Penguin Migration on Lake Superior

Marquette, MI Penguins
This is the first time I've had a chance to photograph the penguin migration on Lake Superior. From what I understand, it usually happens mid winter, when the penguins make their way down from the arctic circle to warmer climates such as Upper Michigan. When Lake Superior freezes over, it becomes perfect for this particular breed of penguin(yooperas penguinas)looking for a little more hospitable climate than what is found at the top of the world. Guess you could call these guys the snowbirds of the penguin breed.
Snowmobilers pause to marvel at these lake superior penguins
Currently this herd?gagggle?flock? of penguins is clearly visible heading into town from Harvey on US 41. Who knows where they might be sighted next. These penguins have been generating a ton of interest around town and this is a rare sighting of these elusive birds. I even heard some scientific organizations are planning to make their way here in efforts to catch a glimpse of these rare and beautiful creatures. Global warming? Or, as in our case this winter, being -19 below average, global cooling????

Lake Superior Ice Cover

Lake Superior covered in pack ice with blowing snow blurring the horizon




It's really starting to look like the arctic around here. On TV6's website they have a funny story about someone putting a row of cardboard penguins up on the ice piles on Lake Superior by the visitor center. Gotta have a sense of humor when the snow starts piling up past the windows.
NWS now says there's significant ice cover on Lake Superior. I wish it would just ice over completely to put an end to the lake effect snow for the year already! It just keeps coming, we have two more systems that are going to move through by Sunday. That means potentially, a heck of a lot more snow with nowhere to put it.

Ah, to see the ground again. Well, we can always go back and look at photos to see what the Big Lake looks like when there's water, not pack ice as far as the eye can see! Here's Lake Superior on warmer days

And one of my hobbies is to photograph the local surf crew, a great bunch of guys. Check out Lake Superior surfing here.

I'm finally starting to update my main photography site. Here's a batch from a wonderful stretch of Lake Superior, called Wetmore Landing.

The question becomes, will we have to rent a backloader this year?

Brian looking up at a snowdrift
That's Brian. He's over 6ft tall. We got DUMPED on yesterday. AGAIN. We're now over 200" for the year. We have drifts over our 6ft fences. Now I have to watch that my little dog doesn't walk over the fences on some doggy adventure of hers.
blowing snow over lake superior

"Windswept"

And they're off!

Camera phones line the starting chute like a string of Christmas lights,The UP 200 Dogsled Race, Marquette MI

Made the decision to go to Marquette for the start of the UP 200 sled dog race last night based purely on the weather. It was downright balmy with absolutely no wind, so it felt like you weren't fighting anything, the cold didn't even get to me one bit.

Intrigued by the lead dogs, UP 200 Sled Dog Race, Marquette MI

The UP 200 has become more than just a dogsled Race. It's turned into a celebration of the Upper Peninsula and the winter season. The nature of the event itself ties together all of the towns that serve as checkpoints for the race, with each location having family friendly events and accomodations of their own. A comforting sense of community springs to life, where volunteers put in a lot of time and effort to make this event run like clockwork, transforming it into the event of the season. It would be cool if it was possible to tag along with a musher to see all of the mini events that pop up along the trail route from Marquette to Grand Marais. Bonfires are especially popular Friday night. From a musher's point of view, it must take some getting used to, when approaching each trail intersection and hearing the countless hoops and hollers of race watchers cheering the dogs and mushers on as they wind thru the wilderness.

The UP 200 doglsed race

UP 200 Dogsled Race- start- Downtown Marquette MI
Tonight's the start of the annual U.P. 200 dogsled race, which will take off from the downtown streets of Marquette Mi. The downtown streets are closed, the starting chute is right down the main drag of Washington Street, with a fun to watch but sometimes treacherous curve at the bottom of the hill by the lake. Some years I've photographed entire phases of the U.P 200, which lasts all weekend long. I like to get perspectives of the race from the deep woods where there are few, if any people, but lots of deer. You can see pictures from the 2007 UP 200 here. It always seems like the coldest day of winter coincides with the start of the UP 200. This year, close, but it will be 5 degrees and little wind, much better conditions than usual. Marquette really gets up for the UP 200 I think in part because cabin fever has really set in by now and people are just itchin to get out and have a good time. When the downtown streets are packed with people watching the race, it's a real festive atmosphere.
I live a little ways from "LakenenLand", a metal sculpture park. I suggest it as an excellent place to watch the UP 200 and the teams come by while warming by the bonfires and enjoying the company of the really nice owner who has opened his land to the public with free access to his sculpture park. It's right on the snowmo trail and he gets visitors from all over the world.

Icy Surfers

Doh. A surfer apparently needed a rescue yesterday at the breakwall. Guess he got too close, couldn't escape the force of the incoming waves pounding the wall, and became the poundee. He eventually managed to get on the breakwall and to the safety of the other side. It wasn't until he was paddling back in on the other side that the Coast Guard got to him. I didn't see it, I just hope that the guys understand their limits and stay out of these situations obviously for their own safety and of course the downside of bad press leading to ordinances, etc, etc.
Believe it or not, there are still many in these parts that are in denial that people surf Lake Superior. It's a common occurrence in the winter. So I thought I might post a few pics of these guys in their element. I love to watch em and hope they stay safe-9.9x outa 10 they usually do. For more Lake Superior Surfing photos, click on Lake Superior Surfing photos here. For winter surfing photos, click on winter surfing photos here.

icy winter surfing, Lake Superior

icy surfer,Lake Superior winter

Lake Superior waves 18-23ft today

Big wave on Lake Superior- surfer added by PS for a play on perspective
Big snowstorm blowing in today. They're saying 18-23ft waves out on Lake Superior in open water. Doubt we'll see big waves onshore with lots of pack ice preventing waves getting close enough.

ice in, ice out, ice in....

Back to winter with no end in sight. The only thing that seems to change is the surface ice in and out with the change of the wind. Here is a pic of massive sheets of ice the size of freighters drifting slowly with the wind on Lake Superior.

off to the races

snowmobile jumping, snowmobile racesA local snowmobile race
If you ever get a chance to check out snowmobile races be it the X games or a local race, check it out before the winter's over! Races generally run through March, so there's plenty of time to catch a race.
I ran across this bunch of pics and this definitely fits into mid February events up here.
I'm starting the tedious process of keywording and catologuing my library so I can, in the future
1.) find pics..!
2.) make sure everything is backed up
3.) make long needed updates to my website.

Still shooting for early 2009 for a total website overhaul,, yeaaah.

Have you ever seen an icy wave this color?

Lake Superior, with slush ice waves at the icy shoreline.

Right now,the icy slush is washing up on the ice mountains of Lake Superior and as the waves roll in, they become this baby light blue color. If you haven't noticed yet, I really get a kick out of watching how different weather makes Lake Superior change it's color like a chameleon, pretty much daily.

Lake Superior Blue Ice

After days of south winds and welcome record high temps yesterday(go figure after the cold cold winter we've had), it's time to stoke up the stove and resume our normal cold winter routine. We are now ensured that we will not see the pavement on our driveway until probably May(hope I'm a bit pessimistic here and not realistic!) as a nice iceskating rink smooth layer of slush ice has frozen up with a uniform consistency of oh, 3-5". I was hoping this warm weather would allow me to chip away at this mess, but the warmth didn't stay long enough.
The south winds have opened up Lake Superior nicely. We will hear the welcome return of waves tomorrow,, which will probably pound down the ice mountains quite a bit. I don't know how much surface ice has melted lakewide, as it's been too cloudy to get a good look at the satellite. Any shoreline facing southeast recieved a heaping of foot thick blue ice chunks over the past couple days. Pictured here is a more delicate breakup of pack ice only a couple inches thick. The sound that goes along with this type of ice is amazing as well, a sea of thousands of pieces of ice "tinkling" with the wind. Lake Superior is always ever changing.

Winter thaw

Yep, it's here. A welcome mid winter thaw. Amazing, after daily snows that build snow drifts feet high, how quickly it can all melt when the temps go a little above freezing.
Everywhere I look now I see "ugly snow" look that comes with a nice warmup such as what we're experiencing today.
But I found a winter thaw pic that is interesting- it's out at Pictured Rocks looking out over the amazing hundreds of feet tall sandstone cliffs. I imagine the water gets so green like that due to the runoff from the sandstone cliffs and the waves stirring up that sediment. On closer look at the pic, I see big boulders laying on top of the thawing ice mountains. Makes me wonder if the cliff crumbled recently, as is common during the fall freeze and winter thaw. I might add, to hear a boulder that size falling off the cliff into the lake is a humbling experience to say the least, sounds like thunder. Kayakers beware especially in the early Spring when this kind of crumbling activity of the sandstone is at it's highest.

Yooper... Daily....?

Well, wondered how long it would be before my daily turned into a weekly. I've come to the realization that it's gonna be real tough to post daily once the art show season hits in earnest.
We just got back from a show and I don't know, all of the daily media pounding on the recession has me a bit skeptical. We just had our best sales totals of any year we've been doing this last show and I have to ask, recession? What recession?
I know people are hurting, in some regions of the country very dearly, and people are cutting back. We are cutting back on some things. People are loosing their jobs. But to get our country moving again, the media has to do a better job of reporting fairly what is going on out there when there is good news too. It's easy to begin to believe that, yes, the media is in the bag with Obama and will make it sound as bad as possible to get this upcoming "pork stimulus" bill passed. Personally, I think a little "good news" reporting on the economy would do wonders for getting people to spend again. If you watch a lot of the media reporting on the economy lately, you've already hidden your life savings in ball jars in the back yard for the next five years and the only items you buy are bread and water for survival. I mean, come on, give it a break, media! and I'll give politics a break, that's the last thing I wanted to include in this blog.
Well, tonight is the full moon, and it was spectacular last night. We're clouded over tonight, but if you are in a clear sky location, enjoy! Winter is an especially cool time to experience moonlight, with the reflection of the trees contrasting against the snowy white.Lake Superior, and moonset in the winter

MTU Winter Carnival

It's here. The all nighter at MTU, where the students put their finishing touches on the giant snow statues that will be judged Thursday morning. You can find out more about the MTU Winter Carnival events HERE.

If you've never been to winter carnival, you should take a trip to Houghton and check it out. The things these guys do with snow and ice is absolutely amazing. The statues can be stories high. The detail is sometimes incredible. I particularly like how they make chains out of ice, that particular object amazes me.

the Grinch statue from 2006, my fav that year. This and a couple others are the only pics that survived an external drive crash in which I lost a year's worth of work. That'll teach ya to back up, eh?

A large statue from 2007 Winter Carnival

During winter carnival, broomball is taken very "seriously". It's really fun to watch and there's games going on all the time.
Broomball "save"!

GroundHog Day already??

I dunno. I guess it's just been such a cold brutal winter,it seems too early for Groundhog Day this year. No suprise here that he saw his shadow.

Well, nothing new here. Forecast is snow tonight, snow tommorrow, snow the next day.
Pictured to the left is what we sometimes get to awaken to after we get a good blasting of snow. Go ahead, laugh, if you are reading this from Florida,Hawaii, or some other blissfully warm vacationland right now. What really sucks is when you forget to put the shovel next to the door, and leave it where that second shovel is pictured, leaning up against the fence in the background. Then it's fight thru knee high, sometimes thigh high snowdrifts to get to the darn shovel. Fun times.

So much for ice in

So the wind blows, so goes the ice. There's open water again this morning in south Marquette. I guess when we see it frozen to the horizon one day, in the scope of things, that's really not that far, and pack ice can break up in an instant. Lake Superior is a BIG LAKE. She'll play tricks on ya. Gotta respect Gichigami always.

Today I was hoping I could get outside and pack a few snowballs for our little dog, Molly to go chase, capture, and tear to shreds, which she absolutely loves to do.

Everything is so cold frozen that even when the temp got to around 30F today, the snow still didn't pack. Bummer. Molly's been getting restless from not much exercise, but what can we do? Her little paws get too cold in a short amount of time outside in the snow, and we don't have a place to run her. Doggy treadmill? I don't know.....








Molly, our 5lb dog, playing king of the hill



So, I reached a milestone today. 1 complete month posting everyday on this blog.Not at the crack of dawn on many a day, but still everyday nonetheless.(pat on the back). Don't think this will be sustainable when art shows start up in earnest in May, but that's ok. Y'all don't want to hear from us everyday anyway, eh?

And, it's Brian's birthday today. We're nine days apart. Happy Birthday, Brian!