Place entry 1

Duluth, MN. -8 degrees. Calm.

Today is a snowshoe day. Yesterday’s storm dumped over eight inches of new snow, adding to the two feet already on the ground. Like a fresh coat of paint in an old room, a dusting of new snow recasts things; the pines sagging, the skeletal trees retaining a fine layer of snow in their crooks and along their branches. The details of the world suddenly stand in sharp relief. Tracks are erased and winter is new again.

My hands throb with the cold as I remove my mittens and cinch the straps on my snowshoes. Mine are not the wood and babiche variety; they are metal and modern and much colder to the touch. As I make my way across the yard towards the woods, the snow yields a few inches with each step. But the snowshoes do their job, dispersing my weight enough to keep me from 'post-holing' up to my thighs.

As I reach the edge of the red pines two deer stand up and lock onto my every move. I am surprised they chose the pines to lay down and rest; usually when it is cold they cluster in a grove of cedars on the lee side of a nearby hill. I talk softly as I advance, "Don't worry about me, just passing through." When I cross the invisible threshold of their comfort zones, they bound about 30 yards away--white tails flashing--before stopping again.

We continue this dance through the woods; I advance, they retreat. An age old choreography, each of us acting our part. Finally, they top out over a nearby rise and disappear.

Deer are so common in these woods--in yards too, for that matter--that I rarely give them a second glance. To address the overpopulation issue, last fall a bow hunt was allowed within city limits. Shortly after the hunt was announced, a man knocked on my door and asked me if he could hunt on our land. I didn't care too strongly one way or the other, and was about to say yes; but then I thought of my great aunt who lived in this house for 94 years, and who was known to put out a constant stream of birdseed for the deer, sacks and sacks of it to help sustain them through the winter. She was an unconditional animal lover who once soaked a loaf of bread in bacon grease to feed to a visiting bear (Our back door has claw marks and just last spring we had a bear on our back steps, rooting around in our recycling. Our house probably lives on in bear lore).

In the end, I turned the man down.

I sit down in the snow, my back against a red pine, and look out at the seemingly empty woods. This little grove of red pines is a favorite spot of mine. The trees are spaced apart and there is little undergrowth; it is a nice place to walk around. I am thankful to whoever in my family planted these trees many years ago. They may not have lived to see their majesty, but I take advantage every chance I get.

Unmoving, sitting there in the snow, I feel the cold working its way into my body. I think of the deer, crisscrossing the woods all winter long, trying to escape from the wind, or in search of some greenery to sustain them. Their coats do not seem thick to me, not thick enough anyway to have any semblance of comfort at eight below. I think of my geat aunt Ella drinking a cup of coffee at the kitchen table, gazing out the picture window at the deer in the yard.

Recently, I saw a deer eating the leaves of cedar tree. It would rear up on its hind legs, scrabbling its front legs like a bucking horse in an attempt to maintain balance, and pull down a sprig at a time before breaking through the crusty snow.

There are reports of an increase in coyotes within city limits, too.

I rise, my legs stiff with cold, and walk back toward the house, leaving the woods to the deer.

Prompt entry #1

Northeastern Minnesota. Land of glacier scoured lakes, swamps, streams, bogs. The Southern terminus of the boreal forest and Precambrian shield. Thin soil, protruding bedrock. Long, dark, cold winters. A difficult place to sink roots into, metaphorically and otherwise.

Duluth, Minnesota. Southwestern tip of Lake Superior—world’s largest freshwater lake. Port city; iron ore, grain, coal. In spring, streams tumble over basalt ledges. In the dead of winter, downtown manholes exhale steam. Foghorns moan in summer, as ore boats chug through the ship canal. A land of displaced Finns, summer tourists, lake effect snow. A blue collar ethos pervades—smokestacks and the sickly sweet smell of paper mills—but underneath the gruff exterior beats a progressive, back-to-the-land heart.

It is not, by mountain lover standards, a picturesque place; there are few awe inspiring vistas. If you are of a certain temperament, I suppose, you could argue that one lake more or less resembles the next one. There are few swaths of majestic white pines left. Much of this area is second or third growth—stunted pines and birches.

That doesn’t matter to me; I am smitten by the maze of lakes, the lichen covered ground and pine studded shores. I embrace the seasons, although spring spans a muddy week and fall around the same.

Despite being an inland port, the nearest saltwater is Hudson Bay to the north. Some of the streams in Northern Minnesota flow to Hudson Bay. As a canoeist, this fact comforts me. My interior compass points north, too. Like a stick tossed in the current, I have followed by canoe three rivers that flow to Hudson Bay, through the living, breathing heart of the boreal forest.

Barton Sutter wrote a book about Duluth, entitled Cold Comfort: Life at the Top of the Map. For me, though, Duluth is not at the top of the map at all. In the map of my homeland Duluth is at the bottom; the top stretches beyond the Arctic Circle, at the far end of the northern treeline.

In animal terms, I guess you could say Duluth is the southern end of my range.