Life at Tuscarora Lodge Archives - Page 18 of 91 - Tuscarora Lodge & Canoe Outfitters

Duluth is Flooded

The word is that people are encouraged to detour around Duluth today. We don’t exactly know HOW the detours are playing out, but we do know that people have been able to travel safely around the disaster area. Boy, our hearts go out to those people reeling from the floods. (check out the link for flooding photos), including the seals until they were returned safely to the zoo.

Cook County travel is fine, the phones, and internet are all back in service.
Tuscarora and our trees are soaking up the water, as the woods always do.
The path up to my favorite overlook on the Magnetic Rock trail was like a little stream this afternoon. Only Denali’s waterdish overflowed…. and we’re all looking forward to some sun tomorrow.

Life at Tuscarora Lodge

A Little Rain Never Stops the Turtles….

But today, it is stopping the traffic in Duluth, interfering with the phone lines, and with the emails. All is well at Tuscarora. Thanks for being patient with our lines of communication—we’ll get back to you as soon as we can! Meanwhile, the labor continues…

Life at Tuscarora Lodge

Turtles and Feathers and a Murder Mystery

The turtles are laying. This mother was obviously earning her living. Having gone into labor a couple of times myself, I felt a little bond with her as I witnessed. Only she was alone, and she had to dig for herself.

Can you imagine?

She must have been mighty uncomfortable, enough to drive her up onto the beach where Caleb and I stopped to watch for awhile. We really really wanted to see her actually lay an egg, but we were too close. Then she had to stop and make a break for it, and halt the labor process. Ooof. I felt a little sorry about that..

The next night, Denali discovered another mother up on the driveway. This one didn’t even make it to the squat position, because when Denali is investigating, she is patient and curious for long periods of time.

She stood absolutely still, and eventually discovered that the turtle only came out if she waited silently behind the turtle tail. Eventually the turtle’s head would emerge, and Denali would POUNCE. But turtle neck reflexes are much speedier than a black lab pounce. So Denali would waaaaaiiit and waaaaaiiiiiit…and then pounce again.

The other morning, we couldn’t resist an early paddle, and we quietly slipped out to Round Lake near the Yogi rock when a witchy raven broke the silence with rude squawking directed right at us. She was loud and harsh, and she might well have been swearing she was so testy about it all. I wanted to recite the BWCAW rules video and tell her “keep the noise to a minimum, you might even see more wildlife that way.” I was looking up at her wondering what she was so angry about when we floated into a smelly smattering of feathers.

Denali had to investigate that one too. What happened? Did the ravens get a gull or an eagle? I haven’t seen any gulls lately, and we couldn’t find any dead body. Did the raven put the spell on another bird

? I have no idea what kind of bird even. Some were big, some were little and fluffy in clumps. She was squawking so fiercely, we never figured out what happened, but I agree with Denali when she chases the teasing ravens down the road. I don’t call her back, I say “Get the evil ravens girl.”

The fishy feathers went on and on for a while, and we never got to the bottom of that mystery.

Life at Tuscarora Lodge

Sweeping

Stephan used to call it brooming. Why not? You swing on the swing, you brush with the brush, can’t you broom with the broom? At any rate, on days like this, sweeping might be the best job in the world. You can’t hear it from this photo, but the loons were singing loudly, and Karl was singing softly. It’s a great day to be alive in the North Woods!!

Life at Tuscarora Lodge

Towering Pines

by Rachel
We love our white pines here at Tuscarora. The old towering ones as well as the tiny Dr. Seuss style
new ones. Walking up the drive way to the cabins feels like walking into a towering cathedral. They
cause a bit of a hazard when you become more preoccupied with watching and listening to the wind in
the canopies then paying attention to where you are going. We encourage new white pines that spring
up under the old by clearing out the fast growing shrubs that could over power the baby trees.
Countless buckets of water have been hauled by the staff to nurture seedlings planted in clearings.
Sometimes, despite our love and attention, a pine comes crashing down in a wind storm. Although sad
to see it go, we know that that is part of the life of a forest. The latest tree to go down was a good sized
one, so staffer Andrew crafted it into four new benches around camp, which will serve as great places
for our guests to take a break this summer. Come by sometime this summer and have a seat on one of
them and listen to the sound of the wind in our white pines.