Hartley E. Conrad, Duluth, and Bruce F. Elving (holding stick), Esko, enjoy a stroll on frozen Lake Superior, February 2007.
Like a bunch of other people in the Northland, I tried out a new sport, ice-walking. The days in mid-to-late February were conducive to this type of activity, occurring after a period of relentless below zero (F) temperatures.
My friend Hartley and I first ventured forth when ice conditions were ideal. It was before the blizzards deposited snow that would obscure the view through the pristine ice, although some of that snow instantly blew off. I’ve subsequently seen folks out on the ice, some with flimsy ice-fishing shelters. However, a more enjoyable walk on the ice awaits another year.
The first visit we took was from Twenty-First Avenue East and the waterfront. It’s a breathtaking place, buzzing with the activity of building houses and condominiums. Driving around the new construction and viewing the frozen expanse of Lake Superior was exhilarating enough, but coming back, parking the car, and walking on the lake was more fun. Later, Hart and I went to Brighton Beach, just east of Lester River, and I walked the ice, following other people who had found the best spots for negotiating the pressure ridges that defined different areas of the ice or non-ice.
Ski poles greatly facilitated walking on the sheer ice. I offered a ski pole to another person to help him get across a fissure in the ice, but he declined. Getting onto the ice at Brighton Beach was more difficult than at Twenty-First Avenue East. There was a slope to the ice making it especially difficult to return. The large group of people frolicking on the lake obviously enjoyed the unique experience. Invariably, as people returned, they had to take measures to successfully negotiate the downward slant of the ice closest to shore, which presented a challenge to people’s sense of balance.
At Twenty-First, a lady asked me if I am from the area, and I said, “Yes.” Remember my article in December’s Hillsider about sledding down Duluth’s hills? That establishes me as a resident of this area since childhood. Anyway, I told her that I had never seen ice like this where you could walk on it and see clear through, even to the extent that persons saw a wreck submerged in shallow water off Park Point. I told the lady that my father, who would have been 111, told of people skating from Two Harbors to Duluth. Until this winter I would not have thought that possible. Previously, when looking at the lake in winter you would see white, the color of snow.
Hart and I talked to a young fellow on Twenty-First Avenue East. He sat on a rock which had no snow on it, took off his boots, put on his skates and flung his boots over his shoulder. He said he was going to skate to work in Canal Park, something he had never done. Obviously he was a very good skater, as he zoomed away on the clear and smooth ice.
Will this joy repeat itself? Ice conditions like in 2007 might well occur again, and as locals, we’ll be conditioned to want to visit the lake again in winter. We might even go out when conditions might not be as good, with the more adventurous of us taking unnecessary chances.
Much as the fun of walking on water in 2007 will fill our memory banks for years to come, I fear for the worst. Not from a nature standpoint, but from the standpoint of what we as humans can do to devastate the environment.
I fear for the future at Twenty-First Avenue East, and for other locations where ordinary citizens can view and play in or on the lake. With condominium development proceeding at a brisk pace, I envision 2007 as the last year the public will enjoy access to that spot, except for a narrow trail called the Lakewalk. Watch for “No Parking” signs to be erected along the entire roadway that used to be called Water Street. Signs might also mention “Lake Access Reserved For Residents Only.” Or signs might say, “Residents Parking Only.” And the informal trails that lead to the water’s edge would be posted “No Trespassing.”
This fear of being cut off from that which makes Duluth unique both to the locals and the tourists could come true in other regional places. Those areas could, and partially do right now, include all of Minnesota Point, the mouths of creeks and rivers flowing into Lake Superior and the North Shore, including the marina being constructed on McQuade Road. “Safe Harbor” will translate into “All But those Living in the Immediate Area Stay Out.”
As an aside, I recall my father, who lost an arm in an accident on the Northern Pacific rail yard on Rice’s Point, near the former Goldfine’s store, and who did not let that handicap stop him from being a real do-it-yourselfer. He was working on a project with concrete for our house on the East Hillside (where I used to sled, and which house I still own). We drove down Twenty-First Avenue East to Water Street, parked the car and walked to the lake side of the street. We proceeded to fill a bucket with gravel for making cement. I am sure the gravel is still there next to the big lake, but is access to it by ordinary citizens still possible? It might make for an excuse to visit that part of the Lakewalk just to find out.
That gravel might be as unusable by the local citizenry as Park Point sand. I recall, as a kid, my dad filling a trailer attached to our 1937 Ford so I could have a sandbox. That was at the place on Park Point where Lake Avenue takes a sharp turn to the right. Now it’s posted with a warning not to harvest the sand. I suppose if everybody helped themselves to sand, somehow Park Point would be excavated, or Lake Superior might disappear into a giant sinkhole.
In writing this, I do not intend it to be a blueprint for others to follow, or for it to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. As businesses and government work to promote this area as a world-class destination to the detriment of the local populace, there can be disaster. It’s like global warming, but much closer in proximity, and more immediate in its outcome. This devastation to the environment is on par with what I observed at the western end of Lake Ontario, at Grimsby Beach. I enjoyed getting off the Queen Elizabeth Expressway (QEW) and just looking east along the lake on my drives to Syracuse, NY in the 1960s. I was a graduate student at Syracuse University, from which I received my Ph.D. after many commutes. Stopping along the shore there reminded me of Park Point in Duluth. Since then, in the 1990s, my wife, Carol, and I noticed massive houses, a boat landing and what appeared to be a marina. An e-mail acquaintance lives in Grimsby, and he described how the land is now in private hands, and the views of this great lake are now denied outsiders like us.
It is and was great to be able to walk on water on Lake Superior, and to observe the lake in all its placid winter beauty. Even more important, there was a camaraderie with other souls on the lake, who with me and my companion, were blithely oblivious to the dangers of being on ice that only partially covered this large body of water.
The greatest threat is not that ice conditions may take several years to re-form in a way that allows skating, ice-boating, ice-fishing or mere walking, but that our enjoyment of this resource will disappear as the result of corporate greed, abetted by municipal and other government entities that could destroy the public’s use of a lake which is otherwise available for all to enjoy.
