Here is a photo gallery of a walking tour I took November 21, 2009. Walking through the woodlot east of our boathouse on the shore of Lake Superior is a tangle of red dogwood shrubs, mountain ash, birch, and poplars. The vegetation line at the shore is a difficult walk on boulders banked with a four foot high berm. The beach is strewn with a never ending supply of driftwood, most of it washed down from the Little Marais River. Our boathouse is set back in a cove protected from most extreme surf action, so the driftwood debris collects, and we pile it up.
Onward to the east, photos show how a former groomed cross country ski trail has overgrown with tall grass and more tangled shrubs in just the past eight years. Two resorts west and east of our place supported the winter trail. The former Stone Hearth Inn is now a private estate. Fenstad’s Resort only operates from May through October, while they had groomed connecting trails that extended 10 kilometers into the Superior Ridge 400 feet elevation above the lake.
Also on the Fenstad Resort property is the Little Marais River Gorge. The gorge is deeper in the hills along the old ski trail, but the final descent below the Highway 61 bridge is a beautiful series of cascades and rapids. We’ve had less than two inches of rain in November, and for the year, rainfall is more than three inches below normal, but the river is flowing full. The steep banks of the gorge are covered with a variety of mosses, lichens, and cedars.
David Carlson
