Merry Christmas From the Quiet Lakes

Thanks to Tom McLeod for this awesome picture looking out over McNott Island!

Spider Lake Town Hall Beautification Project

In an effort to spiff up town hall where we hold meetings, I am soliciting framed photographs to hang on the wall.  Photographs should be taken in the Town of Spider Lake and should depict the natural beauty of the area: wildlife, plants, landscapes, sunsets, etc.  It is preferable that no man made objects are in the photo or the objects should not be the subject of the photo.  Size of photos would vary between 5 x 7's and 8 x 10's, perhaps larger. 

I am soliciting Spider Lake Association as well.  The end result would be 5 to 7 framed photos of the some of the reasons we spend time here.  The individual donor as well as the Association would be recognized for their donation(s). 

There is no deadline, but my goal would have this project completed by August 2014.

Any questions or interest can be directed to the quiet_lakes@yahoo.com, from which we will forward on to Jo.

Regards,

Jo Mazik, member of Quiet Lakes Association

 

Cool Pictures of our Flora and Fauna from Sam Boren!

 

 

 

  

Uplifting Message from Mary Witt

Mary has a wonderful way of making us stop and appreciate the beauty of our setting:


Tonight for the 2^nd time this summer, I hobbled down to our dock and again viewed the incredibly awesome and familiar view of Teal Lake from 3 directions.  

After a summer of ehrlichiosis,  broken ankle, and severe arthritis in neck, tonight’s trip to the dock was a real panacea for MOI!  Seems like all the pain just went away with looking out at God’s architecture.  So Thank You All for your work in saving our habitat.

Meanwhile, let’s continue the vigil to preserve the so very important impact on lakes and environment:  aesthetics, bird migration, other environmental issues involving wetlands & habitat.

Great Pictures of Lost Land Lake from Brian Walsh

Aquatic Invasive Species Appears to be Found on Lost Land Lake

Last week, we were notified by the Sawyer County Aquatic Invasive Species specialist, Kristy Maki, that a form of Eurasian Milfoil has apparently been found in Lost Land Lake.   This appears to be a hybrid species whereby our native northern milfoil and the invasive Eurasion milfoil have somehow cross fertilized.  

Given that we conducted an extensive aquatic plant study last year with no invasives found, it appears that these invasive plants have come into the lake this summer.  We have found it only in a few spots so far, primarily in the Wilson Bay and Landing Camp areas of Lost Land Lake as shown below.

 

We do not know how it came in, however we believe that it likely came in on a boat at the Landing Camp ramp and floated to these locations with the prevailing winds.  This is despite our diligent efforts to prevent this via our ramp monitoring program which remains very active.

 Thus, this week Norm Bratteig, Shari Peterson, Barb and Rex Clevenger were joined by Kristy on a "search and destroy" mission to locate these pods and pull the invasive weeds.  See Norm, Shari and Barb watching Kristy throwing her rake into the water below.

 

 
Once we verified the plants, Rex got into the water with his scuba mask and a net and pulled the invasives from the roots as shown below.

 

Kristy is sending these plants in for DNA testing to be sure of the identification.   We are appraised that a similar hybrid plant has been found in a couple of other lakes in Sawyer County this summer.

Future Plan of Attack:

For now, the few sightings of this hybrid milfoil have been pulled from the lake.   However, it is highly unlikely that we have successfully eradicated the plants.   Rather, we will need to aggressively step up our volunteer monitoring on future "search and destroy" missions for the rest of the summer.

 

If any of you are interested in helping with this monitoring on any of our lakes, please contact us via quiet_lakes@yahoo.com so that we can help train you to see these plants.   We plan to illustrate this plant at our upcoming picnic on August 18th at Reel Living Resort.

 The "weed identification and pulling" approach is recommended by the specialists as the best approach for now.   Having said that, training is required to minimize broken fragments from the weed-pulling extraction that can re-pollinate.

In summary, we're taking this extremely seriously and plan to be on the offensive in hopes of avoiding broader problems.

Thanks

Your Board of Directors

 

Fundraiser for Casey Hockrein of Casey's Motor Sports on Sep 15th

Casey has undergone surgery and chemotherapy for a very rare form of cancer.   Casey has helped many of us out of every situation imaginable, and it's time for us to give back.

Date:   Sunday September 15th  

Time:  11:00am - 2:00pm

Location:  Spider Lake Church on Hwy 77

Menu:  Lasagna, salad, desert and drink

Minimum requested donation:  $6.00 adults and $3.00 children under 12

Silent Auction

Questions:  Carla or Leon  715-462-9064

Imse Family History on Teal Lake

Jim and his mom, Fern Imse are shown here at the Quiet Lake Assocation meeting last Saturday.   Thanks to Jim for providing us a glimpse of Teal Lake's rich heritage with the Imse family history on the lake.

 

 

Through the 1920's Paul and Mamie Imse were traveling up from Milwaukee to vacation in the Hayward area. They kept trying various resorts on various lakes, looking for the right land to buy. Finally in 1929 they bought some shoreline on the south side of Teal Lake and decided to camp there for vacation. One of the typically sudden summer thunderstorms blew down the tent and scattered their gear. So they spent the rest of the vacation at Kingfisher cabin in Northland Lodge, and decided they should build a cottage on their new land.

Frank and Maud Currier had a lumber mill at the corner of County A and Twin Lake Road. They supplied the lumber for the small cottage that was built in 1930. The cottage was completely simple, on cedar posts. The exterior walls were just 2x4 and siding, neither insulation nor interior paneling. The interior walls were just bead board, on one side. Even with the porch included there was so little space inside that most all waking hours were spent outdoors.

From then on the family of six would drive to Teal Lake at the earliest summer date possible. Some years they would park outside the school on the last day, and then take the four children directly north from school to the cottage. Mamie and the four children would stay all summer, until the last possible date before the start of school. Through the summer Paul would be driven into town on Sunday night, board a sleeper railroad car, and wake up in Milwaukee for a week's work. Then he would board the same sleeper on Friday night and wake up Saturday morning in Hayward for a weekend on the lake.

At times there were thoughts of quitting his Milwaukee Gas & Electric job to run a resort on Teal. In those years Borgeson built Sunset Lodge on one side, and Eccle built Isle View Lodge on the other side, across the bay.

The only watercraft was a locally-made cedar strip Peterson boat, and its only propulsion was oars. In later years a three horse Evinrude was added. Idyllic summer months would pass with all the fun in the woods, on shore, in the rowboat, and so on. It's a mile and a half to what was then the nearest farm, at the corner of Neumaier Road and 77. That was one way to keep the kids busy, to send them for a bucket of milk. She could also send them eight miles round trip to get the mail at Dow's Corners. Diagonally opposite Dow's was a long bannister of mailboxes all lined up. In those days Walter Ross would take the extra-passenger car to pick up resort guests at the train station, that's how station wagons got named. He would stop and give the kids a lift to Dow's on his way into town. The new place, Shawville, at the foot of Ghost Lake, didn't open up until later. By then mail was coming to the end of the driveway.

Through the years, Paul and Mamie continued to come, but not always for the whole summer. The four children, Marion, Phil, Tom and Janet, each married and brought their families for vacations. After the war, though Mamie died, there were yet more people at the cottage as all the grandchildren began to know the fun of Teal Lake. Soon the front porch was extended around the side and enclosed. This nearly doubled the interior space. Electricity arrived soon, which meant running cold water. But no phone was installed until the 1980's. Later came a water heater. Soon Paul was Grampa, doing not much more than watching the lake, reveling in memories, and napping. One day he woke from a nap, saw the sunbeams dappling the birch bark and leaves, and remarked, "I didn't know where I was for a moment. But if I'm not going to know where I am, there's no better place for it than this."

From Paul's estate, Tom and Fern Imse bought the cottage in 1978, and it was kept busy for many more years. Tom's sons have now sold the family place, but Jim lives just next door on Eccle's Bay.

 

Reminder of Quiet Lakes Association Meeting on Saturday, July 20th

Time & Location:   9:00am at the Spider Lake Town Hall

PROGRAM:  Popular speaker and wildlife specialist Chris Cold will be speaking on "Raptors and Predatory Birds of the Great Lakes."   As usual, Chris will be bringing some of his raptors with him!

 

Coffee and treats will be served starting at 8:30 a.m. The regular business meeting will follow the program and board elections will be held. The 2013 slate of nominees is:

 

            President:                 Rex Clevenger (1st term)

            Vice-President:            Bob Dale (1st term)

            Secretary:                     Shari Peterson (2nd term)

            Treasurer:                 Gayle Little (1st term)

            Director 3:                    no candidate

 

Guests are always welcome!

Elk Spotted Just East of Teal River on HW 77

Thanks to Steve Bejarano for this picture over the 4th of July weekend.

Happy 4th: Amazing picture of a loon from Steve Bejarano as the fog lifts off the lake

Don't Miss The "2nd Annual Green Gate Gallery Art Show" Hosted by Our Quiet Lakes Artists

2013 Box Score: Winnie the Pooh Spanks Clevenger Apiaries to Even the Series

This post comes from the Clevengers beekeeping activity in the Spider Lake area.

 

Late last summer, we believe that all of our beehives died, which was relatively common across the country.   We thus left a couple of boxes over winter in the unlikely case that the queen and some workers survived.   We typically take down the electric fence in the fall once the bears hibernate and put them back up in the spring before the bears rouse.  Given that our retirement was delayed from April until June, we did not get there in time to set up the fence.   Note the following chronology of events:

2011:  

         Winnie the Pooh attempts to invade the hives, but is stopped by the electric fence.

 

   Box Score:    Clevenger Apiaries    1

                          Winnie the Pooh      0 

2012:

Winnie keeps a keen eye on the hives all summer, but neither side attacks

 

Box Score:   Clevenger Apiaries   0

               Winnie the Pooh      0

 

 

 

 

 

2013:

Clevenger Apiaries gets spanked for not getting the electric

fence up in time.

 

 Winnie “licks the dinner plate”

as no honey, honeycomb,

larvae, etc. are left.

 

Box Score:    Winnie the Pooh     1

                       Clevenger Apiaries  0

 

 

We intend to start up the hives again in 2014 and will keep you appraised of the events.

All the best

Clevenger Apiaries

 

Quiet Lakes Profile: John Leighton, the “World’s Most Interesting Man"

Given the incredibly rich heritage and culture on our lakes, this is the first of a series of profiles on our amazing residents, with our inaugural profile on John Leighton.



John and Sue Leighton are members of the Quiet Lakes Association and live on the north side of Teal Lake off of Upper A and Boersma.  While Sue’s numerous interests are significant, and we hope to publish them at a later date, today’s profile is on John.   For those of us who know John well, we call him the “World’s Most Interesting Man” because it seems there’s nothing he hasn’t done.  For example:

·         Age 5:   John had just taken a kindergarten class on “pioneers” and decided that he wanted to be a pioneer.  So, he proceeded to take a tarp from the garage at the family cabin, and told his folks he was going to camp out for a while.  Later that night as darkness arrived, his folks and their friends were taking bets on how long he’d be out when they saw a light approaching.   As the bets begin to pay off, John informs them he was only coming back for some toilet paper and then went back out for a few nights.  Never bet against John Leighton…………

·         Age 9:   John decided that he wanted to go to the family cabin one Saturday.   He thus packed up his bike and planned to ride the 60 miles alone from Minneapolis.   Although he got lost and found himself in Brooklyn Center and 10 miles out of the way, he successfully navigated himself back on track and arrived in time for dinner.

 

·         Age 12: John acquired his first sailboat which he raced in Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin in the Inland Lakes’ Yacht Association regattas; capturing several championship trophies.  John also bought his first canoe. His parents would drop him off at Lake Mille Lacs where he would canoe down the Rum River; camping out overnight.

·         Age 15:   John and his brother, age 12, decided to canoe the Boundary Waters for a few weeks since John had received his license to drive a car a week earlier.   A few days into the trip, their canoe was swamped and they lost all their supplies.   Thus, they had to live off the land for 10 days eating fish, grouse, and rabbits until they found some campers to help re-provision them.

·         Age 17:   John and his brother, age 14, canoed over 1,400 miles to Hudson Bay over a 7 week period through unmapped wilderness.

·         20’s:   After graduating from the William Mitchell College of Law and marrying his college sweetheart, Sue, they had three wonderful daughters.  John actively engaged in the real estate business and practice of law in the Twin Cities.    Meanwhile, John played soccer for a German team in the Minnesota State League.

 

 

·         30’s:    John was spear fishing off the coast of Washington at a depth of 80 feet when he speared a lingcod.    Unfortunately, the lingcod dragged him into a kelp bed tangling them both in kelp and spear tether.  John had not noticed that his tank had been leaking air from a split o-ring. Tangled, John breathed the last breath of air. Rather than losing the fish, John simply held his breath for a few minutes, untangled, and slowly guided the lingcod to the surface by grabbing both ends of the spear protruding through the fish, pointing upward and letting the fish do the work; careful to exhale and rise no faster than the smallest bubbles.

 

John built a fishing boat and fished gill nets under a commercial license off the north shore of Lake Superior. He never sold a fish; he gave them all to residents along the shore. He was simply interested in how commercial fishing was done. John was also an avid hunter; running pointing dogs on upland game. He has guided hunters, and has judged hunt trials such as the National Pheasant Championship.

·         40’s:   John and Sue kept a 26 foot sailboat moored in the Bayfield area and did extensive sailing and navigating of Lake Superior.   They encountered too many storms to think about: they were once hit by lightning which knocked out all electronics and put 54 holes through the hull; they once had a tornado pass within 100 yards.

 

       Every year for two weeks to a month John and his cousin sailed parts of the Pacific Northwest from Oregon to Alaska; sometimes racing, sometimes living off the sea. 

 

See the picture at left where John is holding a Pudget Sound King Crab in one hand and an Abalone in the other.   On one occassion their navigation system faulted, thus resulting in them running aground on a sand bar approximately 20 miles from Alaska (see below).   With 20 foot vertical tidal movements daily, they were forced to request assistance from the Coast Guard.

 

 

 

John has run over 50 marathons, and over 50 races in excess of 50 miles including 10 mountain races of 100 miles. John has run the Western States 100 from Squaw Valley to Auburn 5 times, and he has run the 100-mile run at over 10,000 feet in Leadville, Colorado. John has climbed many of the 14’ers of Colorado where he was caught in electric storms various times.

John set up a complete woodworking shop in his basement where he designed and built much of the cabinetry and furniture for his home. He especially liked working with French Provincial design.

·         50’s:   John has skied the Birkie 27 times and has skied every Worldloppet race in Europe; earning the status of Worldloppet Master Skier.  In 1999, John and Sue purchased their cabin on Teal Lake because of the world class ski trails in the Hayward/Cable area. The Fat Tire Race on the Birkie Trail introduced John to mountain biking.

·         60’s:   After moving to Teal Lake John fell in love with mountain biking and has dedicated himself to building single track biking trails, mainly in the areas just north of the Quiet Lakes between 206 and County Road M, i.e., the Wilson Lake, Patsy Lake, Rock Lake and Namakagon Trails. These trails (see picture at left) recently won the International Mountain Biking Association’s “EPIC Trail Designation” for quality, the only trail with such designation in the Midwest.  John was the Minnesota State Mountain Bike Champion in the “50 & Over” category for four straight years.

 

  

John is a published poet, with his current book of poetry, Paradise View Collected Poems, on sale at Redbery Books in Cable. John has also written an instructional booklet entitled “Finding the Rhythm of the Trail” wherein he compares mountain biking to dancing and being “at one with the bike”.  This booklet is available on the CAMBA web site.

 

 

 

 

 

       Today:    John continues to build bike trails, is currently an active member of the board of directors for both the Birkie Foundation and CAMBA (Chequamegon Area Mountain Biking Association) and is an avid gardener (see his wonderful gardens at left).   After any storm, you can always see John heading for the forest with his chainsaw in his backpack to clear the thirty five miles of trail for which he is trail steward.

 

 

 

John’s greatest concern today is staying in shape so he can keep up with his five grandchildren. You may have seen him dive with them off a tower he built on the bow of his pontoon boat last summer.

 

 

 

 

And of all the memories briefly and incompletely catalogued here, John’s most significant and rewarding adventure was his marriage to Sue, to which he provides this poem:

When You Are Older:  for Sue

When you are older than your years and keep nodding by the fire,

Take down my book and slowly read, and dream,

And make a joke about how my poems need some censorship

How many of them loved your moments graced

And loved your beauty with love old or new

Not one wrong wish for faceless face value

Nor sorrows of your ever-changing face

Then bending down beside the glowing embers

Murmur, a little sadly, how love led us both, together, to the watershed

Dividing what is past but remembered

 2013, John Leighton

 

In summary, lot’s of us are still trying to keep up with John Leighton!!!

Fawns on Upper A

Note the following experience of Dan and Pat Kolner last Friday night:

 

On our way to fish fry this Friday evening, we happened upon newborn twin fawns, one laying on the shoulder of the road and other attempting to cross but collapsing in the middle of Upper A when its wobbly legs could carry it no further. After stopping to wave around a car traveling traveling in the opposite direction, a decision had to be made. While physically moving the fawn was not our first choice, laying on Upper A on a Friday evening would certainly have resulted in an unfortunate result, so I opted to move the fawn to the side of the road where it joined its sibling. Upon returning to the scene after dinner, both fawns were gone and had presumably joined their mother back in the woods.

Please be careful out there, drive slow and keep your eyes open !

 

 

 

Mark Your Calendars: Chris Cold to Present at the Next Quiet Lakes Association Meeting on July 20th at the Town Hall

Chris Cold of the WDNR Wildlife Education Department will present on "Birds of Prey / Raptors of the Great Lakes Region".    As we have seen in the past, Chris is among the best speakers around and always brings a first class supporting cast, one of whom is shown below.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Reminder: Quiet Lakes Association meeting this Saturday, May 25th at 9am at Boulder Lodge

We look forward to seeing you at the meeting this Saturday at Boulder Lodge.   Our guest speaker will be Tiffiney Kleczewski of Flambeau Engineering.   She will present her findings from our 5-year update to our Aquatic Plant Management Survey done last summer.

In the meantime, I thought you'd enjoy this picture of fishing opener at Red Deer Lodge!!!!!!!!!!

Two Straight Years of Ice Out Records!

In 2012, we set a record for the earliest Ice Out on March 21st.    This year, 2013, set a new record with the latest Ice Out on May 10th.   See the history of our Ice Out dates back to 1955 below, along with Shari Peterson's picture of Teal Lake now ice free.