May 18: ice remains, highways flooded

 What a crappy spring!

There is still ice in Red Lake. It is cold and rainy today and the lake is flooding. My prediction of May 22 for ice-out might still become a reality.

If you are traveling to Red Lake for what is supposed to be opening weekend of fishing, May 21, be advised of the following:

Highway 17 has water over the road east of Vermilion Bay. A friend of ours drove through it two days ago and said the water is at least a foot deep. If you are coming from the States, crossing the border at International Falls-Fort Frances, you can avoid this spot by going west from Fort Frances on Hwy 11 to Hwy 71. This goes north to join Hwy 17. Go east on Hwy 17 toward Vermilion Bay.

At Vermilion Bay turn north on Hwy 647, also called Blue Lake Road. This is necessary because Hwy 105, the usual route to Red Lake, is closed just north of Vermilion Bay due to flooding.

Take Hwy 647 to Quibell Rd. At the town of Quibell, take Hwy 609 east to Hwy 105. Now you can head north as usual.

I recommend everybody download the Ontario 511 app to keep abreast of road closings and openings.

The situation is fluid (Hah!). The area is expecting up to two inches of rain over the next couple of days. There are flood warnings for just about everywhere along the Red Lake Road, Red Lake itself, and for the Suffel Lake Road. 

Red Lake ice is starting to break up!

 

Today at Red Lake Marine. Sherry McCoy photos

Yesterday

"When it's over so they say,

It'll rain a sunny day"

John Fogerty

Have You Ever See the Rain

Creedence Clearwater Revival.  

Somehow, nature has rained away the ice. It isn't over yet but the lake is starting to break up. There has been lots of rain and little sun. Whatever.

The lake might be opening but the highways are stiff iffy. Lots of road closures due to flooding.

Red Lake itself is at or near flood stage as seen in the photos.

I plan to head to Red Lake next weekend, giving the ice more time to bash itself to pieces on the lake and road crews a chance to work on the highways.

It looks unlikely ice gone by opening day

 We got the warm rain that turned the ice black but we still need clear, sunny, hot days to melt it. Instead it has been cloudy. I'm back to thinking ice-out will be May 22, maybe even later. A rip-roaring wind could do the trick but that is something we seldom see in the spring. 

It is still possible, however. You must realize all of us here are pretty jaded when it comes to optimism about the weather after the winter we just had.

Now many people in Northwestern Ontario have bigger problems on their hands than just a late ice-out. There is flooding occurring everywhere. Highway 105 has been closed for about a week with multiple washouts. At this moment cars can get through but not transports.

Dams and bridges are under threat. States of emergencies have been declared in many towns, including Red Lake. Just upstream from Thunder Bay in Stanley the Kaministiquia River, the largest river in the region, is spilling over its banks and threatening homes. Two large islands in the center of the river at the Stanley Bridge are underwater. 

I expect the Whitefish River in Nolalu to overtop Old Mill Road where we live tonight. It is already flooding downstream at Hymers. Whitefish Valley School there was let out early today due to the threat ening water level. We will be fine at our house. We are located about 100 feet above the river.

All of this is caused by the exceptional snow depth we had last winter, then the rapid warming starting in May and finally, storms that are bringing an inch or two of rain every couple of days.

How fast ice-out under ideal conditions?

 

Zoom.Earth, about an hour ago.

Highway 105 at Caribou Creek yesterday. Sherry McCoy photo

The spring melt didn't start until May, exactly one month later than usual, but the weather has been making up for being a stinker in April. We couldn't ask for better conditions -- lots of heat that led to a rapid melt of the snowpack. 

That has created problems with flooding all over the place. Just witness what happened to Highway 105. The normal tiny Caribou Creek about 20 miles south of Red Lake turned into a raging river, overwhelming the culvert under the road and creating a massive washout a couple of days ago. This has left the town stranded although crews thought they would have it fixed today.

There might be reason to think it will take longer. A massive storm is heading for the region today bringing an inch or more of rain along with possible winds up to 80 km-h. That could be bad news for the repair but it would be good news for ice-out on lakes. ** UPDATE ** The highway was re-opened late last night but then another washout further north closed it again. It is expected to be fixed by tonight.

To put things in perspective, there is a LOT of ice to melt. I know of two people who were ice-fishing last week. The temperature was wonderful -- there were butterflies flitting around -- but they were sitting on 30-36 inches of ice.

In Thunder Bay, although the snow has disappeared from people's yards, families went downhill skiing  on Mother's Day. That is a first.

But getting back to ice-out on Red Lake, the rapid snow melting will have sent so much water into the lake that it will have risen a great deal, breaking the ice away from shorelines. This gives the sun dark water to warm around the edges. It also means the ice pack can shift with the wind. When it does the ice will crush against the rocks. Finally, heavy rain followed by warm sun is death to lake ice. And that is exactly what is in the forecast.

Before these developments I was skeptical if the ice could be gone by opening day of fishing, May 21. I now think it is possible, that is, if the weather prediction comes true.

In today's weather warning the weather office notes that the storm, currently over North Dakota, could weaken as it moves over the cold Northwestern Ontario lakes. The warm temperatures for the rest of the week are still forecast.

I am really impressed by Zoom.Earth and its near-real-time satellite images. In particular, when forest fire season finally starts, you can click on its fire icon and see the active heat-producing spots, instead of looking at fire maps that show where the fire has been.

Notable dates from Canada's snow capital

 May 4 and the last of the snow has disappeared off the roof. Does this mean the endless winter has ended?

April 26, I put the snow tires back on the car after the latest, nightly, snowfall.

March 21, after a week of above-freezing temperatures the snow has melted a lot. Then came three more feet in April.

What does this mean for ice-out at Red Lake? Not a darn thing.

Nolalu was the snow capital of Canada this year. We may have tripled or quadrupled our normal precipitation. Red Lake wasn't in the Banana Belt but at least it wasn't like this.

Blue skies and cozy temperatures are in the offing for both places. I still think ice-out up there is likely around May 22. Around here? No idea.

This April is breaking records for cruelty

After three hours of snowblowing this is as far as the car got in driveway

 

Grand Marais, Minn., looks relatively normal

They say April is the cruelest month but this has been one for the record books. 

We spent the last three weeks in South Carolina and while we were away the area got three feet of snow and probably eight inches of rain. There are broken trees everywhere. The power was out for three days and that means everything in the fridge and freezer is toast. Fortunately, our propane fireplace that works without electricity prevented our pipes from freezing. This is the third time that fireplace has saved us.

As we came north up Highway 53 spring looked a month behind schedule. We saw our first frozen lake in Spooner, Wis. There was snow under the trees along Minnesota's North Shore to Thunder Bay.

The border was the real line of demarcation. There is still 2-3 feet of snow everywhere. The roads have high snowbanks. It looks just like when we left. The gravel roads are a grisly mess. 

And normal temperatures are nowhere to be seen.

In these days of climate change it may no longer be possible to predict ice-out at Red Lake but by using my formula for the past, I think we're looking at May 22. It might even be record late. To my knowledge, the record is May 26. Sorry, hope I am wrong.

Twenty inches more snow since this

 

It was sunny and warm and there was a crust on the snow nine days ago.

This big fisher found the going easy

It is still snowing! 

We had some sunny, melting, days a week ago and I figured I was in the clear to take the snowblower off the tractor. But first I blew out a 100-yard trail through 36 inches of snow to a stand of birch trees that I could cut for next year's firewood. 

Two days later I was scooping 16 inches of snow just to get the doors to the tractor shed open so I could put the snowblower back on. Now we're getting another six inches today. Enough already!

I now predict there will be snow on the ground, at least in the bush, until the first or second week of May.

I have pulled in all my cameras. It is too hard to keep breaking trail to reach them. I'm also giving up on firewood cutting until May. My guess is that ice-out at Red Lake is going to be late this year, May 15 at least, maybe later. I should still have time to put up wood before heading north to finish our cabin.

Just what we didn't need: more snow

 

Holy cow! We're getting buried here. A storm Tuesday and Wednesday dumped 40 cm or 16 inches of heavy white stuff on us. The snowbanks are getting so high I can't blow the snow over with the snowblower.

The first red fox seen this winter

 

This guy was photographed a couple of days ago, walking atop the snow crust

We had some dandy warm days last week and might have melted a foot of our three feet of snow. Guess what is happening today? Yep, we're expected to get up to a foot of snow. Sheesh!

Snowshoeing atop three feet of snow

 

The things we see out our front window!

Lots and lots...and lots... of snow

Our driveway a couple days ago. More snow falls every day -- about six inches a week.

 We are now at a meter of snow (about three feet) on the ground with more coming every day. That's the case here in Nolalu which is just southwest of Thunder Bay, but it is the same for Red Lake and all of Northwestern Ontario and for Northeastern Ontario as well. By the time March comes to a close we could have four feet on the level. This is actually good news.

It is good because it should thwart an early start to forest fire season. In the past several years forest fires were already on the go by the end of May. The ground should still be soggy from all the snow melt this time around.

Did your ears perk up when you heard the forest fire forecast from the United Nations Climate Report yesterday? Fire danger in Canada is increasing exponentially every decade. If you don't know what exponentially means, it is an increase by a factor of 10.

If you live in Illinois or Kansas or some other wide-open space you may not care about this but there was something in the report for you too: floods and tornadoes are going to keep match with the increase in forest fires up here. So, good luck.

I would like to go on the record for pointing out in advance of this summer that it is oxymoronic to refer to "100-year" or "500-year" storms when they happen every few years now. Just sayin'.

Anyway, the climate forecasters advocated humanity should start taking proactive steps knowing what is coming. Here in the Boreal Forest, that presents a conundrum. Our problem is the Boreal Forest. It's everywhere and large chunks of it now are going to burn all at the same time, not in little mosaic patterns like what has happened for the past thousands of years but in gargantuan swaths, like from Red Lake all the way to Thunder Bay -- hundreds of miles. 

And to all the sage, old foresters who are now getting up out of their Lazyboys ready to wax poetic about how the Boreal Forest has always been renewed by fire, how every part of the forest burns, on average, every 200 years, let me say, "WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE!" There hasn't been this much forest burning at one time since a meteor hit the Earth and killed off the dinosaurs. Cripes! Go back to your reading of Walden for the umpteenth time.

We need solutions that fit the times. One such thing that the report authors noted was what they called native cultural burning, in other words, prescribed burning to remove hazardous fuels like branches and needles and to keep areas open from trees. First Nations were famous for this. It is how they managed all their farming regions from Southern Ontario to Florida without even needing a wheel. It also let them keep the Prairies green and full of bison. They did likewise in alpine areas. But the farming regions, the Prairies and the mountains are not the Boreal Forest. To my knowledge, First Nations didn't purposely burn the Boreal Forest. I can think of two very good reasons why they didn't: 1. they couldn't control those fires in a sea of fuel and 2. the benefits that come from fire like blueberries and better grazing for wild animals could be reaped just from nature's lightning-caused blazes.

Boreal tree species may be renewed by fire but they are also killed by it. They are not like the thick-barked, long-needled trees of the southeastern U.S. or the alpine regions of western Canada. In those places fires along the ground burn up the thick mats of long pine needles and the trees keep growing. In the Boreal, ground fires kill all the trees, even if they didn't go up like Roman candles. 

We do have a few prescribed burns for forestry purposes in Ontario each year but the areas are tiny and are far-removed from towns. The danger of the fires getting away is immense. It just doesn't seem likely we could ever prescribe-burn enough to protect communities. 

A professor from Lakehead University suggested we have 1.5-kilometer clear buffer zones around every town. The cutting of the trees could be done quite quickly with modern timber harvesters but keeping the area open would be practically impossible, probably needing heavy annual spraying of herbicides, something that nobody would tolerate and with good reason.

I think the best answer is to enhance our current fire suppression system that attempts to put out new fires as soon as they happen. We already are using a system that maps every lightning strike in the province and that sends surveillance aircraft to see if those strikes created ignition. If they have started fires then water bombers and fire crews are sent in.  We just need a colossal expansion of that system. As it stands there are times when so many fires are started at once that we can't suppress them all. In drought conditions some of those tiny blazes that aren't hit the first day grow to gargantuan infernos that are impossible to contain.

The most-active animal on our trails

 

We are just coming out of the coldest stretch of weather this winter. We had two nights at -32 C which is about 26 below F. It seems like some animals just hunker down under these conditions, especially if they sense it is only temporary. One species that just keeps moving are the ones in this short video, taken on one of my trails.

What a wonderful day for firewood cutting

Clear skies, lots of sun, not terribly cold and no wind! I'm pulling my toboggan up this trail.

 

This is good as it gets. A heaping toboggan load of standing dry wood all from one tree

Primo white, solid, dry, balsam fir

I hit the jackpot on firewood today. The dead balsam fir I cut down had all the hallmarks of a great firewood tree -- no needles, cracked bark and boy, was it ever. The tree was surrounded closely by other living balsams so I cut it right where it stood, taking off four feet at a time letting the tree slide down vertically.

It made a heaping load in the toboggan -- too heaping, actually. I had to unload it and make two trips. 

This is what great balsam fir firewood looks like. White wood with no green wood spots. That one tree will last us several days. 

Incidentally, this is a carbon-neutral fuel. Had this dead tree fallen down and decomposed it would have released the same carbon as our burning it to heat our home.

Moose in our backyard a rare site

 

Time stamp is incorrect. The hour was actually about 6:30 a.m.

Once upon a time it wasn't unusual to find moose tracks on our 65 acres in Nolalu, Ont. But for the past 20 years there has been almost nothing but whitetail deer. Now I usually find one set of moose tracks in a year.

This cow moose was just passing through a couple days ago. She had followed the ridge behind our place until she came upon one of my trails, then followed it right to our house which is just out of sight in this photo. She then retraced her steps a bit and took a new bearing to the north. I would bet she then turned east again, crossed our road and went into the bush on the other side. Moose are very purposeful in their movements and when they come by here they seem to have some place in mind in the far distance.

This is actually the second moose I captured on a trail camera this fall-winter. The other was a bull who came by in September, also heading east.

 Does seeing two moose in a single year mean they are coming back? Hard to say but I hope so.

May a chubby rodent bring you joy today

 Happy Ground Hog Day!

There's a mystery to good-burning balsam

 

I girdled these trees extensively two years ago. They still are not ready to cut down.

I have tried to solve this enigma for decades and still have no explanation. Why are specific dead balsam fir trees pretty good firewood when all the rest are just worthless?

I know what the trees look like on the stump: vertical, no needles, bark split or missing in patches. When the trees are cut down the wood inside is white, dry as a bone and light in weight. This wood will ignite easily, makes excellent kindling, and burns about as long as birch. It does not produce as much heat as birch but it has the advantage of creating little ash. Birch makes a bunch and it is always loaded with clinkers (charcoal) as well. 

Not every dead balsam passes the grade. If the bark is not split the tree will likely be rotten and wet inside. There can be a good firewood tree standing right next to a poor one. I have been trying to purposely kill some trees to see if I can get a handle on what is going on. Is it the length of time the tree stands dead? 

I girdled trees in two different areas in case location had something to do with it. In one place my girdled trees blew over in the wind well before the needles had fallen off. They are still standing in the other spot but even after two years, there are still needles on them. It looks like it will take at least another two years.

My guess about why firewood that died on the stump is so much better than green balsam cut and dried is that something chemically happens to the tree as it dies. Maybe it stores more sugar. It might also allow the wood to become drier. I just don't know.

The good news, in a way, is that lots of our balsam trees are dying. It is not budworm that is killing them this time (that happens about every 40 years); that's easy to see. The ends of the branches will be denuded of needles. Our trees have all their needles. 

I suspect they are simply dying from the drier and hotter summers we are now getting due to climate change. Birch trees are dying too.

The problem seems to only affect the adult trees. Saplings are still nice and green.

So, we should have a lot of balsam firewood in our future.

It's 'puzzling' why chickadees do this

 

Brenda likes working on jigsaw puzzles on a table in a south-facing window. Outside that window is a lilac bush which serves as bleachers for curious chickadees.

The bush an oasis in 'dog days' of winter

 

Dead, gray balsam in center should be good

A good workout for my body and a respite for my soul in mid-winter is to cut dead balsam trees for firewood. 

I snowshoe around on my trails and peer through the bush for the proper tree. It needs to be vertical with absolutely no needles - not even one ancient red one -- and have bark that is splitting. Frequently the trunk and branches will be covered with Old Man's Beard, a lichen.

As I find candidate trees I will at first mark the place with a piece of flagging tape. Later I will leave the easy-going packed trail to make a new one over to the tree. There I give the tree a closer inspection. I hate to cut down a tree only to find it is partially green inside. If it is, I leave it right there. It will be too heavy for me to drag out with my toboggan and won't be worth anything for firewood either. But if my eye is good, the wood will be sound and light and burn well.

Doc waits for me on the long trail back to the woodshed

It is cumbersome to cut down the tree, then cut it into four-foot lengths while on snowshoes but it is still better than sinking to my hips sometimes in the deep snow. I can drag out most trees in two or three trips, each one taking a half-hour or so. 

Tucked back into the bush the way I am the temperature never seems cold. As long as it is sunny, it feels great to be outside, even if the thermometer reads -20 C (0 F).

The whitetail deer know what I'm doing and come running when they hear the chainsaw. By the time I make my second trip they are standing around the tree munching on the Old Man's Beard. 

Chickadees and nuthatches always investigate the activity as well. Flies and other bugs under the bark can come spilling out on the snow as I work.

No dead balsam here but those birches will be what I'm after come spring

Separating the impossible from the free

 Let's say I'm going to take a road camping trip. I've got all the equipment and the vehicle, just no money. Is that possible? Well, this is Canada and there are lakes filled with fish everywhere. I could just eat fish that I caught myself. Also, depending on the season, there are berries and other vegetation to eat. If it was fall, I could hunt. Sure, I could possibly feed myself on this trip. Since I am an Ontario resident, I could camp on Crown land without charge, but not in parks. So, it wouldn't be as comfortable as staying where there are showers and flush toilets but it is certainly possible, maybe even desirable. 

Now what about fuel? I could fill up the tank with gasoline at home and go about 300 miles (500 kilometers). Then I would be out of gas. That would be the end of the trip. It would be impossible for me to create more gasoline without money.

Now what if my vehicle was electric? Could I possibly recharge it myself without buying electricity? As part of my camping paraphernalia I could have a raft of solar panels. These could be set up to capture the sun's energy and recharge the vehicle. It might take longer than I wanted but eventually the vehicle would be ready to move on and it would cost nothing.

Instead of taking a camping trip, I might decide to take a boat that I can afford and motor across the Atlantic or Pacific and see the sights. I've got a really good outboard on the boat. How much gasoline will I need to take? It turns out any boat in an ordinary person's price range cannot carry all the gas drums it would take to make the voyage, let alone pay for it all. On the other hand I could easily afford a sailboat that would make the voyage for free. 

You can sail on lakes too, of course, as well as paddle or row. It costs nada for fuel.

What else can we do for free instead of buying fuel? We can dry our clothes on a clothesline instead of in a dryer. We can walk to the store instead of taking the car. We could bicycle. You can pedal along quite easily at about 20 mph with a decent bike. 

Other than walking, you do need to buy something to start out but from that point on there is virtually no cost.

 

Let's get going again

 

I'm stuck in writing the next chapter of Yankee, so let's talk about something else for awhile. We're right in the middle of winter and that's a good time to muse about things. I did this on the old blog one other time. See Shadow. 

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Want to reduce your risk from global climate change? Move! That's a joke.

Seriously, if you live in a community with river, falls, island, rapids, canal, creek, beach, bay, cove, point, lake or stream in its name, get out now. Head to higher ground but not to where there are trees or other vegetation that can burn. Don't go near the coasts. Better to stay where you are because the coasts will soon be coming to you.

Things could be worse. You could live in British Columbia. In 2021 that province saw record drought, record precipitation, record high temperatures and record low temperatures. In one mega precipitation event ALL of its highways were wiped out. The good news is...well, actually there isn't any other than they actually have traffic slowly moving again after months of around-the-clock repairs.

If we have learned anything from the fires, floods, tornadoes and hurricanes it is to keep a full tank of gas in your car and don't store valuables in the basement. No one is going to laugh any more if you have your tent, sleeping bags and camping equipment ready to go in the trunk or back of the truck. We need to be ready to move at a moment's notice and to survive for weeks until we can get back to what is left of home and make an insurance claim.

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I would like to report that we have bought our first electric vehicle. I would like to do that but unfortunately, it wouldn't be true. Even if we had the money for one, which we don't, there are none for sale in Thunder Bay and barely any in Canada. I just read a survey that found 70 per cent of Canadians would consider buying an electric vehicle. The carmakers heard our plea and gave us gas vehicles with hands-free driving and really big computer screens on the dash. Pretty much the same thing, they figured. 

It reminds me of the energy crisis in the '70s. The public wanted small, energy-efficient vehicles and the North American automakers gave us little crappy cars that rusted-out in a year and got about a mile more per gallon. Pretty much the same thing. That's when we all turned to Japanese vehicles.

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I've been thinking a lot about Cognitive Dissonance. That's the psychological term when you have two conflicting beliefs in your head. It causes you so much grief that you must choose between them. That choice could be to accept a new belief but it can also be to make absurd rationalizations to keep the old one. It explains why people can make so many ridiculous choices.

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All around Red Lake, including right at our cabin, there are sections of the lake shore that are eroding. No one has a good explanation for this but one possibility is that the shoreline is still reacting to the higher water level created by a dam on the Chukuni River back in the '40s. It resulted in the lake being four feet higher. Whatever the reason, many of us with the problem would like to find a remedy. Plants with long roots would likely hold the soil in place but picking the plant is a bit of sticky wicket. It needs to be fast-growing, have long roots, and (here's the rub) be beaver-proof. 

After spending decades planting every native species of tree only to eventually see them all carted away to the big rodent's lodges, I came up with a new idea and it's one that should fit with the extreme drought and heat we are getting from climate change. Promise you won't laugh now. Cactuses! Or Cacti, if you prefer. I said don't laugh! I would like to see the varmints try to sink their buck teeth into these. For a fact, there are cacti that grow in Northern British Columbia that tolerate winter temperatures of -40. We're going to try a couple but as well we are thinking of planting some prairie grass species, like Little Bluestem. 

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Speaking of the Prairies, shouldn't we be changing Woodland Caribou Provincial Park west of Red Lake to Prairie Dog Wilderness Park? It is perpetually on fire every summer. The Prairies are just to its west and with all the fires that prevent the forest from growing prairie species must be starting to take over.