure, and one that means a lack of Wanda and all that she brings with her (botanical knowledge to mammal stories) for the rest of the season. Her departure was due to a family emergency, and required haste. We'll make do in her absence, now down to just five interp rangers in the Snug, but Wanda, we'll miss you!

In honor of her leaving, and as a manner of goodbye, I'd like to share an excerpt from something she wrote about the island:

What I loved about it right off was the wildness, the wind, the waves, even the steady, cold rain. And now that I reflect, also the remoteness. After six hours on a boat, you know you've gone someplace. It's like going to Antarctica...remote. Wild.
Michigan has a special kind of greenness. It's a mixed green of dark spruce and the spring green of aspen and paper birch. It's a lighter, merrier green than our redwoods. It is a smilier, warmer green than the somber, dreary coast trees.
I loved the rocks right away, and the waves and the spruces, and the off-shore islands. I, like everyone else, wanted to see wolves and moose. Just the possibility of seeing them in tantalizing, a primeval challenge.
The hugeness of Lake Superior is sobering, but it wasn't until the orientation tour to Passage Island that I started to be enthralled by shipwrecks and lighthouses. The lighthouses are a natural extension of rocks and waves, rising up from their rocky islets...The shipwrecks, too, are an extension of wind, waves, and rock, but an extension based not on physical proximitiy, but on cause and effect. In this case not blue skies, but steel gray, with flurries of snow and roaring winds.
...
I've always been charmed by water, since I was a small child and wanted to go "wimming" in every small puddle. Now I am enchanted by the shades of blue and aqua, the waves splashing, the ducks with their ducklings in tow, and perhaps above all, by the prospect of paddling my own small kayak on those blue waves.

We and the island will miss you, Wanda - know that wherever you sit as you read this, in the dry, foriegn place of northern California, we're thinking of you. Snug Harbor will most certainly not be the same.
Goodbye, Wanda!!

In order to leave this post on a slightly merrier note, I'd like to conclude with this perfectly delightful poem, given me by Paul of the Ranger III (the very same excellent marksman from Chrismoose):

About Mosquitos

Someone once asked me

What good are mosquitos?

I told them I'd find out,

Since I really don't know.

One thing that's for sure

Is their appetite for blood -

Their annoyance is much easier

To hate than to love.

So what on earth possessed nature

To include them in her plan?

Was it so gear stores

Could sell "Off" in a can?

If we look a little deeper

Into the overall scheme of things,

There's much more to the picture

Than their itchy little stings.

Have you ever watched a warbler

Dancing through the trees?

Picking them off one by one,

When he gets to feeling hungry?

Frogs, snakes, and dragonflies

Think they're great for lunch

And bats feast on them regularly

When they come out at dusk.

So in fact they do serve a purpose

In Nature's circle of life.

So don't think too badly of them

When you scratch their little bite.

P.S. I would also like to add a Happy Birthday to my dad, who turns fifty today!!!