Stevie Wonder sang about it and he could not have been further from the truth—at least for this summer. July was cold, wet, and windy and now we are seeing some hot and miserably humid days in the last week of September. It is still better than the sleet and rain we are used to seeing this time of the year, but not by much.
The grouse reports have been as expected. Very few birds being seen and the mosquitos are claiming more victims than the hunters! My father-in-law, Bart, has bagged a few already this season but even he could not stand to hunt much last weekend with the high humidity and nasty bugs pestering him at all of his favorite hot spots.
My wife has even been wishing it was winter, and I never thought I would hear those words come out of her mouth, at least since we stopped migrating to Key West for the cold season. I miss winter too, but there are still a lot of projects to finish before summer comes to an end. I not only need to cut and stack firewood for winter but I still have to build a shed to store it in!
Everything takes more time than you want it to, but I am told that you have a lot more appreciation for things when you do them yourself. It has been exciting to see our house become a home, especially when our friends and family have been so generous with their efforts to help make it happen. If it were not for Nace Hageman’s help last winter, I think I would still be hanging drywall today. And it would not look near as good as it does. Thanks again, Nace!
Part of the attraction of living on the Gunflint Trail is the willingness to help out a neighbor. You do not see this same generosity everywhere, especially in “Key Weird” Florida.
Don’t get me wrong, I miss guiding for sailfish and tarpon very much. But you feel very homesick when you get the evil eye from your next door neighbor because you were forced to park in front of their house instead of your own. Because they might have to walk an extra twenty feet to the front door, you will not be getting any Christmas cookies from them! I think that part of the problem is because neighbors in most places are actually “next door.” Our closest neighbor is about a mile away and we get along great.
Things are starting to dry out up here on the Trail and the roads are awfully dusty. The fire danger is quickly sliding from moderate to high, especially if we do not start to see some precipitation in the near future.
We have been enjoying some fantastic campfires lately, but remember to be careful and make sure you extinguish them properly. Theclear starry nights have been cooling off with some signs of overnight precipitation, but it is still getting very dry around here.
Cory Christianson, a 2000
graduate of the University of
Iowa, has worked as a fishing
guide on the Gunflint Trail for
nine years. If you have any fishing
reports or stories to share,
send an email to: christiansoncory@
hotmail.com or call 218-
388-0315.
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