Category: Uncategorized

Yep, that’s right. Kinda sad, but true. Only a month late, but the snows we are accustomed to have finally arrived in the Keweenaw. The amount on the ground in most cases is very close to what we would see in a “good average” year. Meaning in an average year where we are on the good side of things. It has also snowed 8 out of the last 9 days. Not a lot has fallen here in the banana belt, but up in the higher elevations, about 2 feet of fresh has fallen in those last 9 days.

Trails are in pretty decent shape with the new snow and traffic has not been crazy heavy, but steady. I suspect that in a week, the traffic will increase noticeably, as we will have more snow but…most importantly, the bars and restaurants will FINALLY be able to open for inside service. That will be a huge deal up here. It goes without saying that lots of businesses and their employees have been hit very hard by the restrictions. 

With that in mind, I would like to point you all to a fundraiser that is going on to help businesses in the western UP that have been impacted financially. It is called the John Dee Stimulus Project. You can learn all about it by following the link just provided. There is also an awesome auction going on, with all the proceeds from it going to the JDSP. The project is actually no my idea, nor am I in charge. I am playing an advisory role as I have 10 years of fundraising practice with the ride-in. I also agreed to let them use my name to try and scare off as many as possible!

Seriously though. This is being done by a great group of individuals that visit the site. The idea was born from some chatting on the discussion board and snowballed into the awesome project it is right now. I ask that you PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE check it out and contribute what you can. It would do my heart good to see them go past their goal of $50,000. There is only two weeks left until it ends and the funds are distributed to the businesses that have signed up. So whether you were one that agreed with the shuttering of businesses in an attempt to slow the spread of covid, or did not agree with the action taken by the State of Michigan your donation will help those in need. I sure as heck better see donations from those that were passionate, outspoken critics of the restrictions put their money where their mouths are, or else I will just consider you to be a phony, a poser.

Back to the events of the Keweenaw. I can say that I sure do miss living in the big snow area of the Keweenaw. I knew I would and it was taken very seriously when Nora and I were discussing the move. The summers are outrageously beautiful here, but still do not make up for the lower snow amounts. I suppose this winter is particularly rough, but it’s a bitter pill to swallow!

Even though we got regular periods of heavy snow when we lived up near Mohawk, I always got excited when they would occur and sad when they would end. So the periods when we get the heavier snow falling down here are a pretty big deal. I just wish they would last longer this season! Most have only lasted around 20-30 minutes. Such was the case this Thursday afternoon when a decent snow squall came through and gave us around 2-3″ in around 30 minutes. Here is a “side of house” shot taken moments later and here is a shot of our sleepy little road with the snow coming down.

Even through we have not been getting the big snow totals that the LES belts have been getting in the past week, we have enough snow down here to ride. The problem is, I got a call from an old acquaintance asking if he could borrow the sled so he could let a friend from downstate ride his. I still have not gotten the sled back, but have been reassured that the sled is fine. He even sent me a pic of him on the sled earlier in the week. That’s quite the outfit he had on, that’s all I can say! Sorry, I just had to jump in on this latest social media media craze. It has been quite enjoyable and finally made Facebook worth the visit.

This unusual winter we are having has had me checking some of my favorite big snow webcams. The most active this season have been in the Pacific NW, both in the US and Canada. The cams at the Mt Rainer National Park Visitors Center have been fun to watch. Although this area, even though it is 6,400 feet up, will see rains fall in the middle of winter. They do get snow more than rain and many times, the snow comes in feet, not inches. It amazes me that they keep the road to the center open all year long. If I have time and can remember, I will watch them clear the road and large parking lot. Did you notice the truck and trailer on the far right? It shows how deep the snow is there. 

Another favorite is north of the boarder in British Columbia, Canada. Specifically Revelstoke, B.C.. They get some big snows there too. The depth on the snow stick in the center of the pic is at 9 feet. The top number on the stick is 15. I have seen it as high as 14 1/2. I sure would love to visit these two spots some day. 

That pretty much covers it for this one. The forecast for the week ahead sees a respectable snow storm for Nebraska, northern Kansas, the southern 2/3rd of IA, far northern MO, extreme southern WI and the northern 1/3rd of IL. Starting in the west tonight and finishing up in areas like WI and IL later tomorrow. Some light to moderate LES looks to fall in the UP the second half of this week and then there are ideas of another fairly sizeable snow for areas of the Midwest north of I-80 by around a week from now. So winter looks to continue across the northern Midwest for another 10 days at least! Haha. It better last longer than that!

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

It’s funny, I had actually started this entry Thursday afternoon, mainly the title, but also jotting down a few thoughts. It was to be titled “Saved from the Brink”, to reflect how my attitude was saved from the brink of utter disappointment by the snows we got Friday and the weekend. Perhaps a bit of wishful thinking and a whole lot of assuming the forecast would pan out. Well, as fate would have it, we had an absolutely ugly Friday with rains all day and temps around 35-36 degrees. That weather actually did more damage to our snowpack than all the warmer days in the past 10 leading up to it. I have come to the conclusion that there is NOTHING GOOD ABOUT RAIN IN THE KEWEENAW IN JANUARY. Nothing.

It’s also interesting how such a disappointing event can pale in comparison to another event. I was over at the shop, in my office, Friday afternoon when I got a call from Nora. Upon answering, I could hear frantic voices and crying. A split second I said “hello” and immediately Nora said something was wrong with Dune, she thought he was dying. I raced over to the house and upon entering, I found both Nora and Grace huddled over Dune, the other dogs looking on and right away I could see he was not breathing. I gently shook him and pleaded with him to breathe. I thought I felt a faint heart beat when I had my hand on his chest, but then it seemed to go away, so I laid my head on his chest sideways so that my ear was right against his chest and I could not hear any heart beat. I repeated the shaking and then listening for a heart beat a couple of times, but still nothing. Dune had died.

We are not sure of the cause, other than it was very sudden. I guess the two sled dogs were barking, so Grace went to check on them and to quiet them down. Just as Grace got there, she heard Dune whimper for a brief moment and then laydown and stop moving. She called Nora over and that is when I got the call. We suspect that the suddenness of his death was likely due to either a heart attack or stroke.

We all laid next to him for a while and whispered to him how much we loved him and how good a dog he was and then Nora and I loaded him into my truck and I took the long, sad drive to the vets to drop him off to be cremated.

Even though he had not been with us too long, in the 8 months we did have him, we sure got to see what a loving dog he was. He was way more shy and timid than his pen mate Kashi, especially with me. After we brought him home, I must have tried for a full month to get him to feel comfortable just being close enough to let me pet him. He did warm up to Nora and Grace much more quickly. Once warmed up to me, I was able to strengthen the bonding process and by the end of the summer, we were old pals for life.

Even though fully comfortable with me, he was always a momma’s boy and a Gracie’s boy. Although, I think he was a bit more of a momma’s boy than a Gracie’s boy. He could take a kiss as good as he could give them out. He earned the nickname “Swiper”, as he had a knack for finding things to grab, scuttle back to his window seat in the utility room and chew them up. Socks seemed to be his favorite target, or perhaps they just presented themselves in higher numbers than anything else, although anything was fair game, as Gracie learned with her plate of chicken nuggets.

So we are back down to 3 dogs. Nora reminded me than when we had to put Burt down, we both agreed no more dogs. Since then, we have had 5! They do get in your blood! The joy of having them far outweighs the sadness when it is time to say goodbye. They are the very essence of unconditional love. So long Dune, you were a sweet, sweet boy and we will meet again.

It’s was another pretty quiet day in the weather department. No snow until the rains of Friday changed over to snow Friday night. I did not snow hard enough to accumulate to more than a wet coating by Saturday morning. We did have snow showers occur off and on all day yesterday and the same has happened today, but again, nothing more than a dusting. From a snow lovers standpoint, this winter has now officially been the worst since I moved up here, perhaps the worst I have seen since coming up here since 1991. 

Earlier in the week, I believe it was Tuesday, there was a beautiful site in the Houghton/Hancock area. Overnight, dense fog had formed in the valley that forms the Portage Waterway between the two cities. The fog was there for much of the period between midnight and sunrise and air temps were actually in the mid to upper 20’s. Please do not ask me how millions of tiny liquid droplets that cause fog can remain a liquid with air temps below freezing. It’s a full week section in atmospheric physics and saturation vapor pressures! Anyway, it happened and once the sun rose, anyone driving down in that area was treated to a magical icy view. When the fog droplets contacted an object such as a tree, it instantly became ice and attached to the tree. So all of the trees were heavily frosted with hoar frost. I did not get the chance to drive up there to take any pictures, but I did spy some of mother nature and old man winters handiwork via the webcams at MI Tech. Here is a shot of the lift bridge with the frosted trees in the background. The fog and resultant hoar frost was really confined to the lower elevations of the immediate Houghton/Hancock area, as Dollar Bay did not get it and even up the hill in Houghton at the tech ski trails there was no frost. I guess that’s as flocked as the trees in the Keweenaw were suppose to get this week!

So, what does the forecast hold? Well, no big dumps of snow. It does look like a couple inches will fall Monday and Monday night, the same for Tuesday and Tuesday night. Later Wednesday through Thursday could bring a more serious LES event, but still staying below the double digit range. By next week at this time, the models are indicating an area of low pressure to bring significant snows to most of the northern Midwest, essentially north of a line from around Omaha NE to Alpena MI. Long way out to have a lot of faith in, but would put all of the Northwoods and even areas south to that OMA-ALP. 

So that about covers it for this one. It’s funny, I typically have gotten into the habit of now posting pics of snow in the journal, unless it is a news worthy snowfall. I feel like even a few inches of snow would be news worthy this season, so I may have to keep my photo taking devices handy at all times in the next week or two!

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

Good day and Happy New Year! I am sorry that I was not able to write last week, but things were busy and by the time they settled down, it was nearly time for my head to hit the pillow.

So it continues to be a challenging winter for us snowlovers in the UP, as well as elsewhere across much of the areas of the US that get snow. About the only places running with an excess right now are the Cascades of the Pacific NW. We did get some nice fresh snow in advance of the New Year. It was great to see the flakes flying and the snow piling up. Almost seemed weird in a way too. I realize that many of you reading this have been suffering from the same snow drought as I have, but consider this: The Keweenaw sees more snow, on average, for the month of December than most areas south of a line from around Des Moines to Chicago to Detroit see in an entire season! So when we go weeks on end with just one snow event, it is very strange.

I do not have the exact count, but I believe in the past 2 weeks, we have seen the sun shine more than snow fall. THAT is extremely rare for this neck of the woods. I, along with many others up here have been taking that as a blessing though. The one thing that I think all of us living in the Keweenaw would like more of in the winter is sunshine. Even the snow lovers! If it isn’t going to be snowing, it may as well be sunny! The other upside to this strange winter so far is the fact that we have been without any real cold air outbreaks. We have had some cold days and a few cold nights, but for the most part, our temperatures have been well above average for the last 45-60 days. That is good for the heating bills and I don’t hear anyone complaining about that either. Lastly, except for Chequamegon Bay at Ashland, Black and Nipigon Bays on the north shore of Lake Superior and a thin strip at Duluth, the entirety of Lake Superior is free from ice. Even Whitefish Bay is ice free and it usually is frozen over by now. Heck, we have had years when the big lake is 50% frozen by now. So when we do get the kind of cold that will produce LES, it will not be held back by any ice on the big lake. 

Most of our snows prior to New Years came on the 30th. It snowed all day, sometimes at a pretty good clip. All told, we ended up with around 9-10″ for the day and around 13-14″ for the entire snow event. Some areas picked up more, but surprisingly, some areas that should get more than us when talking lake effect, got less. Here is a shot of the back yard of the shop. Trees nicely flocked, big old flakes filling the air and a nice fresh blanket of snow on the ground. The kind of things that warm a snow lovers heart and fill them with joy! The satellite dish you see is my new Starlink dish. It’s a project from Elon Musk and when completed, will allow anyone in the world to have high speed internet. I signed up for the beta testing and all I can say is WOW! It is around 8 to 9 times faster than my old satellite service and has unlimited data as well. Both of which I was sorely longing for ever since we move from Mohawk. My speeds are actually faster than I had with cable internet! Since the system is still in beta testing, it goes down for a while at times, but I do have my old system still going as a back up. Anyway, sell your stock in Hughes Net and Excede! Those guys will be toast soon!

 So, getting back on track, it was fun to watch our local bird population hit the feeders in the “storm”. They actually are all regular feeders regardless of the weather once the natural food sources become scarce during the cold season, but it is just extra satisfying to see the little guys fly up to the feeders, grab something to eat and then head off to the trees to chow down. I’m not sure I will be able to pull it off this season, but with the new internet service we have, I plan to put a live cam on the feeders for folks to watch. Nora and Grace do a great job of keeping them full and there are two main feeding times- morning around an hour or so after sunrise and in the evening, an hour or two before sunset. During those times, we can have as many as a dozen or more birds at the feeder. A lot of Chickadees, Nuthatches and Junkos. However, we have had some other types that are not as plentiful like Pine Grosbeaks and Downey and Nuttall Woodpeckers. There have been a few others that I cannot remember (old age!). I have learned more about birds in the past year than I probably knew in my life prior. I find it cool to know as much as I can about the birds, bees, trees and other natural things where I live. Lots to learn, that’s for sure!

One of the things that kept me too busy to write was a little excursion to the big lake with Nora, Grace and one of Nora’s brothers and his family. They all did it on snowshoe or skies, but I decided to do my work smartly rather than hard! So I fired up the sled for the first time this season and took it! Funny how I have not really snowmobiled in around 20 months, but it was still so familiar to be tooling through the woods to the lake shore. It was a beautiful sunny day, so I parked as close as I could get to the lake without ending up in it and snapped a shot.

I was thinking about selling it this autumn, so started to pull of the Keweenaw Kamo wrap to make it more appealing to a buyer, but then got busy with website stuff and then the used sled market got very tight and expensive and I did not want to fall into the trappings of selling my sled and not being able to find a replacement. I plan to be getting away from the long tracks on the mountain sleds and into more of a crossover sled, as my days of riding the super deep up super steep are over and a crossover will still get me through the super deep along logging roads and other fairly flat bush trails.

Much of the last week was spend in a “Groundhog Day” the movie mode, with daytime highs and overnight lows barely deviating at all. Highs were around 30-34 and lows were around 26-28. Despite some days with above freezing highs, we did not lose too much snow, more settling than anything. Most of the roads have become clear, which is also strange for this time of the year.

As I was driving through downtown Calumet the other afternoon, looking at the bare roads, lack of enormous piles of snow and deeply covered rooftops, I could not help but think that the village looked almost naked. As if it was being forced to stand out in the cold with just it’s skivvies on! No heavy overcoat of snow to cover it up. It looked weird, very weird. Kind of sad too.

The warm temps and sunshine has caused much of the snow to slide off of our metal roofs. I snapped this shot of a slice getting ready to slide off the shop roof. 

So except for a sneak-peak comment on the forecast, I think that about covers it for this one. The much advertised change in the pattern across North America and much of the Northern Hemisphere is still in the cards for around Thursday and beyond. The usual differences in the models exist, but in general, the things I have been saying in my forecast text as well as the SnoScoop videos still hold true. Meaning best chances for lots of snow will be in the LES belts of the UP, with lesser amounts, but still decent totals in the LES belts of western lower MI. The rest of the northern 1/2 of the Midwest looks to have their chances for snow as well, but no big storms are seen. Plenty of seasonably cold to even below average temps are seen as well. So it is looking good that winter may finally be arriving in earnest in the Midwest!

Just keep ThinkingSnow!

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
-JD

First things first. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! Ours was. We were missing some family members, but were fortunate enough to have my Mom join us. My brother who lives in Allouez was also here, as were Nora and Grace. My sister who lives in Oklahoma could not make it and her son and daughter could not make it either. With a little luck and some better planning, we might be able to get the whole gang together in the Keweenaw for next Christmas. I has always been a wish of mine to have my whole family up here for Christmas.

Not only did we have a white Christmas on the ground, but we also had it in the air. Most of the day, these big fluffy LES flakes dropped from the skies. It did not pile up to much, but around 2″ for the day and added to the 6 or so inches we had on the ground at the time.

So, it only took the first 3 weeks of December, but the Keweenaw has finally been pulled out of it’s snow quarantine. As mentioned, we have not gone nuts with snow just yet, but it has finally begun to look like winter around here. The forecast looks good for more in the next 7-10 days. A couple of inches later today through tomorrow and then the potential for double digit snows Wed and Thur.

That double digit snow for Wed/Thur (if it happens) would really help our snow situation a lot. Trails are open and being groomed minimally. There is just not enough snow on the trails to aggressively groom, but enough in most areas to play in. I have not been to town since Christmas Eve, so I do not know what the situation is as far as folks up here riding, but glances as the webcams seems to indicate things are still pretty quiet.

Back to the Wed-Thu storm, it would not only bless the Keweenaw with double digit snows, but a good chunk of MN, WI, the UP and northern lower MI. Just about the perfect track to hit the traditional Northwoods snow-play areas. While I do believe that the storm is a good probability (80%), I am not quite ready to lock into details just yet. The models are in good agreement on the details though, so as long as that continues, I should be able to give some confidence to those details by tomorrow.

The good news and not so good news after is that there is no slug of really cold air seen behind it. That would be good because it would put temps in the comfortable range for playing in the snow, but also be cold enough to prevent any melting. It’s only bad news for the LES belts, as they would not get much of a second punch of snow behind the system snows. I guess the way this season is going so far, beggars cannot be choosers! 

So for those of you wanting to come up to the Northwoods to play in the snow, I guess I would follow the site closely. If the storm does hit as currently indicated, the answer would be yes! However, most reading this know that changes can happen.

The only two pictures I have for you are of Gracie sledding. My mom and her went up to spend yesterday, last night and today with my brother and there is a suitable place for sledding not far from my brothers house. So Gracie was her usual all smiles as she prepared to race down the hill. While I was not there, I was told that it was short but steep and there was one run with a jump in it. 

I guess that covers it for this one folks. Take care, be well and have a Happy New Year! I think the new year will be welcomed in a bit more that the past few have!

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

I have been fortunate to live here in the Keweenaw for 20 1/2 years. When I first moved up, everything was new and I did not even keep track of the “firsts”. Well, at least most of them. I do remember my first off trail ride with what became a great bunch of friends that allowed me to join in on their band of friendships and partake in some of the most fun rides I ever had in my life.

There were other important firsts, like the first day Nora and I saw each other, the day she moved in with me and our first day being husband and wife. There was the first time Grace saw the Keweenaw and first day’s Huck, Millie, Bleau, Dune and Kashi came to live with us.

There were also some firsts in the weather department. The first time I have ever experienced 6″/hour snowfall rates. The first time I have seen 24″ fall in less than 24 hours and of course the first time I have ever been part of a storm that brought 4 feet plus of snow.

This past Thursday was another first for me and a lot of folks living here. It was the first time I saw the Torch Lake and much of the Portage water way between Houghton and Hancock freeze over solid with no snow on them. Most of the freezes up here happen when it is snowing, so the ice is covered by snow immediately. 

I had to run to Houghton/Hancock on Thursday and as I got close to Lake Linden, I was able to see the frozen over surface of the Torch Lake. The entire lake was frozen over and the ice nearly as smooth as glass. It was such an interesting sight to see, I pulled off to the side of the road south of Tamarack City to snap a shot of the ice.

When I arrive in Houghton and Hancock, I could see the waterway had frozen there in similar fashion. Perhaps even more smoothly than on the torch lake. On my way back from shopping, I passed the waterway again, only this time there were some boys skating with sticks and pucks on it! So I drove down to the road that runs parallel with the waterway and watched in fear and amazement. I was quite fearful of one or more of them falling through the ice, as it had formed just a few days earlier. The days and nights had been pretty cold and with no snow on it, the ice was likely able to grow at a pretty good rate, but still for only about 48 hours!

I did have to leave after not too long and was grateful I did not see anyone fall through. Unfortunately, someone did fall through yesterday (Sunday), but was rescued by the Hancock Fire Department. I do not know the condition of the person, but suspect that they are OK.

One of the questions among some of the locals around here has been could someone shoot a puck across the waterway from one shore to the other, given the ice was smooth and snow free. This seasons freeze up would have been the perfect opportunity to find out. I do not know if anyone tried, but will try and do a little snooping around to find out. Personally, I believe it can be done by just about anyone with a half way decent shot. As I was watching the boys skate on it Thursday, there were a couple of them separated by what amounted to 1/4 or 1/3rd of the distance from one side of the waterway to the other and their passes were making it without hardly even slowing down.

Speaking of snow, we are still lacking in what we would consider a regular amount on the ground. I had about an inch on the ground when I woke up this morning and the higher elevations had around 3-4″. It is snowing right now and we have picked up around 2″. There looks to be more later this week, perhaps considerably more. So I think we have a very good chance for a white Christmas, but I am not able to guarantee one just yet!

There is more snow seen for later in the weekend and the first half of next week, so it looks like we are finally breaking out of our snow drought. Other areas of the northern Midwest look to get snow in the next week to ten days, so all of the favorite spots in the Northwoods will be creeping their way to having enough snow to play in. Some even sprinting to that goal the second half of this week!

That’s all I have for this one, have a very Merry Christmas everyone and talk to you soon!

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD