| In
the Outdoors
Race to ride
“No one starts mountain biking to compete in races,” said Noquemanon Trail Network Committee single-track chair member Derek Anderson. “It’s a gradual transition.” Most start mountain biking as a physical alternative to running or as an activity with friends. It usually takes a couple of years for casual riders to label themselves as bikers, let alone racers.
Though Anderson rides mostly for the experience, he does compete in races. A race Anderson annually competes in is the MGHS Ore to Shore Mountain Bike Epic (O2S). The O2S is a point-to-point race that starts in Negaunee, where iron ore was first found in the Superior region, and ends on the beautiful shores of Lake Superior. Riders are sure to be enchanted by the scenic terrain of Marquette County.
The O2S started off as an idea between two riding buddies.
“Jeff Juntti and I wanted to create a point-to-point race that offered accessible terrain to every skill level,” explained race director Scott Tuma. Putting together the O2S was no easy task as everything had to be created from scratch. But the effort proved worthy as the O2S now attracts top Midwest riders and thousands of others.
The uniqueness of the O2S is what attracts so many riders. Including the O2S, only three major point-to-point races are offered in the Midwest . . .
—Jacqueline Wright
Notes from the North Country
Go climb a mountain and get its glad tidings. Although it is only 1,105 feet high, Little Mountain is a scenic gem, one of several peaks in Baraga County, including Mt. Arvon, the highest natural point in Michigan. The ascent is of moderate difficulty, so why don’t you join us for a delightful saunter?
Just two miles south of L’Anse, look for Golf Course Road; turn west and proceed past the golf course for another two miles. There is a small parking space at the end of the road; a trail sign marks the beginning of the path. A local manufacturer, BPB Celotex, grants permission to cross its property—stay on the trail and leave the area cleaner when you leave.
Remind yourself that the journey is as important, perhaps even more so, as the destination. Take your time and savor three distinct habitats:
• The first segment passes through some new growth: maple, aspen and balsam trees. In early spring, we find abundant wildflowers growing here. Look for the pioneer apple trees.
• The next part of the path traverses a dense stand of hemlock and yellow birch. At just the right time in early June, we marvel at the scarlet columbine growing close beside the trail. Pause here and watch the sunlight streaming through the trees and creating a tapestry of light and shadows.
• The last part of the ascent is somewhat steep and rocky. The walker is amply rewarded when she comes out onto massive flat slabs of granite, and, behold: through a stand of white pine trees is a sweeping view of Keweenaw Bay and the Huron Mountains. Pause here—not only to catch your breath—for a lengthy period of awe and reflection over the beauty of our surroundings here in this region.
Our two favorite seasons for visiting Little Mountain are spring and fall: in spring for the wildflowers and the appealing array of green from new leaves. The fall, of course, for simply overwhelming views: orange, lemon and scarlet leaves create a breathtaking mosaic against the deep blue of the Superior Lake . . .
—Lon and Lynn Emerick
Editor’s Note: Lon Emerick’s latest book Paradise North will be released on October 1, 2010.
Kids and conservation
The Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC) and the Superior Watershed Partnership (SWP) have teamed up for the second year in a row to offer a Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) program for tribal youth.
The KBIC YCC allows local youth to gain hands-on experience with environmental conservation and restoration work while earning a paycheck. The two five-person crews work daily on projects around the KBIC reservation in L’Anse and Baraga throughout the summer. Crew members also have an opportunity to work alongside employees of the KBIC Natural Resources Department (NRD). The crews are supervised by SWP employees Emily Pomeroy and Connor Dennis.
So far this summer, the crews have clipped fins at the fish hatchery, monitored the hatchery’s walleye ponds, built hiking trails, cleaned up the area’s beaches, built turtle platforms, worked at the new KBIC greenhouse, helped with assessments of the invasive sea lamprey, provided painting services to the KBIC Ojibwa Community College and prepared for the KBIC’s annual free kids fishing derby.
Members spent a week fishing and stocking derby ponds, setting up the event area, and helping wherever needed during the festivities. Rachel Sutherland is a YCC member and loves what she’s doing this summer.
“It was a fun time working the fishing derby,” Sutherland said. “All the little kids get a great time from what all of us workers put into it.”
Along with conservation-related jobs, the YCC has worked on some culturally-rich activities in the community. The Tribal Historic Preservation Office (THPO) set up the crews to do test holes on a potential building site on the reservation. The test holes were dug to assess any cultural artifacts in the soil and to ensure that no construction would occur in a potentially culturally sensitive area. Some of the material found at this site dates 2,000 years back.
“It’s like we were all little archaeologists looking for artifacts,” said DeAnna Varline, YCC member. The crews also helped the THPO clean up the Indian Pinery Cemetery that had been damaged during a forest fire last year and currently are painting a mural for the Community College.
The hard work these crews do is challenging but rewarding.
“We do stuff to help our community and I’m proud to do that,” stated Tasha Swartz another YCC member.
Briar Nieskes is excited about the YCC, and her summer job is helping the environment. They have been to the local swimming spots around the Keweenaw Bay and have taken a nature hike up Silver Mountain. Even during the fun and relaxing parts of the day, there is never a time free of environmental education—including plant identification and journaling.
Todd Warner, KBIC natural resources director, oversees the KBIC end of the project. In 2009, he and SWP executive director Carl Lindquist worked to start the YCC pilot after many planning discussions.
“For a number of years, we’ve been trying to figure out how to provide more natural resource and environmental educational opportunities for youth in the area, but just couldn’t with our workload,” he said.
Warner said KBIC’s summer youth program and the YCC concept was a way to do this, and so far it has worked out great.
“These kids are the future stewards of this part of the world so we’re hoping to provide them with some education and experience, and maybe spark some interest in pursuing educational opportunities in a natural resource field,” he said.
Most of the crew members have said they enjoy their jobs because they get to be outside learning how to help the environment, and doing something different every day. The program provides a unique opportunity for youth to get experience in the natural resources field, something not often available to teens as a summer job.
For details, call 228-6095 or visit www.superiorwatersheds.org
—Emily Pomeroy
Counting the Keweenaw raptors
For migrating raptors, the 350-mile long icy blue water known as Lake Superior presents a tremendous obstacle to north-bound spring migration. The south shore of the Lake is fairly uniform with the exception of the Keweenaw Peninsula that protrudes seventy miles from its base at Keweenaw Bay into the lake, with seventy miles of water remaining to mainland Canada.
To raptors, this apparent land-bridge is like a Northwest Passage—one that initially looks very promising, but actually fizzles out well short of the desired goal. The Keweenaw’s gradually tapering peninsula concentrates land-loving hawks further with every mile until it terminates like a cul-de-sac in Lake Superior.
This geographic feature, most likely a waste of valuable time and energy for most hawks, provides one of the largest concentrations of spring raptors and perhaps the best viewing conditions for raptors in the Upper Midwest.
The site where Keweenaw raptors are at their peak concentration is Brockway Mountain, a narrow east-west oriented ridge nine miles from the tip of the peninsula. Situated less than a mile south of Lake Superior near the town of Copper Harbor, Brockway is the most northerly and prominent of a series of parallel ridges running along the spine of the Keweenaw.
For hawks carried along the peninsula on southerly winds, it acts as a funnel for movement further toward Keweenaw Point, where most birds appear to turn around and come back down the Keweenaw Peninsula.
This two-way flow of hawks past Brockway Mountain, and the viewing location at 1,328 ft (726 feet above Lake Superior level) combine to produce two things very uncommon at hawk-watching locales: hawks migrating in two directions simultaneously, and eye-level views of the birds.
Indeed, few things in nature are as striking as an eye-to-eye view of a golden eagle, its golden nape glinting in the sun against a backdrop of distant trees.
Despite Brockway’s obvious charm, it has received little attention when compared with well-known raptor migration sites like Hawk Ridge (Duluth) and Whitefish Point Bird Observatory. The most detailed study of migration at Brockway to date was one conducted from April 2 to May 31, 1992 by John Peacock (with an average viewing of 6.8 hours a day on fifty-seven days).
During this count, he tallied 15,033 eastbound and 7,191 westbound raptors of sixteen species, for an average of 263.7 raptors per day. The westbound birds, less than half the number of the eastbound, are most likely birds that already had been to the tip of the Keweenaw, turned around and come back.
The interesting question is, where are the other 7,842 eastbound raptors that were not re-tallied as westbound at Brockway Mountain? A minority actually may have crossed Lake Superior (species like sharp-shinned, and rough-legged hawks and northern harriers are known to cross large bodies of water), but most likely it is that the majority dispersed throughout the Keweenaw after reaching the tip, possibly following the south shore back to the mainland U.P.
While yielding valuable data, the Peacock study has not answered all of the questions about Brockway raptor migration. From occasional birding forays and brief counts by other observers a picture has begun to emerge: starting in early March when deep snow blankets Brockway Drive, the migration of adult golden and bald eagles begins.
In April, sharp-shinned and red-tailed hawks become more common until mid-May, when broad-winged hawks reach their peak numbers. In June, when most people think migration is over, birds are still moving at Brockway, but they are largely immature broad-winged hawks.
A complete survey of spring raptor migration at Brockway—from early March to early June—has never been done. A full-season survey also would provide data linking large hawk movements at Brockway with specific weather and wind patterns, enabling birders to predict the passage of hawks.
In addition, with only one survey conducted, it is impossible to know the actual frequency, abundance and timing of raptor migration; each year probably is slightly different overall and different for each species, too.
This is why Copper County and Laughing Whitefish Audubon Societies are partnering to conduct a formal, full-season spring migration count of raptors at Brockway Mountain for the next three years. This effort will provide valuable data which will be useful far into the future.
—Zach Gayk
|
