Trail Time with Marcia Roepke
It’s mushroom-hunting season on the Gunflint Trail once more. We’ve had a good bit of rain in the last two weeks, and mushrooms are popping up all over the place. I love to photograph them after a rain on a cloudy day: they almost glow in the dark fall woods.
It’s sunny today with a nearly cloudless sky above blue lakes. It’s like heaven to have some sun again. We’ve already fired the wood stove up a couple of times this week, it’s been so cold.
It has been a wonderful summer. I have been swimming more times than since I was a kid. I’ve spent a lot of time in boats. I love messing about in boats, especially lately, when we’ve been on the search for the elusive big bull moose in the area. And I’ve spent time watching some of favorite animals, foxes, wolves, moose and bears and birds. I’ve become a new fan of the modestly colored, loudly voiced Red-eyed Vireo.
A couple Vireos hung around our neighborhood for a few days last week, making quite the racket! They were chasing each other and flying into the open more than they usually do, which made them easier to spot. They are an all-purpose eater. They eat a wide variety of insects and a huge amount of caterpillars, which make up 50% of their summer diet. They also eat small prey like spiders and snails. Big caterpillars are caught under a foot and picked apart into smaller pieces. Vireos are known as forest “gleaners,” meaning they get food by flitting and hopping around the tree, grabbing insects from the underside of leaves. They are fun to watch. During fall migration, they take small fruits like dogwood and gooseberries. They winter in the Amazon, where they subsist mainly on fruit.
They are also fun to listen to. Their calls inflect up? And then down. Up? then down. If they used words, I imagine it would sound something like this:
“Hi — you all right? Take a seat.
Need some coffee? I’ll get you one.
Can you wait a sec? I’ll be right back”
I watched the Raven family have flying practice off a cliff above a lake one day this summer. The Raven family played in the sky another day above or cabin, doing rolls and making wild crazy sounds: my favorite is that ravenish knocking vocalization.
Yesterday we watched a flight of sand hill cranes — three vees flying way overhead, forming and reforming, making their raucous squeaky-hinge cries.
And I started a map for beaver lodges on the nearest lake, hoping to make overlays in subsequent years so I can keep track. For some strange reason I am wildly excited about this.
My only summer regret is planting zucchini. I have two good recipes for this giant watery vegetable: zucchini bread and a wonderful baked layered vegetable dish called a Tian (Thanks Ritalee!) If zucchini were a fuel, it would be an invaluable energy source. As it is, it makes fine compost.
One big highlight of this summer on the Trail was attending my first opera ever at the mid-Trail Schaap Community Center. The Pickup Truck Opera Company staged an outdoor production of Romeo and Juliet with minimal props and staging that were used to maximum delight. The voices were magnificent, you couldn’t beat the setting and the crowd was super-appreciative. I hope they come again. It was marvelously funny too; they played around a lot with language and even sang some Fleetwood Mac songs, though if I never hear “Landslide” again, I’d be content.
We’re so fortunate to have our community centers, one at mid-trail and another at Seagull Lake. The Schaap Community Center at mid-trail sits right beside Fire Hall #1 and was largely funded and endowed by Paul and Carol Schaap of Detroit and Clearwater Lake. A remarkably generous couple, they have been passionately dedicated to the Gunflint Trail and Grand Marais for 45 years.
Paul and Carol first met at Wayne State University in Michigan. By then, Carol had already worked with the FBI and at the University she eventually worked as Executive Associate for four University presidents. It was as a professor at Wayne that Paul’s research led to an ingenious and lucrative invention. He used the chemistry of the firefly’s bioluminescence as inspiration for his research in chemiluminescence. He changed the details of the molecule so the luminescence — the flashing — would be triggered by certain diseases in the human body. That invention helped fuel their life of philanthropy. They have given generously to education, the arts and our own wonderful community center.
Carol died this past year. She and Paul had been married for 47 years. Please hold Paul in your thoughts.
We have many people who give generously in many ways in our community. Like the Boreal forest itself, they give in very quiet and sometimes unseen ways. I would like to give a shout-out to one group who I want to honor: the servers at the lodges and restaurants on the Trail. They work like heck all summer, trying to please many people. Some of the guests are hard to please and are some are downright ornery. More than once those servers who have to put up with that nonsense have made my day more enjoyable by their friendliness and good humor. Please join me in thanking the servers and maybe slip them a little extra something when next you see them. I think it’d be a great way to honor Paul and Carol Schaap, by emulating their generosity and gratitude to our community.
~ Marcia Roepke, on the Gunflint Trail
