April 2022

North Shore rivers finally opened after a few warm days last week and blew out the winter ice. On the Knife River the ice shelves were piled six to eight feet high in places and ice pretty much lines many stretches of the river below the Stanley Road and downstream of the Hawk Hill Road. Notice how thick some of the ice slabs are. We’ll have to watch and see how long the ice survives the late April sun and more rising water as the ample snowpack in the woods recedes. Photo courtesy of Forrest Johnson x to eight feet high in places

Driftless Trout My feet were a bit cold in the sleeping bag when I woke up in the early light, an unusual occurrence for an April morning. My son, Everett and I were camped in a deep little valley where cold air tends to pool, and when I emerged from the tent and onto the snowless, but hard frozen landscape, I found my minimum thermometer pinned at ten degrees.

Editor’s note: Yes, the Great March for Community Newspapers still awaits the parachute jump signal from the very reluctant editor and Tony Xzcerlippy of Tony’s Underwater Limousine Service (Lake County Press- -editions 2-5). And yes, in recalling an earlier skydiving incident in which the reluctant editor was stuck flying an old plane that he didn’t know how to fly. It was then that he reached into his pocket and pulled out the Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook to refresh his memory about how to land a plane (page 114). He only briefly got ahead of himself when he jumped to step 9 and the suggestion that if possible he should take a pass over the landing strip to be better prepared for a landing. He was planning to fly low and give the old aviator’s salute to the waiting crowd to prove his competence.