International Wolf Center

We took a drive up to Ely, MN and stopped in at the wolf center.  You get to see the wolves through big windows overlooking their outside penned area.  They have four adult wolves that roam the grounds and a few more that are in a separate area.  The ones that are seperated from the pack are in "retirement".  Normally when wolves get old they are no longer welcome in the pack so to keep them safe they put them in a separate area.  They get fed once a week -- a deer or something equally big that they feed off of for the week.  They do get some sort of "snack during the week.  You can pay extra to watch them "feed".

Our boss was coming back to the campground and stopped in the road because a big "dog" was standing in the middle of the road.  It looked just like her German shepherd.  She thought someone lost their dog.  Just as she was getting ready to open her door and call it.  The rest of the pack -- 6 more wolves-- came out of the forest to follow their leader across the road.  They say that one of the biggest wolf packs in the state is in the area by our campground. 

Beaver Action

We had a family of beavers working hard.  They took down a poplar tree that landed in the middle of one of the hiking trails.  Jim sawed it up and threw the branches in the water.  The next morning (about 4am) we went out to see if they had come back for their tree.  Sure enough all six of them were feasting on the leaves and bark of the tree branches.  All they left behind were smooth shiny sticks when they were finished.  So Jim sawed up the trunk of the tree and threw that in the water.  The next morning that was gone.  Not sure if they ate the whole thing or carried off to store it for later.  The Forest Service doesn't like the beavers taking down live trees along the shore of the campground so we have kept quiet about it.  Its too much fun watching them, listening to them chew on wood and swim away with their meal. 

Its been a little hazy here with smoke from the fires in Canada drifting down.  Last summer we ate smoke for awhile in Idaho from all the fires out west.  Seems like we can't get away from fire and smoke in late summer.

Biwabik

Biwabik is a cute little Iron Range town.  They have this nice town square park with a moose statue which is a little different from most town squares but this is moose country.  It is good to see this town surviving through the mining crisis that hit the area until China stepped in and bought most of the mines.    Now a new mining effort is trying to get going to go after precious minerals -not taconite.  Its controversial because its so close to the Boundary Waters but with proper regulation it should be ok.  The Iron Range needs the jobs -- tourism isn't enough for most of these little towns.

We were hit with a notice that our mail service was closing.  The owner of the service gave all of us (3000 customers) four days notice.  Of course your residency depends on this address.  We will still be South Dakotan's with our new address in Sioux Falls but our insurance premiums went up -- health insurance skyrocketed --even though we only "moved" 30 miles.  Now we will have to get new drivers licenses and new licenses for our vehicles because in South Dakota your license shows what county you live in and we are changing counties.  UGH!