After 111+ miles, 14 hours on trail, and temps dipping to almost 30 below, Eva Kolodji finished the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon today! She is now the youngest woman ever to have successfully completed the race. Full race results are at http://www.beargrease.com/. A really nice article with Eva’s story is in the Duluth News…
Our favorite dog sled racer, Eva Kolodji, made history today. At 17 years, she is the youngest woman ever to attempt the grueling John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon. She launched her team of 8 Alaskan sled dogs at about 1:30 PM in front of a packed grandstand of cheering wellwishers. Eva started running dogs five…
I spent today helping arctic explorer Will Steger fill his ice house with lake ice. His homestead is off the grid, on the edge of the BWCA. A whole crew of folks assembled to help cut, buck and stack these clear, over-sized ice cubes. We used a team of horses pulling a sleigh to haul…
These Paper Birch seeds fell from the catkins on the tree shown in the Jan. 17 post. The seeds gathered on the snow beneath the tree. Then, a slight breeze swept some of them into animal tracks, making it look like someone painted animal tracks in the snow. They’re possibly snowshow hare tracks. This is…
These are a couple of the massive snow-filled plywood forms sitting in Whiteside Park in Ely. Once the snow settles, the forms are removed and the resulting snow cube is the blank slate for snow carvers. The Ely Winter Festival begins on February 6. The Festival highlight is the International Snow Carver’s Symposium. The snow…
None of the Wintergreen guides have TV. Wintergreen Dogsled Lodge doesn’t have TV. None of the Boundary Waters Guide Service guides have TV. So where do you go when you feel compelled to be part of a historic event being broadcast on TV? The local watering hole. The nice folks at the Boathouse Brewpub in…
After all of the 40 below weather recently, it felt mighty balmy when temps reached into the 20s ABOVE zero today! I stripped down to my T-shirt during the trip this afternoon. We are on a small bay off of White Iron Lake near Ely, MN, in this photo.
Paper Birch trees are starting to release their winter seeds. The catkin in focus has some of the winged seeds just barely hanging on. These shorter (about 1 1/2 inches) female catkins were pollinated last spring. The seeds have developed over the last seven months. Now they take flight on the wind. We are seeing…
A great quote from one of our dog sledding participants today: “Who knew you could have so much fun at 20 below?! “ Above is Mo on trail cooling down with a face full of snow.
Tim, from Kentucky, is on a dogsled trip this week. He helped with feeding and caring for the dogs this morning, during the coldest part of the day. It took less than 15 minutes for his eyebrows and eyelashes to freeze up in temps south (not South Beach warm ‘south,’ but lower down on the…