On the Shore of Gitche Gumee

The Apostle Islands National Seashore
Ashland, Wisconsin

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
-Wordsworth

They used to make you memorize the poem about the noble Hiawatha and Nokomis back in the 4th grade. I wonder if they still do that? We’re camped in our metal wigwam on the shore of Lake Superior. By surface area, it is the largest lake in the world, although two Russian lakes are deeper and contain more water.

The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy.
- Gordon Lightfoot

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald went down in 1975. The notion that the lake never gives up it’s dead probably derives from the fact that the average water temperature is 36 defrees F., cold enough to inhibit the bacterial growth that makes bodies float..

We drove up to the Lake of the Woods area in Ontario yesterday. We saw a number of beaver lodges on the drive. I had to lock up the brakes on the Toyota to avoid a doe and her fawn.


We ate lunch in Green’s Roadhouse near Nestor Falls. We had pickerel for an appetizer. Pickerel are a little (3-5 pound) pike. They are hard to clean. You have to cut them into small strips to avoid the bones. They are not considered very good to eat, but these chunks were breaded, fried and not bad.


The roadhouse was constructed of logs. The door jams were about 5 feet, 6 inches so we think it’s been around awhile. We had pierogi for a main course. These were pastries stuffed with cheese and potatoes and covered with bacon and sautéed onions.

Pierogi (also perogi, perogy, pirohi, piroghi, pirogi, pirogen, piroshke or pyrohy), is the name most commonly used in English speaking areas to refer to a variety of Slavic semicircular stuffed dumplings of unleavened dough and varying ingredients.


I bought an Ontario fishing license that’s good for a year. Going though immigration and customs is always a hoot these days. We'll make our way along the south shore of Superior and across Ontario and Quebec from here.

Eat Cheese or Die

Reedsburg, Wisconsin - June 17, 2007

French explorers named this area the “Dalles” (flagstones) because of the limestone rock formations. The name has become anglicized to the Dells. It’s lovely here in the summer and probably brutal in winter.

Wisconsin is filled with landscaped farms, low hills formed by glacial deposits, rivers, lakes and hardwood forests. Cheese is a big deal here because of the emphasis on dairy products. The first sign we saw after crossing the border was “Cheese and Fireworks Ahead!” It’s lovely here in the summer and probably very brutal in winter. A local theatre company did an outdoors “Much Ado about Nothing” two days ago and “The Night of the Iguana” last night.

We drove though farmland up to “The Dells” today to see “Lost Canyon”, a slot canyon formed in limestone by glacier melt during the last ice age. On the way we were pleased to find a small town parade in progress in Reedsville, celebrating their annual Butter Festival. You may remember the part of “Easy Rider” where Captain America (Peter Fonda) and Billy (Dennis Hopper) join a small town parade and get thrown in jail for parading without a license.

We drive on to the Dells and find a huge amusement park with wooden roller coasters and brand new Greek ruins, called Mt. Olympus. The Dells also has the world’s largest water park, which has a convenient ride to the top of the slides.

The trip though the slot canyons is interesting. Most of my pictures don’t come out because of the dim light. Our guide tells us stories about the geology and fauna and shows us the 37 stitches he got from a chainsaw last month.



It’s time to for us to move on to Minnesota and then Fargo, North Dakota. In about three driving days we will enter Manitoba Province and lose our computer broadband and cell service for a couple of weeks until we hit Skagway in Alaska.

Here are some pictures of Lost Canyon and the Butter Festival.

The Home of Frank Lloyd Wright

Spring Green, Wisconsin

Frank built his own home on 600 acres in Spring Green, Wisconsin. We went there today and also spent an hour underground at the Cave of the Blue Mounds. Our cave tour included no less than three screaming babies. Fortunately, I have experience with screaming babies.



Frank married and had two children. He left them all in Chicago and moved into the new home in 1911 with another woman. She died in a fire which destroyed most of the house in 1925. Two of her children and four guests also perished in the fire, which was judged to be an arson. Frank rebuilt the home, met another woman, 30 years younger, and had more children.


He is America’s most famous architect. He was born in 1867 and died in 1959. He designed over 1,000 buildings during his 70 year career. Many of these are designated historic landmarks.

The house contains rugs, lamps, chairs and tables designed by Wright. There is little here that he did not design. You can’t take any pictures of the inside.

One strange design feature is that many of the entryways and corridors are less than six feet tall so that I have to crouch to enter. He was apparently a diminutive man. He also did not waste time in the design of bedroom or bathroom features, believing these were places you took care of business and got out. His own bed is very tiny and over in a corner.

“Fellowship” members live on the grounds. They can live here for life. To become a member you must first be an apprentice. No amount of probing of our guide revealed any additional information about the nature of the "Fellowship", which is separate from the “Foundation”.

Today is our son’s birthday. He is 38. We leave messages on all his telephones. I bought him a 4-gig telephone memory card last week. I remember when a 10-meg hard drive was a big deal. I remember storing data on decks of punched cards and paper tape. I remember $900 personal calculators that could add and subtract. I remember mechanical adding machines...Sigh!...What a fossil!

Frank's house needs a lot of work. The exterior plaster has a lot of cracks which are developing into major problems. I could fix it all myself in about a year. Two years, if you include the interior repainting. Apparently Fellowship duties do not include mere maintenance.

We are parked in a little RV park surrounded by a cornfield. There are only two other campers. The office is in a little liquor store next door. They have a good selection of wine and Wisconsin cheese. Large stuffed fish are mounted on the walls. The ammo is behind the counter, but the liquor is on a shelf next to the exit door. In Tampa, shop-lifting would be a problem with this setup. The young man at the register has the slow, dreamy voice of a heavy pot user. He tells me he just lost a close friend. I tell him I'm sorry and think about close friends lost.

Here are some pictures of Frank's house.