I suppose I should introduce myself since I will be writing some of the posts for this summer. My name is AJ and I'm a staff member here at Clearwater for the next coming months. Currently a senior in college and excited to spend my summer learning business management in the great outdoors!
As I mentioned in the last blog, the weather here has been interesting and wet to say the least. It has rained pretty constantly the last 3 afternoons. Below is a picture of the couple that left for the woods today, they were very excited for a couple days of wilderness adventure, away from civilization. As you can see when the set out this morning, around 10ish, is was nice and sunny, a bit windy but a beautiful day all around. Of course now, when Lynnetter and I are just about to get done with work for the day... its stormy and cloudy and we're not so sure we want to head out for a hike.

I took this picture down to the right off the deck here at the lodge (didn't want to go out and get the camera wet). I was trying to show the rain, not sure it does justice to the storm clouds but nonetheless you can see it is now a dark, dreary day in the north woods. However, on the bright side fish often bite better whens its drizzling!


-AJ

For some reason we are having trouble posting our blog today........

The ice is out and the pump house is up and running.

Kyle, Lynnette and AJ took a paddle to the cliffs on Clearwater lake yesterday and we have great photos, but cannot get them linked to the blog.

This will be short and sweet but we had a request for some more pictures and we're happy to fulfill that request. We have had a productive week, starting to open up and clean out some of the outer cabins, the upstairs lodge and employee housing. As you can see above, sarah was making sure we were all getting out jobs done and guarding the bread we left out for the birds. One new staff has arrived and started helping out along with staff from last year. We're still waiting for the rest of the summer crew to join us for the summer.

One of the spring opening rituals is getting the water on to the 6 summer cabins. Because this is a lake water system and because these water lines are above ground, this cannot be done until the nights are consistently above freezing and the lake ice out. Mike has been hooking up all the cabins and all plumping to the bunkhouses, shower houses and laundry room in anticipation of starting up the pump house.

We have two sources of water. Our lodge and cabin 7, both winterized, are on well water. The lines are buried and heated and there is no threat of freezing water lines.

Our summer cabins (1 through 6) and the rest of the resort are on lake water. This lake water is pumped to the a holding tank in the pump house (between cabins 3 and 4). From there it goes through two macrolite filters and a bag filter into a 1,000 gallon holding tank where chlorine is added. From this large holding tank it is pumped to the cabins and rest of the resort as needed. The macrolite filters removes particles down to the 3 to 5 micron range.

For the lake water, we test the chlorine level and turpidity levels daily. We are always well below the norm on turpidity levels since Clearwater is such a clean lake. In fact, we joke that that the turpidity level is lower before it goes through the filtration process since the lake is so clean. Once a month we send a sample into the state health department to test the water and we have never had any problems or issues. The health depart visits two or three times a summer to check out the whole water system. They check the well water, calibrate our instruments and recheck our pump house levels. Once the lake system is up and running the water is perfectly acceptable to drink anywhere on the resort.

Well, hopefully Mike will be turning on that magic switch today and the tanks will fill and we will have water to the entire place. Of course, it is never that easy and there are breaks in the lines to fix and pressure to test and all the other fun things that go with maintaining a water system. We call Mike the 'Water Man'.......that is on the days we don't call him the 'Septic Man', 'Boat Man', or 'Maintenance Man'.

The snow in my last blog melted by noon so we have been out and about getting things ready for opening the cabins. Hopefully Mike will get the water system on today to the cabins and we will start spring cleaning. The Boats are tied up at the dock and the kids already took a short boat ride down the lake. There is still a little ice to melt on Clearwater, but it will go fast. Smaller Lakes are all ice free.

The temperatures this week will be in the 50's and 60's with lows in the 30's at night.

We have several moose hanging out on Clearwater Road but none of us have had our cameras ready at the right time to get a shot! We have a cow and calf and then we think the bull we have might be Buddy from last year. If it is Buddy, he has grown quite a bit during the year.

Lynn

Just to make sure that was really ice on the lake, Lynnette and Erik took a canoe out on Clearwater today to see if they could break through the ice with aluminum canoe (don't try this with a Kevlar folks). For a short time they were able to paddle in some open areas but then they got up in some ice and had to break it apart. Erik said that is maybe 4 inches of ice as far as they got out. It will go fast if that is all.

The photo of the two of them was taken by Mike Trace and the photo of Lynnette in the front of the canoe was taken by Erik.

I heard on the news last night that only 4 times in the last 63 years has the ice not been out by fishing opener.

The forest service did a fly over to check out all the ice conditions. Here is their information...

ICE STATUS as of 1530, Thursday, May 8, 2008
ICE FREE
Alpine
Banadad
Brant
Crocodile
Cross River to Long Island
Iron
Jap
Little Saganaga
Missing Link
Moon
Ogishkemuncie
Portage
Round
Sawbill
Tucker
Two Island

SOME ICE REMAINING
Alton
Cherokee
East Bearskin
Flour
Frost
Hungry Jack
Kimball
Little Trout
Meeds
Mink
Seagull (especially on western end)
Swan

FROZEN
Bearskin
Birch
Brule
Clearwater
Davis
Duncan
Elbow
Gabimichigami
Gaskin
Gillis
Greenwood
Kemo
Loon
Mayhew
McFarland
Musquash/Misquah
North Fowl
Pine
Poplar
Rose
Saganaga (quite frozen, according to the pilot)
South Fowl
Trout (east of Kimball Lake Campground)
Tuscarora
Winchell
The pilot feels that things will change quickly with the exception of the
eastern side of the Gunflint Trail (Clearwater, Greenwood, Duncan, Pine,
etc).

Information Assistant
Gunflint Ranger District

We have two helpers for the early spring work. Lynnette, who worked for us last summer as our food packer, has come up for several weeks before she goes onto a camp in Montana. Lynnette graduated from college just last week and will spend the summer in Montana and then she joins Americore in the fall and will work with Habitate for Humanity in Seattle, WA.

Kyle Erwin is Mike's nephew and attends Ball State in Indiana. Klye came up to help with the spring start up and will be staying through the first few days of June.

Mike and Kyle drove over to check out the ice situation on East Bearksin today and it seems to be moving out. The photo is of Kyle on the edge of the lake. On Clearwater Road they saw two moose but were not fast enough with the camera to get a photo.

Ice seems to be moving out on the smaller lakes so there will be some fishing on fishing opener!

Lynn

The outfitters and resorts on the Gunflint Trail are putting together a family program this summer called 'Becoming a Boundary Waterss Family'. The program is going to include short courses at some resorts on such topics as outdoor cooking, setting up tents, building fires, paddling and portaging. The program will run from Mid June until Mid July. We (Clearwater Lodge) are going to do weekly canoe paddles for up to 8 people to the cliffs on Clearwater Lake on Wednesdays.

Soon there will be a website up with the scedule and events which I will publish as soon as it is up. If you are visiting the area, it is a great opportunity to introduce the family the BWCA!!

60 degrees again today and we had rain last night.

The forest service sent out this little update this morning.....

Mink: Still froze over but open water near the shoreline
Kimball: Still froze but open water near the boat landing.
Elbow: Froze solid but open spots near shore & the boat landing.
Trout: Road is impassable to the boat landing @ this time. To much
snow/mud on road.
Devils Tract: Still froze, some open pockets near the shore. Is starting to
open up near the Seaplane dock.
Two Island: Still froze but opening up near the boat landing.

I can tell you that Aspen, West Bearskin, Swamp, Poplar, Hungry Jack, Flour and Clearwater still have ice but it is pulling out around the edges. Gunflint Lake has 11 to 15 inches of ice yet. Will it be off the lakes by fishing opener this Saturday? I doubt it will be out on the larger lakes such as Clearwater, Gunflint and Seagull but it MAY be out on the smaller lakes in the next few days. No guarantees.

In the meantime, we are doing our usual spring opening tasks. Mike is hooking up the water lines to the cabins just waiting for the right time to start filling the tank. We are doing the repairs that have to wait to spring. Boats are going to have to wait until we get ice out but the outfitting room is cleaned and ready to go and all the resort vehicles running.

More later when it comes to ice....