Pat Smith Island

This is Pat Smith Island.  Its on the far east side of Namakan Lake.  Its about a 40 minute boat ride from where we are staying.  If you look close in the top photo -- on top of the rock in the center of the picture is a tiny spike sticking up.  This is a spike marking the border between the US and Canada.  The border is north of the island in the middle of the lake so they put the spikes in the nearest land which happens to be this island.  We like fishing in this area because we usually have pretty good luck. 

The island has a campsite on it which means there is a wilderness toilet.  We stop at the island to take advantage of it once in awhile.  The last time we were on the island it was covered in ripe blueberries.  I picked a bunch and ate a bunch.  I wasn't big on blueberries but once I had the wild ones I discovered I really like them. 

We are busy working or fishing -- that seems to be our life right now.  Trying to get in as much fishing as possible because we don't fish in the winter. 

Pelican Love

We've been enjoying some great weather Finally!  Its been a little on the warm side but we aren't complaining.  The water has warmed up to 75 degrees which is pretty good up here.  We've been fishing our hearts out on our days off and doing pretty well.  We enjoyed some walleye dinners and even put some fish in the freezer. 

The resort has been busy but now its starting to slow down a little.  We are getting quite a few RVs in for a few days at a time.  Many of them are going across the northern part of the country visiting national parks.  They come from Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota and stop here to visit Voyageur National Park and then move on to Isle Royal and the Apostle Islands.   Most of them sign up for the boat tours of the lake that the Park Service offers.  The tours are very popular and  sell out.  Luckily there are some private boat tours available that are almost better because they stop at more places.   We still have a few things around the lake that we haven't seen -- we've been too busy fishing!

Showy Pink Lady Slippers

The Minnesota state flower is this lovely pink lady slipper.  They are hard to find in the wild.  These were growing in a flower box in the front of the little general store and gas station at the turn off from highway 53 to Lake Kabetogama.  I've only seen one in the wild once over on Gunflint Lake on the Gunflint Trail out of Grand Marais.  We have seen the little yellow lady slippers growing in the wild up here but they don't compare to the showy pink ones. 

We just had two busy weeks with the resort full.  Most of the guests were a group of Mennonites from Indiana.  They were part of the Newmar corporation.  This is the Mennonite owned company that makes Newmar motorhomes -- very high end RV's.   Half of them had Newmar motorhomes and half stayed in cabins.  They decided that they needed one more boat so everyone could fish comfortably so they just went to the local boat dealer and bought one.    We never saw a group that loved junk food as much as they did.  They took bags full of every kind of candy, chips and other sugary treats out on their boats.  The women did tons of laundry (at 6.50 per wash and dry) and they used every towel in the cabins every day so we were doing tons of laundry as well.   They were very nice but they kept us hopping so we were glad to see them leave.

My Strawberry Moon

The night of the "strawberry moon" I got this shot of the sunset setting the clouds below the moon on fire.  Actually we haven't  seen much of the moon or blue sky for that matter.  Its been raining off and on all month.  I got this picture of the rain headed toward us from across the lake.  We don't remember being in this much rain before up here in the past.  We get rain coming up from the Dakotas as well as coming down from the northwest out of Canada.  It doesn't seem fair to get it from two different directions.  Needless to say we haven't gotten in much fishing.

The EPA paid the resort a visit.  Up on the cliffside where we are parked the owner was clearing trees, etc. to make room for more campground.  Well its a bluff overlooking the lake on the border of a national park so the EPA got very excited about the storm water runoff from the cleared area.  They made the owner stabilize the whole area by planting grass and putting more barriers down to try to stop the water runoff.  It didn't really stop the runoff because it rained so hard the other day that it was like a waterfall with rapids running down the cliffside from all directions.    Of course one cabin owner at the bottom isn't happy with water collecting in his garage.

Fried Walleye

We got out fishing and Jim managed to catch all the fish.  He caught a nice sauger and a keeper walleye.  The sauger has spots on its dorsal fin and no white spot on the tail.  Walleye have the white spot on the tail.  There is a hybrid called a saugeye but if it has the white spot it will be considered a walleye.  This makes a difference when you can only keep 4 walleye and 2 sauger but you could keep 6 sauger.    Most of the state has a 6 walleye limit but here on these border lakes the limit is 4.  It doesn't matter to us because 2 fish were more than enough for a nice fried fish dinner.  Normally, we put them on the grill in some foil with butter and salt and pepper but we had a yen for fried.  It was delicious.

It doesn't seem to want to quit raining up here.  Rain and wind and mostly cool weather have been the norm but now its getting very humid so it feels very warm.  We don't mind the heat so much but it makes cleaning more difficult when the toilets start to sweat.  At least the mosquitos haven't been too bad yet!

Pretty Feathered Friends

We were out on the lake fishing and got to gawk at some cool birds.  It was really neat to watch the pair of eagles.  They were busy fishing along with us.   They just sit up in the tree and look down in the water.  As soon as a fish gets too close to the surface they just swoop down and grab it out of the water.  These two will squawk at you if you catch something.  They expect you to give up your catch to them.   We didn't catch a fish close to them so we didn't get to hear them beg for our fish.

This Merganser just had all of these little ducklings.  They were less than a week old and so cute stuffed underneath her.  The biggest duckling rested a little apart from the group.  He didn't need to snuggle up as close as the rest for warmth and protection because of his size.   Mother merganser went to the water and the ducklings just followed right behind.  It was amazing to watch the littlest ones go in last but take off like a shot once they were in the water.   

Baby Ducks

Oh so cute baby ducks on the move with mom.  These poor little ducks were headed toward the water but faced a barrier of bricks.  It was amazing watching these little guys jump up and over the bricks.  They all made it even the littlest one.  Mom then guided them to the edge of the dock and jumped down into the water.  It was over a two foot jump down to the water but the baby ducks all followed her and jumped in the water.  I don't know if human children would be brave enough to make a jump like that to follow mom. 

Its been raining off and on for a week and it doesn't look like its going to stop any time soon.  Hopefully we will get out fishing again but its not looking good.