This Week's Top 10 Tidbits from the Shores of Gichigami

Nomadkins dispatch, 6.4.23

Greetings, Friends & Neighbors!

Just a quick check-in to let you know I’m still alive AND full of gratitude for the rare opportunity to serve as a national park volunteer interpreter this summer.

A few random observations/learnings of late are as follows:

1. Half of the world’s fresh water lies in Canada.

2. Half of the world’s biting, stinging black flies live at my campsite.

3. After finding a big, muddy paw print on my outdoor wash station and a pile of stinky scat nearby, bears are a thing. Apparently. Especially at night. In my imagination. When I imagine one ripping into my canvas sleeping tip-out and eating my face.

4. A can of Progresso soup on Minnesota’s “North Coast” costs $4.39 (Campbell’s chicken and rice, here I come!).

5. The summertime North Country weather is delightfully vexing for this North Florida cracker who grew up picking tobacco and loading watermelons in the blazing summer heat. Next, week, for example: highs in the low 60s, lows in the high 40s.

6. Nature abounds. Not long after I arrived, I saw two wolves gallop across the highway. I LOVE wolves. Always have. Ever since I read Barry Lopez’s Of Wolves and Men. In fact, I’d love to tame one—have a pet wolf. But since Canis lupus probably have a built-in taste for succulent moose calf, I doubt I could tempt one with a Purina® Pizza-Flavored Beggin’ Strip.

7. The Grand Portage Community Center heated swimming pool, whirlpool and sauna are Gifts from God on High for this routinely achy 66-year-old body. Dues are a whopping $10 a month.

8. In my next life, I’d like to come back as a card-carrying, genetically valid member of the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa (aka “Ojibwe” or “Anishinaabe”). These folks are hospitable to a fault, gentle, highly intelligent, and most of all, respectfully plugged into each other and into the wonders of the cosmos. Nathan and Ethan, two young co-workers, even treat me like a wise elder. Go figure. For this LWOF (“Lily-White Old Fart”) whose European progenitors kicked the Ojibwe off their sacred land in 1854, it’s a tad disorienting.

9. Karl, a ranger I work with, a 25-year veteran interpreter, once sawed the nose off of a moose and made “moose snout gelatin” out of it. (DO NOT go to this link after eating.)

10. Living small (in a camper I can’t stand up in) brings big challenges, but I’m gradually organizing my life so it’s reasonably comfortable. As a gleeful escapee from the “stuff-centered” trap of American Consumerism, I was recently inspired (validated?) by a line of dialogue from a movie I recently watched, uttered by Lakota Sioux actor dressed in a U.S. Calvary uniform while perched on a buckskin stallion: “To know the difference between what you want and what you need, figure out how much you can put on horse.”

That’s all for now! Grand Portage National Monument is located on tribal land and co-managed by the Anishinaabe people. If you’re interested to learn more, here’s the official story.

Peace & Love,

Mark