Sun Pillar

Early spring is a great time to observe sun pillars during sunrises and sunsets. Sun Pillars appear in the sky when snow or ice crystals reflect light from the sun when it is low on the horizon.

This particular pillar was taken looking out my front door on Caribou Lake.

Only a particular type of snowflake, formed in optimum conditions for a saucer shape, form into billions of tiny mirrors that reflect the sunlight perfectly to our eye. This shape of snowflake tends to float to earth in a horizontal manner, and only the snowflakes that are lined up with the sun reflect the light into our eye. This is what created the colorful pillar of light in line with the sun.


I love how God gets our attention just when things seem to be getting the darkest.

You light a lamp for me. The LORD, my God, lights up my darkness. Psa 18:28

Gooseberry Runoff

Even though recent ice storms have made springtime seem far off, the rising waters of local rivers tell another story. On this rather cool drizzly morning I made my way around the snow covered trails that surround the waterfall at Gooseberry Falls State Park. The increasing pressure from the rising flow had broken open the icy shell that had encased river for the past several months and the ice was being smashed to pieces as it crashed down the falls.

Groundwater was starting to leak from every seam along the river bank and the root beer colored river water, stained by the tannin of tree roots in the inland bogs, was now rushing its way down the Gooseberry River into Lake Superior. The swamps were warming up and could no longer contain the water that had been locked up since early winter.

Eagles and condors floated overhead in the gray skies as they scanned the ground for lunch. The migration north had begun and all of nature declared the arrival of spring.

I thought for a moment about the birds, and in some way, I think the same instinct that drives them to the same place every year is what makes me keep coming back to this place. Call it instinct or habit it happens every year.

For the next several weeks, local rivers and streams will be swollen with runoff water, thawing the ground and feeding the plants that will soon wake up to a new season, and so the cycle of life will begin once again.


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The LORD will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring. Isa 58:11

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White Beaches

The white beaches of the Northland are very similar to the white beaches of the Caribbean (at least in color). A ritual of springtime is to visit the shores of Lake Superior and enjoy the changing seasons without burning your feet in the sand.

Ice Planet - What ever happened to Global Warming

The cold weather this year has created wonderful photographic opportunities along Lake Superior.
December and January were great months for photographing steam fog along the shoreline and it looks like March will be a banner month for ice formations. There is still plenty of ice on the lake and with the winds of springtime in the air, ice chunks will be banging around the lake for some time to come. We can also expect that it will be "Colder by the Lake".

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Fishing on the Edge

Warm March days attract fishermen to the ice covered shore of Lake Superior as surely as the longer daylight hours attracts the trout swimming under the ice to the mouth of the river. It is a ritual of springtime in the Northland and a sure sign that winter is losing it's grip on the area.

These fishermen set up their portable fish houses near the mouth of the French River and basked in the warm afternoon sunshine. I didn't see any fish caught, but, I don't think anyone really cared. It seems funny how someone can be so relaxed, sitting on a plastic bucket with a fishing rod staring at a hole in the ice, yet, they seemed to have found a secret that works better than any high blood pressure medicine, its called contentment.

Although cars could be heard in the distance speeding along the highway in a seemingly frantic rush, this little cove of fishermen seemed to live in an unhurried world of their own, a special place that only a few could recognize as a medicine for the rush of life on a road less traveled.

In just a few weeks, the river will swell with runoff from the melting snow and the lake ice will back away from the shore, setting the stage for another change of seasons.

Solomon, the wisest man to ever live, told us about contentment long ago: Enjoy what you have rather than desiring what you don't have. Just dreaming about nice things is meaningless—like chasing the wind. Ecc 6:9

I drove home a bit wiser that day, learning a lesson from a little fishing cove on Lake Superior and some men who find contentment with the simpler things of life.