Tuscarora Lodge & Canoe Outfitters
Boundary Waters & Quetico Canoe Trips and Gunflint Trail Cabins
No surprise, it’s been COLD in Minnesota this last week. Today we woke up to a temperature reading of -22 F and last week, we never got above zero on the Gunflint Trail.
We’ve been shooting a weekly winter weather report video this season each Sunday. You can view the rest of the videos on our Facebook page.
Here’s this week’s edition, with stops at Round Lake, Cross River, Gunflint Lake, and Seagull Lake.
We hope you’re staying warm, wherever you are!
Things have changed a little since we last spoke. After a seemingly endless string of days in mid-40s, a week ago Thursday, just before midnight, it started to snow.
And snow.
And snow.
By the time the weather system had passed us by on Saturday morning, we had almost 11″ of fluffy snow. By the time Monday morning rolled around there was a thin layer, about 1″, of ice completely covering Round Lake. Talk about Insta-winter!
The thing is, the winter weather hasn’t let up since. On Tuesday and Wednesday, another 5″ of snow accumulated and all day today, fluffy (and un-forecasted) snowflakes drifted down lazily to earth to freshen up the already very wintery scene. As much as winter clobbered us with its arrival this year, after such a long fall, the change in season was very welcome.
We’re steadily marching towards the shortest day of the year, but there are plenty of sights in this new winter wonderland to keep us distracted from the fading daylight. The songbirds (and squirrels) are back at the feeders, each morning we find a new set of wolf tracks zigzagging through the resort, and the otters have been busy slipping and sliding across the beaver pond near the Gunflint Trail.
Now that it actually looks like winter, it’s a little easier to thinking about things like winter camping and ice fishing. Dare we say, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas . . . ?
If you’re hoping to spend some of your holiday season at Tuscarora, you can check out cabin availability and give us a call at 218-388-2221 to book. Because the Lodge will be closed for renovations over Christmas and New Year’s, we have limited availability over the holidays this year and the cabins we do have available are booking up fast. Consider yourself warned!
As the snow accumulates outside we’re hunkering down, knuckling down on the Lodge bathroom renovation, and preparing for the busy holiday season ahead.
Not to add to the commercialism over this retail-centric weekend, but if you’re looking for Boundary Waters/Tuscarora presents for some of the paddlers on your gift list, look no further than the Gift Shop Mini-Mart we just launched on our website. You’ll find BWCA stocking stuffers like stickers and patches, as well as slightly larger items like coffee mugs for under the tree. Happy shopping and thanks for supporting small businesses!
The Gunflint Trail hasn’t been exempt from the unseasonably warm weather that’s swept across the Midwest the past couple weeks. This weekend, temperatures soared to the 50s on the upper Gunflint Trail and that leaves us in a strange limbo season: not quite winter, but definitely not quite spring either. Until we hear winter’s final death knell, we’re planning to wring as much winter recreation as we can out of this fleeting season. We’ll just be wearing sunscreen and sunglasses a little more often than we’ve been in the last couple months.
Winter campers are still heading out into the Boundary Waters. One group this past weekend landed 17 lake trout on Tuscarora Lake and also caught a brook trout as they passed through Missing Link Lake.
We fished Seagull Lake on Friday and while we weren’t quite as successful as the Tuscarora group, we did manage to get a couple lake trout on the ice.
The snow layer has melted off the lakes’ surfaces, which makes travel across the lakes very easy. It’s nice not to hassle with snowshoes, although you’ll want those if you’re traveling through the woods since the snow is a little punchy off of packed trails. (If you’re a cross country skier, Bearskin Lodge is reporting “surprisingly good” ski conditions.) We’re planning to take advantage of the smooth sailing this week to get some ice fishing in on the western end of Seagull Lake. A couple evening cookouts on Missing Link are on the docket too.
No doubt it will be an earlier ice out than we’ve had the last couple springs, but we believe the lakes will be safe to traverse at least until lake trout season closes on March 31st. The cool down (and grey skies) predicted for this week should help maintain the ice, so barring a string of 70 degree days, we will not be beating 2012’s record ice out dates this year.
We drilled a hole in Round Lake yesterday (Sunday, March 13) and found 21 inches of ice. There’s about 4 inches of slush on top, with about 17 inches of ice underneath.
Until the ice is off the lakes, we wish you Bon Hiver!
A couple years ago, somewhat inadvertently, I wrote a series of articles about Minnesota maple syrup producers. I’m no maple syrup expert, but I do always remember that when temperatures climb above freezing in the day and then fall back below freezing at night, that’s when maple sap starts flowing through the tree trunks and maple syrup producers start firing up their big evaporators. Now each spring when the sun shines high and bright in the sky and snow starts drip, drip, dripping off the pine branches and packed trails grow slick and smooth, I crave waffles. I’ve come to think of these days as “maple sugar” days, especially since this is when the hot sun melts the snow into a texture similar to granulated sugar.
We’re not quite at the 2016 maple sap run just yet (it’s currently -3ºF), but like the rest of the state, we had quite the “maple sugar” day on Saturday. I took one look out the window on Saturday morning at the brilliant blue sky and decided two things: 1) I was done taking a Vitamin D supplement until November and 2) It was a good day for adventure.
We jumped on the bandwagon and headed into Tuscarora Lake. Starting on Wednesday, we watched group after group head across Round Lake for the Missing Link portage. By the time Saturday morning rolled around, there were about 10 groups camping or fishing on Tuscarora. I guess we’re all pretty good at reading weather forecasts.
All the tree stumps were wearing “snow hats” on the hike in on the 426 rod Tuscarora portage. By the time we came back, most of this snow had slipped off.
We were hoping to meet up with a couple friends camping on the west end of Tuscarora among the islands. We couldn’t spot them at first, so we started ice fishing on the edge of the north bay. I got a bite and lost my minnow, but that was it for action, so we packed up and set off to search for Mark and Dave again.
We finally spotted them along the south shoreline east of the Owl Portage. They really blended into their surroundings with their white anoraks on!
Because it was so busy on Tuscarora Lake, U.S. Forest Service wilderness rangers were out making contact with winter campers. They want to make sure that campers are filling out permits and also talk about responsible firewood gathering and fire making during the winter. We really appreciate all the work these folks do so the wilderness can be enjoyed by everyone.
Although Dave and Andy’s fish finders showed a pretty impressive underwater drop off, fishing was remarkably slow. Apparently the fish were as confused by what was going on with the barometer and thermometer as we were.
Even if the fish were feeling shy, it sure was a pretty spot to hang out for an hour or so. The cliffs behind us was busy making snowballs by itself as the sunshine melted snow at the top of the cliff which then rolled down the side of the cliffs to the lake ice.
By the time we hiked out, the temperature was 42 degrees in the shade. Our sunburned faces attest that we got more than our fair share of Vitamin D. The perfect maple sugar day!
If this winter had a buzzword, it would be “hygge.” I’d never heard of hygge until this fall, but since then, I keep bumping into the term: on my newsfeed, in news articles, and all over Pinterest. A Danish word, “hygge” is most often translated to English as “coziness,” but really, it means something closer to “existing in a state of coziness.” Hygge can exist in any season, but it’s particularly relevant during the dark winter days and nights. (You can learn more about hygge in this sweet video from Visit Denmark.)
You know that feeling of trying to express something for years and then discovering there was a word out there that summed what you were trying to say in two measly syllables? That’s how I felt when I discovered the term “hygge.” I think Minnesotans have been doing hygge for decades without even realizing it. When you consider that it’s perfectly normal for the Gunflint Trail to be snow-covered for 5+ months each year, you kind of have to revel in the winter season. Winter’s simply too long around these parts to spend your days muddling through it and pining for warmer days.
So we do our best to embrace winter and live the season intentional. Instead of counting down the days until spring, we hygge.
Two black dogs on a forced march across Missing Link Lake. Tuscarora portage, ho!
One of the best ways we’ve found to make winter fun and cozy is to get out in the elements and explore. When some family and friends called up last Sunday to ask if we wanted to go for a hike, we knew it was a great time to spend time together and simultaneously check out lake conditions. We set off across Round, headed into Missing Link, and over to the Tuscarora portage. There was a good packed trail for the most part, although the start of the Tuscarora portage was soft enough that snowshoes would have been a nice thing to have for a short stretch of the trail. All in all, it was a pleasant afternoon filled with good company, loads of fresh air, and nearly six miles of trekking. Nothing like pure exhaustion to make home seem especially cozy as you settle in for the evening.
If you’ve been following our Facebook page this winter, you know another favorite way to get some fresh air is to head out with the ice fishing gear. We’ve been using this winter to explore a lot of area lakes we’ve never fished before and have been coming home with a lake trout or two to bake up for a tasty “just caught” supper.
Speaking of suppers . . . when we’re at our busiest in the summer paddle season, it’s not unheard of for supper to be a camp food entree pulled from the food room shelf mixed with unmeasured amount of boiling water. So when things slow down in the winter, we take a cue from Dinner: A Love Story and do some “project cooking.” Whether it’s Julia Child’s 13-hour croissant recipe, Cubanos inspired by the movie Chef, or spending days (no, really) making sugar cookies for Valentine’s Day, there’s nothing more hygge than having a delicious smelling kitchen.
One of my most favorite things to do each winter is to pick up a book series I haven’t read in years. It’s so cozy (or should I say, hygge?) to spend the evenings reacquainting myself with familiar characters and re-learning important plot points. This year’s pick? The Harry Potter books. Although I was a mere tween when the first book was published, the final book didn’t come out until after I’d graduated from college. It’s been especially fun to re-read this series because as a teenager, I reread the first four books countless times, but I’ve only read the final three books once, right when they were each published. It’s been a joy to read the books back to back instead of in the fits and starts of two year intervals.
How do you hygge?
