We have spent the last seven days at the cabin. It has been refreshing and very enjoyable. We see the occasional boat and personal watercraft drive through in the distance. It has been a time for relaxing on the deck and watching nature evolve. We can see the damage wrought by the flood early this year and the coming back to life of grass and shore shrubs in flooded areas.
The moss has never been more fluorescent green and soft. Mushrooms of all shapes and colors have ballooned across the island. We don’t know which are safe to eat.
As we sit on the deck, we watch three large spiders create webs in wide open spaces. One has a string that reaches almost three meters across and then attaches parts of that string which runs over one meter in the air to the ground. Up and down that spider climbs and then begins circling the area adding more circling strings around a centre strand. Another not quite as ambitious only has a string over one meter in length. Wind causes both webs to vibrate.
Over one night both webs appeared to have been destroyed by something. And both spiders began the rebuild the next morning just as cabin owners have begun the rebuilding process of docks, saunas and decks that were torn apart by high winds and wave action during the flood.
Thursday, we decided to try our luck at bass fishing. We passed one of the eventual winners of the Ifalls bass tournament working an area that produces large bass. After an unsuccessful hour, we moved to an area near the Canadian Channel and watched a half dozen boats try various locations on Sandpoint Island. Our luck did not improve, but as we headed home, I travelled along a shelf that dropped into deep water. The screen began filling with fish in over thirty feet of water and stretched for almost two kilometers. It caught our attention, and we made plans to fish it the next day.
Around our cabin we seldom find any walleye of any size and almost all are returned to the lake. But Friday, almost instantly at this new location, we began catching the elusive fish. We kept six but returned that many back to the lake to grow up or spawn next year.
We have watched a loon raise her young chick from being just a rider on her mother’s back to now being able to dive and catch her own food. We put our fish guts out on a point that we can watch and a pair of eagles and a juvenile arrived and cleaned up the mess. The older pair held off other birds until the juvenile had the first choice. The three bald eagles surrendered their position when what we believe is a golden eagle showed up and began eating.
Diamond sparkling lights fill the night sky. There are no community sounds, and we only hear the wind rustling through the trees and waves lapping at the shore. It is much more peaceful.
Former publisher
Fort Frances TImes
