The first ever live broadcast of the birth of a wild black bear cub is being broadcast on the web. The North American Bear Center (http://www.bear.org/) near Ely has placed a special live camera in Lily the Black Bear’s den to record this event. Click here for the Black Bear Cam. I just got off…
People often ask me what dogsled guides do on our days off. I tell them that our days off tend to look a lot like our days on. For example, I had this week off from guiding to celebrate a late Christmas with my parents who visited from Iowa. What did I find myself doing…
With low temps around 30 degrees below zero, we cracked open some hand and foot warmers for the dogsledding trip this week. I just finished guiding a trip with a nice family from near New York City. It turns out one of them worked as a hand and foot model. She really appreciated the hand…
The dogsled camping group this week is game for just about anything. I really like their eagerness to try new things. Today the whole group joined in to build a traditional snow shelter called a quinzee. The above photo shows our finished product. A quinzee is made by hollowing out a pile of settled snow.…
My first dogsled camping trip of the season launched this week. It is four days and three nights on trail. This morning around the campfire Jen (a guest from Minneapolis) peaks into the breakfast pot and says: “Hhmm. That looks delicious. Uh, this may sound awful, but when I first saw thatI thought it was…
Before restrictions on motors in the BWCAW, land-based motorized vehicles made their way into some remote places. For example, this old International Harvester bus transported passengers across the Four Mile Portage between Fall Lake and Hoist Bay on Basswood Lake. The passengers would be either starting a canoe trip or going to one of the…
This frisky Pine Marten is hanging around the cabin, eating birdseed from the feeders and chasing wildlife. I photographed him today. Recently I watched him chase a Red Squirrel up a spruce tree, and then give up on the chase to await an easier ambush. Then I spotted him bounding through the fresh snow after…
Most folks had their motorboats winterized by the end of October. Virtually all other boats were tucked away by mid-November. But, this photo shows how one motorboater can lay claim to the title of last boater on Shagawa Lake in 2009. To say the least, it’s unusual to be boating on an ice-covered lake. But…
Tomorrow Chris and Lisa start driving north. The accompanying photos show the sparkling new 14′ sledge which they will christen once arriving in Inuvik. Why do they do this, and why is this expedition unique? This is nothing less than an epic journey. Chris and Lisa will face the extremes of adversity: bone-chilling cold of…
Note: This is part one in a series about Chris and Lisa’s Northwest Passage Dogsled Expedition. Chris Maher, of Ely, and Lisa Strom, from Sweden, are making final preparations for an epic dogsled expedition of the Northwest Passage – from Inuvik (near the north end of the Northwest Territories of Canada) to Churchill, Manitoba. Chris…