The powerful wind and sunshine this week took care of the remaining snow and ice, as we enter the next season. The big part of Saganaga Lake might still have an iceberg floating around, but the visible part of Gunflint and Seagull are wide-open and ready for the types of toys that float.
This winter was unique in that we did not get the dramatically cold temperatures that Minnesota’s northwoods are famous for, which might sound like a good thing to most, but the warmer days caused a lot of problems that I would not have expected. Many of the trees that were pulled over by the wet and heavy snows are still hanging down to the ground and some of them appear to be partially uprooted.
The Greenwood area of the Gunflint Trail is the most noticeably damaged portion, with many trees draped over the phone lines and partially touching the ground. I think that some of them stand a chance of surviving if they are able to spring upright again, but a few are showing broken root systems and will not be able to right themselves.
The damage seems minimal now, and I am learning that our forest is amazingly versatile with an ability to overcome strong winds, forest fires, and heavy snowstorms that
Mother Nature throws at it each year.
Cold snow is lighter and does not stick to the branches like the wet stuff we received this winter, and the trees were not frozen and stiff like they normally would be, instead they were elastic and vulnerable to snow weight causing them to fold over and even break.
Plowing and shoveling wet snow is also much harder than the dry snow that we normally see in the winter months, and can be damaging to the less sturdy cabins that were not built to withstand such heavy weights. I have not seen any damage yet, and hopefully when we get up the lake to see our cabin on the Canadian side of Saganaga, everything is still standing. In the past nine winters of residing on the Gunflint Trail, I have referred to each as a “different year” than normal, and I am finally beginning to realize that there is no such thing as a “normal year.”
Cory Christianson has worked as a fishing guide on the Gunflint Trail since 2000. If you have any fishing or wildlife reports or stories to share, send an email to: christiansoncory@hotmail.com or call 218- 388-0315. You can also visit Cory’s website at Gunflintfishingguide.com.
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