Grand Marais at Night

Grand Marais, MN (Aug 19, 2016)

Grand Marais is a small center on the shores of Lake Superior, on the Minnesota side. Until the 1920s it could only be reached via boat through the lake. That made the town an important port in the area, thanks to the double bays that offered shelter from the severe storms that hits the area in winter.

Walking at sunset

The original name of the place, the Ojibwe Gichi-Biitoobiig, meant "double water", in reference to these two coves separated by a thin promontory protruding into the lake. A long walkway connects the two harbors, sneaking on the red rock all the way to the lighthouse at the end of the west side cove. A second lighthouse protects the cove from the opposite side. The promontory is now reinforced with a concrete drywall, to protect the fishing port that you can see in the panorama below. A placid mirror of still water bathed in the pink hues of the sunset. The walkway is traced right on top of the seawall, and in some points is just a foot wide. That was not enough for Kero, with his ingrained dislike of water. He panicked and stopped midway, refusing to set one paw more in what he considered a watery trap for his samoyeds instinct. I cannot fault him for that: in the natural environment of samoyeds (Siberian tundra), falling from the ice into liquid water would be a death sentence... So we had to turn back, but not before taking a couple of shots of other tourists walking on the ruby red rocks, or of the lighthouses in the fast approaching darkness.

Grand Marais is not isolated anymore and is now easily reachable driving along the scenic route 61, an hour past the Split Rock Lighthouse. It is a small and livable town, with many excellent restaurants and pubs. We had dinner  at the Harbor House Grille, with Kero that was allowed to stay with us on the nice patio. We got a local fresh fish, that turned out to be just perfect. Well worth the visit.

Grand Marais, MN (Aug 19, 2016)

The Split Rock Lighthouse State Park

Split Rock Lighthouse, MN (Aug 19, 2016)

On November 27, 1905, a storm system moved through the Great basin, bringing fresh easterly winds to the Great Lake region. By early morning the next day the winds had reached 68 miles per hour in the harbor of Duluth, Minnesota, on the shores of Lake Superior. It became known as the Mataafa storm, after one of the 29 ships that sank that day. During the storm the water of the lake on the North Shore were raised by almost three feet above normal, and heavy ice and snow covered the region. The temperature were so low that one of the body of the unfortunate sailors from the Maatafa wreck had to be chopped out of solid ice from the bay to be given a proper burial.

Split Rock Lighthouse Park

The portion of the Lake Superior shore where the wrecks occurred was named as the most dangerous coast of the whole Great Lakes region. To prevent a similar tragedy to repeat in future storms, the Pittsburg Shipping Company, owner of many of the lost vessels, lobbied the government to provide some protection in the form of a lighthouse. The Split Rock Lighthouse was built, on a 140-feet rock cliff overlooking Beaver Bay, not far from the site of another shipwrec from that fatal storm, that of the Madeira shooner-barge. With its octagonal shape, steel-frames brick building, it is the most picturesque lighthouse on the Great Lakes. When it was built there were no roads along the North Shore of Lake Superior, and all construction materials had to be supplied by water, and lifted on the cliffs with a crane. Its dramatic location made it a popular touristic attraction for sailors and excursion boats, and in 1924 a road was built from Duluth to allow land access. This was the beginning of Route 61 now connecting all the previously isolated towns on the North Shore, all the way to Grand Marais. Now retired, the lighthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1969, and designated as National Historic Landmark in 2011.

View from Corundum Point

Since 1945 the lighthouse is part of the Split Rock Lighthouse State park, managed by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. We visited the park on our free day during our summer trip to the North Shore. The park is beautifully maintained, with many trails on land, and even a kayak and canoe route along the lake shore. We spent the whole day walking around the park, with Kero leading the way from one pebbly beach to the next (see for example the panorama below). The park has several camping grounds easily accessible from the road; something to consider for the next time we will visit (assuming that Kero would be up for camping... we never tried staying overnight in a tent with him that and I am not sure he would be relaxed enough to actually let us sleep). Before turning back to the cabin we rented, we climbed up a trail leading to Corundum Point, a rocky outcrop raising from the lake with an excellent view on both sides of the shore (little photo above on the right). The point claims its name for the belief that the outcrop was rich of corundum mineral (Al2O3, the same gem as emerald). A crushing house was built high on the lake shore to process the mineral, that however turned out to just be a hard rock, and not the precious gem. One can still see the foundation of the mining buildings along the steep (and sometimes almost lost in the vegetation) trail.

After a quick lunch with some cheese I "smuggled" from Italy, we went back to the car, for a quick stop on the cabin we rented near Lutsen, before heading north to Grand Marais for dinner.

Split Rock Lighthouse Park, MN (Aug 19, 2016)

The Belt of Venus in the Iron Range

Lutsen, Lake Superior, MN (Aug 18, 2016)

One week ago we drove up all the way to the Minnesota shore of Lake Superior, to spend a couple of days bracing for the beginning of the new semester. After loading Kero and a few supplies in the car we headed to Lutsen, where we found a last minute vacancy in a "Sea Villas" resort on the lake shore.

Belt of Venus

The cabins were very nice, and also quite dog friendly, meaning that Kero got to enjoy the view and had a chance of barking his head off to the waves, when we explored the rocky beach just in front of the porch. The view was indeed nice: all the photos in this post were taken from the grass in front of the porch, just as the sun was setting, and the moon rising on the placid waters of the lake. Do you see the banded sky in all the photos of this post? The blue, then pink, then sunset-colored sky? It is called "belt of Venus", and it is seen in clear skies opposite to the direction of the setting sun. The pink color is due to the light of the sunset scattered back by the fine dust particles high in the Earth's atmosphere. The dark blue zone that separates the pink from the horizon is instead the shadow of Earth projecting in the sky. The red rocks on the shore are not of that color because of the sunset: they are really that red, due to the high content of iron in the mineral in the area. After all, this is part of the Minnesota Iron Range.

You can see some of the cabins in the panorama below. We stayed there two nights, in between two days of driving (Lutsen is a 7.5 hours drive from Ames), with the middle day spent hiking along the lake shore, and having a nice dinner in Gran Marais (but this are stories for the next posts).

Lutsen, Lake Superior, MN (Aug 18, 2016)

Who Comes Before the Companies

Soudan Underground Laboratory, Minnesota (Jun 7, 2004)

Mayli's uncle is a successful businessman. He had always been interested into what Mayli does, but never had the chance to understand the details of her research. A few years ago, however, he happened to be in Minnesota, where one of Mayli's experiments is located, and she invited him for a tour of the lab. The MINOS experiment consists of a huge detector capturing neutrinos coming from Fermilab, 450 miles away. The detector is at the bottom of an iron mine seven hundred meters below the surface, where the detector is shielded by dense layers of rocks from cosmic rays and other natural radiation. As they were driving to the lab, Mayli's uncle had a pressing question: always seeking new investment opportunities he wanted to know which companies had built the experiment. He was puzzled by Mayli's answer, that there were, in fact, no companies: the whole thing was designed and custom-built by a large collaboration of physicists and engineers. When they finally entered the huge cavern where the 5,400 ton detector stands, like a giant ship in a bottle, he widened his eyes and said: "I understand now how it works, you guys come before the companies"!

The Soudan Mine shaft

I get asked similar questions all the time. Not because the people I met in the street want to know where to invest their money, but rather because of the diffuse perception that taxpayer money spent on science is a luxury that we cannot afford in a difficult budgetary environment. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It is precisely in perilous and uncertain times that we need science to challenge our thinking, and push the boundaries of the possible. 

Take NASA, the much maligned "government-bloated, pork-driven agency", a billions-dollar sink of hard earned taxpayer money. Well, the annual NASA budget is just 0.5% of the total US federal budget, far less than other government expenditures such as military expenses. Contrary to the public perception, this money is not burned in rocket fuel, but invested in technological development, supporting a high-tech industry ecosystem that would have never existed without the challenges of space travel. The CCD detector in your digital camera was not invented at NASA, but the cameraphone you would be carrying around if it wasn't for a miniaturization program sponsored by NASA would not fit in our pocket, or in your car, for that matter. The need for producing ever lighter and smaller devices that could be fit into a rocket spurred the whole industry of integrated miniaturized electronics, an industry that is now worth $150 billions/year. The whole cost of sending human to the Moon was less than $100 billion over the entire Apollo program. And this is just an example. The real yield of NASA, and scientific research in general, is the training and inspiration of the technological backbone of our society, without which the postwar economic boom would have not existed.

Physics experiments, and the same can be said of other fields of scientific enquiry, are designed to constantly extend our horizon. You want to measure the next digit, trying to find the subtle flaw in your current pet theory, find the crack in our view of the Universe so that new worlds and new ideas can progress our understanding of Nature. It ain't easy and requires technological innovations that are well beyond the standards of industry. When you design your next experiment, you don't refer to the available technology: you bet on the future technology that will develop ten years from now. Science is the pathfinder of progress, experimenting new techniques, seeking new solutions beyond what is currently possible. Most of these experiments will inevitably fail, but the hallmark of research is being capable of learning from these failures, so that the one-in-a-million success will have the chance of revolutionizing the world.

Pure science may appear to be concerned with phenomena far removed with everyday life. Still it pushes the envelope of today's technology, setting the stage for the companies of tomorrow and the development of our future.

Soudan Mine, Minnesota (June 6, 2013)

Out of Wood

St. Paul, MN (Jul 31, 2013)

St. Paul in Minnesota has a power plant smack at the center of the city. You would think they are crazy, right? Well no, the plant is actually there to reduce, rather than increase, urban pollution, saving energy in the process. The plant is powered by biomass. Basically organic trash, mostly wood chips obtained by disposing dead trees and branches. This is carbon that would be released anyway as CO2 into the atmosphere as the wood decomposes, so burning it is actually carbon-neutral. The best part of the story, however, is that this is a cogeneration plant. A typical power plant wastes up to 60% of the energy produced as waste heat. Cogeneration plants use the waste energy to heat the buildings nearby (district heating), pushing in this way the efficiency above 80%. That saves a lot of energy in winter (it is cold in Minnesota), and cleans the air because one central plant is much more efficient than many smaller burners for each individual building.

Gotcha!

But it gets even better: power plants need to be kept running all the time to maintain their peak efficiency, even though at night the need for energy is lower. The St. Paul plant uses this excess energy to chill large amount of water, that is then used to cool in summer the same buildings that are heated in winter (district cooling). All this is not really new: a cogeneration (gas powered) district heating plant has been operating in my hometown for at least 30 years, heating the houses of half million people (half of the total city population). My university also has a cogeneration plant since 1891 (yes XIX century, that's not a typo) that heats and cools the whole campus (and provides it with electricity). But for some reasons I never thought to take a picture of the ugly cogeneration gas plant in Torino, or the even uglier coal cogeneration plant at Iowa State, so here it is, the one in St. Paul. Plus it gives me an excuse to show the St. Paul panorama at the bottom (taken from the Guthrie Theatre terrace), and the photo on the left, showing my sister and one of my nieces. The photo is in punishment because she (my little niece Letizia) is making a point in hiding when I try to take a picture of her, but I was sneaky and fast, and I got her just fine!

From the Guthrie Theatre balcony (Aug 2, 2013)

On the two sides of the Glass

Minnesota Zoo (July 29, 2013)

No, I wasn't going to be eaten. This big guy here was behind a thick glass. The plumes of steam emerging from the ground were not actual geysers from the siberian pacific coast. What the heck, we all were at the Minnesota Zoo. Well, I always had an ambivalent attitude towards zoo. I don't think wild animals that need a large natural range should be in enclosed artificial spaces. I remember, when I was a kid, there was a zoo in my hometown Torino. It was quite sad, with large cats (I am talking about lions and tigers) pacing back and forth inside concrete cells with iron bars. Alienation. In the end the zoo was closed. That zoo certainly deserved to be closed, but did the animals got better off by the zoo closing? Maybe some of them got to be transferred, but for many of them that couldn't be moved the closure of their prison meant a death sentence. Great, uh?

Leopard!

On the other hand, the kind of zoo that was in my city would be unheard of today. Modern zoos have exhibit spaces that are designed to mimic as close as possible the natural environment where the animals were living (I could have fooled you with the photo above, right?). Zoo's animals are never caught in the wild, but are either born in other zoos or rescued animals that would have died if left in the wild. Zoo's animal generally have a longer lifespan than their wild brethren, because of veterinary care, absence of predators, reliable source of food. Modern zoos focus on conservancy, and help preserving endangered species with breeding programs aimed to maintain a viable population within zoos and in the wild. Closing all zoos and freeing their animals won't do any good to their long term survival, if their wild environment keeps being destroyed, as it is the case for many species that are typically found in zoos. It is however a thin line: after all zoos need money to survive, and for that they need visitors, which means entertaining exposition, and that may conflict with the needs of the animals being exposed. There is a tension between conservancy and entertainment. So, zoos are not the same as the circus that was in my old city, and they absolve an important mission. Still, it would be nice that there wasn't the need of keeping a big spotted cat behind a glass wall, where even with the best intentions she will never be the cat she was intended to be.

The road back home

Big Sandy Lake, Minnesota (June 8, 2013)

Yesterday we drove back home. Rather than driving back to Duluth, and then Minneapolis to Ames on highway 35 (fast but boring), we took route 169 past Hibing, and them route 65 to Minneapolis. Route 65 is a nice two lanes highway crossing through open countryside bordering the meandering Mississippi river on one side, the usual sequence of lakes on the other.

Highway 35, Iowa

As it was getting warmer driving south, we looked for a stop along the river for Mayli to change into lighter clothes, driving on a narrow dirt road to a public access to the water. The fact that there was grass and dandelion flowers growing in the middle of the "road" should have given us a clue about how much this access road was in use. We did get at the river shore, but could not really stop there for even a minute: as soon as we opened the door of the car a thick swarm of mosquitoes charged to the assault, forcing us to a very rapid retreat, window and car roof still open to try to blow off the dozens of mosquitos that entered the car. I managed to briefly see the river, though, with its slow water the color of chocolate. We had then better luck with our next stop, at a large camping ground on the shores of the Big Sandy lake (photo above). The current lake is an artificial basin, created in 1859 by building a dam on the Sandy river. It originally had a lock, used to allow navigation to and from the Mississippi. In 1850 Sandy lake was the site of the death of hundreds of native americans of the Ojibwe tribe (the Sandy lake tragedy). Officials of the Minnesota territory sought to relocate the tribe from Wisconsin to territories west of Mississippi. To achieve this goal they delayed the payment of the annuity to the tribe, and moved it to a remote outpost in Sandy lake. This triggered a series of events that resulted in the death, by starvation, disease and freezing, of 12% of the tribe, mostly men. The tragedy spurred the resistance of the Ojibwe to the forced relocation, ultimately leading to the creation of a reservation in their traditional territory. A historical marker on the rest area along route 65 memorialize the event. We then restarted our drive, arriving in Ames when it was dark, and raining.

Dry Lake

Dry Lake, Minnesota (Jun 7, 2013)

On Friday the weather was good enough to go for another hike. I decided to go back to the Bass lake hiking trail, this time taking the shorter loop around the Dry and Little Dry lakes. These two lakes are of course not really dry, but they have an interesting story. At the beginning of the XX century, these two lakes were still part of Bass Lake, which was twice as large as today. At that time, logging started in the area, which led to the construction of a sluice way on a ridge separating the lake from the lower Low lake. In 1925 seepage collapsed the sluiceway, creating a gorge and emptying Bass lake lowering its level by 50 feet in 10 hours. In the process two smaller body of water (the Dry and Little Dry lakes) became separated by the remnant of Bass lake. Local newspapers wrote about the unpredicted event as a natural marvel (rather than the consequence of human activity). The hike as pleasant, with several scenic overlook on rocky outcrops on the lake shore, one of which slopes gently in Dry lake, and provided a bathing opportunity for Kero. The shore of the Little Dry lake is flatter, and quite rich in mosquitos, so we didn't linger there for very long.

Soudan Mine

Soudan Mine, Minnesota (Jun 6, 2013)

The crusher, Soudan Mine

The photo above shows the site of the Soudan Underground Mine. This was the oldest iron mine in Minnesota, opened from 1882 to 1962. In 1965 the mine was donated to the State of Minnesota to use for educational purpose and can be visited, down to the lowest level (the 27th, 2341 ft below ground) as part of a historical tour. To take advantage of the low cosmic-rays background, the mine is also the site of the Soudan Underground Laboratory, a high energy physics lab hosting the MINOS and CDMS experiments. While CDMS is a dark matter experiment, MINOS is designed to measure the parameters of neutrino oscillations, the phenomena according to which neutrinos change their "flavor" as they travel. This oscillations are a consequence of neutrinos having a non-zero mass, which is something not predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics. Studying neutrino oscillations is thus a way of studying physics beyond our current working model. MINOS is one of the experiments in which Mayli is working, which is why we went at the mine site on Thursday as part of her collaboration meeting "tour". Mayli and I didn't go underground (we had been there in other occasions), but I never had time before to explore the mining equipment on the surface, including the "crusher" (inset photo on the left) used to literally crush the iron ore once it was hauled to the surface. The bit towering structure in the top photo is the surviving mine shaft, which is still used to lower the elevator cage all the way down, to access the lab and the mine level still open for the public tour.

Wanless Road

Kawishiwi River, Minnesota (Jun 5, 2013)

Yesterday Kero and I went for another road trip. The idea was to drive all the way to Lake Superior (to Grand Marais), then take the Gunflint Trail north to Trails End on Sea Gull lake. The only problem with that was that I seriously underestimated the excess army time for the drive, and when I arrived at Grand Marais after following route 1 (always nice) and the costal road (route 61, boring and trafficked) I was sick of driving. Reaching the end of the Gunflint trail would have required another couple of hours at least, so I figured that by the time I was back to Grand Marais I would have been way too tired to get back along the faster, more trafficked, and more boring coastal road. 

A bald eagle on Kawishiwi River

I needed a backup plan. That came in the form of the forest roads 170 and 172 (the Wanless road). From Grand Marais one can take the Gunflint Trail for just a few miles (confirming, btw, that the Gunflint Trial seems indeed a nice place for a scenic road trip), and the aptly named Devil Track Road just after crossing the Little Devil Track river. That's where the Grand Marais airport (airstrip?) is. Then take the route 27 to the Two Island lake campsite, where you will cross route 170. We are talking gravel roads, here. Route 170 goes all the way through the forest, crossing many rivers and lakes. All other cross roads are smaller forest roads, so it is difficult to get lost (yeah, no signal here for your GPS Internet based maps). The only tricky part is near Wanless, where you leave route 170 to briefly take route 7 North (Windy lake road) turning left after just a few miles to finally turn right on route 172 (Wanless Road) that after 40 miles or so connects back to route 1. Overall the whole trip took about 7 hours, at least half of which Kero did with his head stuck out of the window, basking in the wind and the drizzling rain that accompanied us for most of the trip.

Bass Lake Trail

Bass lake, Minnesota (Jun 4, 2013)

On Tuesday we (Kero and I) went for a hike. The Bass lake trail loops around four lakes (Bass lake proper, Low lake, Dry lake and Little Dry lake) off the Echo trail, just a few miles from Ely. It crosses an forested hilly area, with several scenic overlooks on the lakes. In between the Bass and the Low lake it passes on a narrow land bridge where a beaver created a pool by damming built the river connecting the lakes.

Kero barking at his echo

Near that area there is a nice sandy beach, covered with lichens in between sparse birch trees. That is the place Kero likes most: he jumps in the water of the lake and barks at the waves he makes. Then he hears the echo from his barking and starts howling back to the imaginary dog (or wolf) on the far shore. I have been in that place twice over the years, and Kero never fails to do this routine (see inset photo on the left). The trail is actually two separate loops: in between the Bass and Dry lakes it bifurcates: one option is turning right for an extra 2 miles around the Dry (and Little Dry) lake, the other is to head back to the parking lot. We chose this second option as it passes through the Dry falls, where the river from the Dry lake empties in the Bass lake. More scenic overlooks there. All in all we walked for about 6.5 miles.

The nice part of this area is that, while protected as part of the Superior National Forest, it still allows dogs on trails. This is not true for the trails manages by the National Park Service, where not even leashed dogs are allowed (they can only be walked where cars can go, e.g. Parking lots or the road side, no more than 100 ft from the car). While I understand the reasons for this policy (yes even dogs on leash are noisy and can be disruptive for the wildlife) I am pretty sure the National Parks could easily set aside short trails (just a few miles) along the main roads, in the most touristic area, where dogs can be walked on leash. I don't see why in those areas a dog on leash would be more disruptive than a busload of tourists.

Lake Superior

Lake Superior (Jun 3, 2013)

Yesterday we drove along route 1 to the shores of Lake Superior. Route 1 crosses the forest heading east, until it hits the Minnesota side of the lake. Paved from one end to the other, it is a very enjoyable ride (but careful, at night, for the crossing deers and moose). Along the way the usual variety of lakes and river crossings: it becomes a long ride if you plan to stop and take pictures at each of them.

Kero and Mayli

We in fact took a diversion by driving off road 172 (Wanless road) at Isabella. It is a gravel road that cuts through the forest, with lots more lakes on both sides. The inset photo on the left was taken at one such lakes (The Dumbbell lake, maybe) where we went for a stroll in the picknick area as off the main road. At Wanless we then took one of the several rites that drive down to Lake Superior (I believe route 166 and then route 342). It is quite impressive how you suddenly get a steep slope and in front of you, instead of the now familiar variety of trees, a large flat expanse of water appear. If you have never seen the Great Lakes, you may as well think of them as internal seas: they are huge and definitely you won't see the shore on the other side. The stillness of the water, however, betrays their nature: there is no sign of the large waves one would expect even in an internal sea as the Mediterranean. The photo on top was taken at a park along the shore, where the temperance river meets the lake at the falls with the same name.

We ended our drive as far north as we could without getting into Canada. We actually found the pier (Hovland landing) were the mail was arriving before route 1 and the coastal road were made. Mail arrived at the site by boat, to be carried on by sledge dogs along the "old dog road". Back in Grand Marais we had dinner. Mayli found a place with an internet-praised onion soup and pear salad. We stopped there to order to go (yeah dogs are not admitted in restaurants) and that turned out to be a mistake: the place was too good a restaurant to order stuff to go, especially if you have then to eat it in the car with p,a stick forks and no spoon for he soup. Well, live and learn. Before leaving town we stopped at a coffee and ice cream place (both excellent) at the very entrance if Grand Marais. We then started the long drive back, on the coastal road (route 61) and then route 1 to Ely, without stops, this time, except the forced ones necessary to avoid the many deers (and two moose) standing in the middle of the way.

Along Echo Trail

Along Echo trail, Minnesota (June 2, 2013)

Mayli meeting is only starting on Tuesday, so we spent the day driving along one of my favorite forest roads, the Echo trail. It starts just a few miles from Ely, and then cut across a corridor in between the bulk of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and a smaller portion of it to the southwest. Only

A beaver on Vermillion lake (Jun 2, 2013)

paved for the first few miles on the Ely side, it is a beautiful drive through forest, river crossings, trail heads and portages. We drove the whole of it, stopping along the way to take pictures at some of the many lakes along the way. The trail ends at the eponymous Echo lake. Since it was still early when we arrived there, we took Crane lake road to, you guess it, Crane lake. Really close to the Canadian border, the Crane lake road end in a touristic village (an island of 3G network good enough to do video chats with our families in Italy and Venezuela, from the middle of the wilderness). You can find there a nice pub where to get a late lunch based on burgers or fried walleye. Restored, we then drove back to our cabin in Ely, following back Crane lake road until it hits route 1 to Ely. We still stopped a few times along the road, though: many lakes to see and photographs, including one where an unperturbed beaver (see photo on the left) was having a snack just a few feet from the shore.

Driving North

Interstate 35, Minnesota (June 1, 2013)

We are driving north. Mayli has one of her "week in the woods", a meeting of her collaboration, in Ely Minnesota, so we are all going together to the North Country. From our place is over 8 hours driving, straight along interstate 35. As you can see, the weather has not been cooperating much, as we got a couple of strong thunderstorms along the way. But now that we are here the sun is up, literally up even though is 9:30PM.