Lake Ice

The ice on the lake started to move today. We had a rather stiff wind today from the south and it started to pile some ice up on the rocks. Like the old song, "It won't be long now" once lake ice starts to move around with wind "ice out" is not far behind.

The earliest "ice out" date is April 9, 1945. The rate we are going we could be in for a new record. We will just have to wait and see what "mother nature" has in store for us. The latest date for "ice out" was May 23, 1950. Two years ago we had a rather late May 13 lake opener. The Walker Pilot keeps these records.

I am going to upload a picture of our black squirrel that we call "Blackie". Blackie survived our winter in fine form. I wrote about our black squirrel last fall in one of my posts. The Bald Eagles are back in their nests. We have two eagle nests in the area. One is located on Oak Point Estates and the other is located close to the Oak Point Road down at the "Narrows". Raccoon's and skunks are out.

I am starting to have some concern about lake water levels. We have not had any snow and just some light rain so far this March. We will need some April showers to keep lake level at spring levels.

Sugar Bush

Sugar bush is a place in the woods where Sugar Maple trees grow and people go year after year to make maple sugar. Sugar Maples, acer saccarum, are also known as hard maples. They produce the sap that is boiled down into Maple Syrup and that can be further refined down to Maple Sugar. The sap is clear liquid about 98% water.

I had the opportunity to visit an ancient sugar bush site this week with my neighbor Dennis Yepma. We took 4-wheelers across lake ice about a 1/4 mile north of his home at Little Hardwood, to an area just south of the "Meadows" where we walked ashore. This is in an area in Sec. 7, T.143N,-R.30W just west of Leech Lake. Immediately we knew we were in an maple syrup area. The majority of the trees were mature maples. It didn't take us long before we found physical evidence of old maple sugar making. We found old cans, bottles, tubs, barrows and other physical evidence. We were careful not to disturb the area.

Some of the native elders that know the area told me that the last time there was much sugar making in the area was around the WW II which would make that about 65 years ago. Each native family use to move to the bush where they stayed for the whole season which could last two to four weeks. One elder told me as a youngster his job was to gather wood for the fires. All the wood had to be cut by hand. Other jobs were to tap the trees, collect the gallons of the sap and tend the fire and boiling pots. This was also a sort of reunion time with all the families together they had a chance to reminisce and tell stories.

Maple syrup/sugar was an important food commodity for the native families. For ages it was used as a food source and as seasoning agent for meats and fish. It was also used for trading for other goods. Maple sugar was carefully stored for use during the year. It was stored in birch bark basket that were made by hand.

I had this feeling when I was in these woods that I was in the presence of many hundreds of years of history all around me. I felt privileged for this opportunity. We did find an ancient overgrown wagon trail in the woods with ruts filled with leaves. This trail will be the source of future adventures.

Mike & Zeus

Mike and Zeus have a new twist on the old habit of taking your dog for a walk. Every afternoon Mike Schrank takes his Black Lab Zeus for a ride in his car. Rain for shine, hot or cold you can see them on their route seven days a week. At about 3:00 PM Mike get the signal from Zeus that its time for his ride. Their route takes them through the neighborhood including a trip through Oak Point Estates and down Camper Landing Road then all the way to Welsh Lake and back home. About a 20 mile round trip. Zeus has the back seat all to himself. He usually sticks his head out the window and barks at what ever catches his fancy. Mike steers his grey sedan, a Hyundai Sonata, through the course at about 20 mph. The whole trip last about one hour. On many days you can see Mike park his car down by the narrows where he gets excellent cell phone signals straight to the towers at Walker.

Actually Zeus is a recent substitute for Roc-e his predecessor in the back seat. Roc-e was also a Black Lab that lasted 13 years and many miles.

Mike, his wife Diane and son Joe have lived on the Steamboat side on Mounds Point Drive sine 1992 when Mike retired from the cities. Mike and Diane have two other children, Mike Jr. from Minneapolis and daughter Susan who lives in Delaware. This time of the year Mike harvests Maple Syrup. He taps 22 trees on his property to make his 30 plus pints of syrup. Mike uses his old turkey fryer cooker to boil down the sap. He says that his years process is about two weeks ahead of the usual harvest dates.

Mike is a very active man who enjoys his retirement up north. He enjoys a large garden full of usual vegetables beans, tomatoes, potatoes, squash etc etc. Mike and Diane like to can as much as possible. Mike likes to can because he says he knows what is inside. Good point. Mike likes to hunt deer and grouse. He hunts deep down by Jimmy Whipple's area. Mike and his son have a large pile of Oak that they have piled up ready for splitting for their fireplace. Mike is early to bed 8:00 pm and early to rise 5:00 am. Mike recently put his riding lawn mower aside and bought two new walk behind mowers so he and Joe can get their exercise.


The next time you see Mike driving his grey sedan in the afternoon on Oak Point Road with Zeus in the back seat, smile, wave and pass them by.

Vernal Equinox

First day of spring happened this morning here on Leech Lake. Twice a year the sun is directly above the equator giving us equal amounts of daylight and nighttime. From my point of view from my deck the sun appears directly above Goose Island. Six months from now the sun will appear in the same place. It maybe spring but this morning we had the coolest morning in more then two weeks, it was 10 degrees and it was felt cold. Sunrise this morning was 6:22 am central daylight time. I always have trouble adjusting to and from daylight savings time. My body is just a creature of habit.

Rev. James Moses

Funeral services were held this week for Rev. James Moses who passed away from his battle with cancer. James Moses was the pastor of the Chippewa Bible Church here on Oak Point. The Chippewa Bible Church is the only church located on Oak Point and is located on the Oak Point Road and 56th Avenue.

Bye Bye Snow

The majority of our snow is gone. We had an unusual week of weather. We had rain, drizzle, fog and lots of grey skies. But most of all we have had warm weather. We have not see the sun for over a week here. We much have had 5 to 6 days were it has stayed above freezing even at night. If we would have had colder weather we would be still digging our selves out of the snow. We had our first 50 degree today.

We had a partners meeting to discuss our lots at Oak Point Estates. We decided to keep the prices for 2010 the same as we had for 2009. We did decide to take a more friendly approach to seller financing with a willingness to look at lower interest rates and longer terms. During the next two weeks I will be making some changes to our website http://www.oakpointestatesmn.com/ where we will outline some of these changes. If anyone has a question, please give me a call or email me. My cell phone is 218-760-3727 and my email is nitchals@paulbunyan.net.

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Oak Point Islands

Of course Oak Point has no islands, but we do have two islands that effect our fishing, boat navigation and lake views. One island on the east side of Oak Point in the "big lake" is called Goose Island. The other island is called Minnesota Island and is located in the middle of Steamboat Bay on the west side of Oak Point. (click on picture to enlarge)

Minnesota Island was earlier called Duck Island on some of the old maps. It's the second largest island in Leech Lake, second only to Bear Island in size. The island is just a little over one mile long and is about 1/8 mile wide. It contains approximately 248 acres and is divided into several separate land parcels. Many parcels are in private ownership with a subdivision on the north end called King's Island Park that have Steamboat Loop physical mailing addresses. Much of the island is low ground and is quite wet. In fact boat navigation around the island is tricky with all the water vegetation growth. To the north of Minnesota Island are some of the richest wild beds in Leech Lake.

On the east side of the island is the remnants of the old Steamboat River channel that runs 3 ft to 5 ft deeper then the main part of the bay. In the spring of the year walleyes can be caught on the droop-offs with a jig and minnow. I do know of one Leech Lake fishing guide that spends a considerable amount of his time fishing this area of Leech Lake with great success. I have spent time on a couple of occasions stopping and cleaning weeds off my boat prop because I got mixed up with the weeds. Lot of good Largemouth Bass fishing around this island.

Goose Island is only 20 acres total and is in private ownership. I have been trying to find out how the island got its name, so if someone knows, please let me know. Goose Island has several fishing locations of note. Between the island and the Star Point, Little Hardwood areas is called the Goose Island Flats. Off to the south and east is an area called "Doc's Reef". To the east of the Island is an area that is called the "Snake Pits" where you are apt to catch a small northern while fishing for walleyes. I am sure that others have names for their favorite areas around the island.

My daily panoramic view of the mighty Leech Lake always includes Goose Island as a center piece.

March 2010

March 2010 is more of a lamb, then a lion. The days are warmer then normal, and it even rained yesterday. Our snow cover is shrinking, but we still have plenty of snow in the woods. March is always an transition month from winter to spring. The only draw back that I can see is that we are just a few days away from the "mud season". This is when the local gravel driveways and roads turn to mud. Then someone drives through them putting making ruts that in turn freeze at night. All a part of the transition to spring. Our blacktop road is getting some potholes popping up here and their, plus the areas that they patch last fall with gravel topping are getting to be ruff and the sides of our cars and pickups are muddy.

I am attaching a picture of a sunrise over the "big lake". Our sunrise is 6:48 am today with sunset happening at 6:12 pm. Now next Sunday we switch back to daylight savings time when we will spring ahead one hour. Our high temperature today was 54 degrees setting a new record for the old 52 degree day a few years ago. The average maximum temp in Minnesota increases 15 degrees from March 1st to the 31st.

Jimmy Whipple

James E. Whipple was born 71 years ago this March. His Indian name is Ahh-Zho-Gawh-Nabe which means crossing eagles feathers. Jimmy was born and raised on the 83 acres where he now lives. His parents were George Whipple who died in 1952 and his mother was Margaret Day. His house sits on a point overlooking the Narrows and its four wild rice beds, and is called Bear Trap Point. Also, right in front of his place, in the Narrows, is an old river bed that will run up to 15 ft. deep that holds some good fish. Most of the Narrows is only 3 to 5 ft. deep so when boating you need to follow the buoys to get through the weeds.

Jimmy grew up with four brothers, three are still living. He started school in a small one room building up where the Chippewa Bible Church is now located. That's just off the Oak Point Road fairly close to Welsh Lake. Jimmy then attended school in Cass Lake for 9 to 10 years. He got his GED in 1980. He and his family have properties located on Ottertail Point, Upper and Lower Sucker Lakes and on Stoney Point on Leech Lake by Whipolt where his father grew up. Jimmy has been married three times and has two kids.

Jimmy remembers helping to make maple sugar when he was growing up. He would gather firewood for the big fires and would collect sap to be boiled down. Cedar flutes would be used to plug the trees and the sap would be collected in birch bard baskets called we-goob. His family would harvest maple sugar up on Little Hardwood.

Jimmy said he was born with a gift to be a medicine man. He realized he had these gifts when he was two years old. He uses parts of cedar trees as his medicine. He likes to keep his medical powers low key.

Jimmy has worked various jobs over the years. He was a seasonal labor foreman for 13 years for the Forest Service. He was a logger for a number of years for the Wittners south of Cass Lake.

My walking partners, Dennis and Ray, and I got to know Jimmy on our morning walks. We would see Jimmy driving to town every morning and he would stop and we would exchange daily greetings. I saw Jimmy at about 8:00 am this morning going to town, he said he needed to see the tribal chairman. Jimmy is very sociable and goes to town for his mail and conduct his daily business usually every day.

Starr Point

From my dock on the lake when I look north the first point of land that I see is called Starr Point. This is one of the Hardwood Points that I can see from my vista. Starr Point is named after the Starr Family that owns this property. They are Native and have owned this property for many, many years. The gentleman who currently is in charge is Gilbert Starr who lives in Cass Lake now, but grew up on the property.

I recently had a chance to speak to Gilbert who told me about the property and his family and how it was to grow up out there. Gilbert's father was Albert Starr, also called Oh-Gee-Che-Dah, which means the brave one. Albert lived and died his entire life on the property. The old timers in the neighborhood said he lived a traditional native lifestyle in an old frame house with his sisters Susan and Katherine and brother Dan Starr. They fished, hunted, raised a garden, harvested wild rice, maple sugar and heated with wood. They had to hitchhiked to town because they didn't drive. Jan Price, the Fire Warden told me that when Albert died his dog came laid down and cried on their property, but they didn't figure out what happened until later when they heard heard that he had passed away. This happened approximately 30 years ago. The old timers had stories about these great people that are probably now lost in history. Gilbert said that when he was growing up their were a number of different families that lived up and down our shoreline. Some of these families were the Clouds, Fairbanks, Goose, Whites, Winds, Whipple and Rocks. Very few of these families or peoples live out here now.

Gilbert said he had a brother and sister that he grew up with, they are Anna and Jimmy Starr. Gilbert is 70 years old and married to Marilyn Littlewolf from the White Earth Reservation. Together they have 4 kids and 11 grandkids. Gilbert currently works at the Veterans Memorial Building on the Palace Grounds in Cass Lake. His duties include taking care of the ball fields that get a lot of use in the summer. He said that when they grew up they didn't have much money but they never had to ask for help and that they had plenty to eat. Over the years he has worked in construction as an equipment operator as an logger and at the wood plant in Bena. He hunts deer and bear, traps and fishes for his family. Over this past weekend he invited me to watch him net fish which is his treaty rights. I was honored to watch them perform this ancient function. I didn't participate.

Addendum: On Thursday March 4th Gilbert invited me to watch them put out the nets which I did observe. One item that impressed me the most was who he had helping him. Gilbert had an adult daughter and son, plus two grandchildren. This is the families way to insuring that the traditions continue for another generation.

All of the Hardwood Points in my neighborhood are great fishing spots. The Hardwood Points that I refer to are Big Hardwood, also called Maple Point, Little Hardwood that use to have a resort on it and Starr Point. Click on enclosed map to enlarge. I believe the best fishing spot in Starr Point. I and many of my neighbors have caught many walleyes in the spring and fall off this and the other points. There is a drop off from about 8' to 13 ft that holds fish off to the southeast. With a south wind their is a great drift here. Minnows and jogs usually work best.