It was hard to tell
if there would be enough snow for skiing, but it didn't matter much. We wanted to get away, and we hadn't been to
Bayfield in quite a while.
Layer upon layer of doing the same things, not out of
respect for tradition, but because they continue to be rewarding. As we turn
east on Highway 70 from the freeway, the drive suddenly becomes more
interesting. Winter sun, open fields.
long dip down and across the venerable St. Croix River. Brown signs
directing passers-by to secluded but mosquito-infested campsites along the
river bank. Crex Meadows? Nothing going on there. Siren, Hertel, Spooner.
Finally north on Highway 63. The North Woods commences somewhere north of
there. I never pass through Cable without thinking about the stuffed raven at
the local natural history museum. It's huge.
There is no grand view at Grand View, though there might
have been right after they logged the place a hundred years ago.
Washburn is a jivey town on a Friday afternoon, the streets
in front of the bars already choked with parked cars. They're doing
"Julius Caesar" at the local theater tonight. Will we go? I doubt it.
* * *
But now the Black Box wine is open, and we've cooked up the
pasta with mushrooms and bell peppers on the little stove in our room. The room sits on a hill above the rest of the motel, which gives it an expansive view
of Chequamegon Bay. I see a single set
of lights in the darkness far out on the channel that divides the mainland from
Madeline Island. Either the ferry's still running or it's a propeller-driven
ice buggy—I can't tell which.
Saturday morning, sunny, blue ski everywhere. A little
skiing, but mostly walking, on the Jerry Jolly ski trail. Down to Polk Creek,
still covered in snow, then back to Bayfield for a stroll through town.
We stopped into a coffee
shop just as the man behind the counter, who was wearing an immaculate white T-shirt, was pouring himself
a latte. "Look at this," he said. "Look at this."
I walked over to look at the design in the foam. Nothing extraordinary, but he seemed excited.
"And in my grandma's tin cup!" he enthused.
While I waited for the latte we'd ordered he kept saying "This is so
good! This is so good!" as he paced back and forth behind the counter. His
assistant was working the espresso machine.
When my order finally came up, I said, "I hope this will be as good as yours was."
"Almost," he replied with a grin. "I made mine with
half-and-half. It's like drinking ice cream!"
Having disposed of the coffee and a bacon-and-cheddar scone, we walked down to the pier to look at the broken ice in the
bay. A ferry was visible in the distance and we waited for it to arrive: The Island Queen. The service has been
running all winter, we later learned, though the ice fishermen were also taking
their chances out on the sheet on the north side of the pier.
Our next stop was Apostle Island Books, where we chatted
with the proprietress for quite a while about books, author events, the local fishing industry, and the
challenges facing any small-town independent bookstore.
I was happy to see
two books by friends displayed in the window: Jane St. Anthony's Isabelle Day Refuses to Die of a Broken Heart and
Brett Laidlaw's Trout Caviar. And I hunted down another book of pressing
interest on the shelf, Ann Lewis's Ship Captain's Daughter, which Demaris kindly set out on the display
counter.
By the time we got set to leave, we've been in the store so
long that it seemed heartless not to buy something.
Demaris had been recommending a local publication about ice-fishing disasters
called Lake Superior: Blood on the Ice —in fact, she was holding the thick paperback volume
in her hand. Though it didn't sound too hot to me, Hilary was dead-set on
buying it. And so we did.
Our final stop was to Bodin's fish market, where you can
walk right in and see the workers gutting the day's catch. "Two days ago
our men were out on snowmobiles," the man who took our order said.
"This morning they went out in boats."
We ran into Mike, who owns the motel we're staying in, on
the path that runs between the shipyard and the cliff on the south side of
town. He was wearing short shorts—not uncommon for him when the temperature is
above zero. He's a friendly guy, a good source of local information, and he
likes to talk. "Yeah, in November the lake temperature was still 40
degrees, so they knew the channel could be kept open all winter, and they could
continue to run the ferries. Even if the air temperature was below zero the ice
would still be melting from the bottom up. That changes their whole year,
because they usually lay people off and do repairs in winter."
Mike claims to put in a ninety-five hour week at the motel,
and he admits he's ripe for retirement. I'm sure he was a little disappointed
when his daughter and son-in-law, who were set to take over the place, announced
recently they were moving to central Kansas.
Back in our eyrie above the big lake, we fried up and ate the
fish, and then we settled in to read. The fact that your choices are limited
helps you to concentrate--at least that's the theory. A lot depends on how well you chose your books in the first place.
I soon lost interest in
Umberto Eco's The Aesthetics of Thomas
Aquinas, and had a hard time convincing myself to return to the Icelandic
classic, Independent People, which it
seems I've been reading now for months. I would like to have gotten my hands on
Blood on the Ice, to tell you the
truth, but Hilary was engrossed in that masterpiece of local color. I finally
succeeded in focusing for a few minutes on a book about Orpheus that I'd
grabbed off the shelf on a whim just before we left the house, but it was more
pleasant simply staring out the window at the shifting ice a half mile out on the
lake.
Curiosity fading to indifference, he turned and wandered off into the shadows.
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