A Sense of Place: Lake Superior, Winter Dawn

By Gustave Axelson

"Come, let's go down to the lake to see the sunrise."

The words wake me from contented early morning slumber. Opening my eyes just slightly, I see that predawn light has cast silhouettes of the dresser and chair, strewn with winter clothing, on the bedroom wall.

"Come on, I've got some coffee brewed. If we leave now we can still catch it." This time the words are accompanied by the frosty fog of the speaker's breath. That tells me it's cold in the cabin. Damn cold. And, no doubt, colder still outside.

The speaker is my friend Ruurd, who along with his wife, has joined my wife and me for a weekend getaway. The lake Ruurd speaks of is mighty Superior, notorious for frigid waters even in July. In December it lashes out with a frozen arsenal of snow, ice, and gales that penetrate even the thickest pair of long johns. The day before, with the sun at full mast, I went down to the lake and came back with my nose hairs frozen and my eyelids nearly sealed by frosted lashes.

"Well, you can stay here and sleep if you want, but I'm not going to miss the sunrise," Ruurd whispers with just a hint of annoyance in his throaty Dutch accent.

I'm now awake enough to fully appreciate how warm and snug I am under my blankets, my wife?'s head buried in my shoulder. She yawns, rolls over on her side, and nestles her head deep into her pillow for a few more hours of sleep.

In one hurried motion, I pull back the covers and leap out of bed. My bare feet hit the wooden floor with a resounding slap and report back that the cabin is indeed quite cold.

Ruurd seems pleased with my decision. "There you go," he says, "you won't be sorry. Now get dressed, let's get going, we don't have much time."

Moments later, I'm swishing down a wooded ridge to the lakeshore. I don't really remember getting dressed, or stepping into my cross-country skis. I do remember the thermometer's reading on a tree outside the cabin—minus 20 degrees.

At this point, all I'm aware of is the stinging numbness of my cheeks and nose. With a stiff arctic wind, the lake warns me to turn back. Cold air fills my lungs, and they protest with a choking cough. I momentarily stop to lean against a tree and regain my breath.

"What's wrong? Are you alright?" Ruurd yells from 50 yards ahead. "Let's go. We're almost there."

The last stretch down the ridge drops nearly 200 feet. It requires little effort from me, other than keeping my skis in Ruurd's tracks. But the brisk pace of coasting downhill amplifies the wind chill. My teeth are chattering as I reach the bottom of the ridge. Ruurd mentioned none of this when he asked me to go see the sunrise. Then, I find out what else he failed to tell me.

He didn't say anything about the magnificent diamond sculptures the lake carves along its shore. Each sharp point of rock is perfectly rounded by several inches of ice. Shafts of ice the diameter of a baseball bat shoot down from the rocks, forming spectacular icicles.

He didn't mention the ice-glazed birch trees that face Superior, with their thin branches bowed by heaps of snow. Chickadees and nuthatches and downy woodpeckers flit among the trees as they carry on their morning business. I'm sure they've something to say, but their chatter is muted by the relentless crashing of the lake's waves.

Ruurd never said a word about the giant, jagged boulders of ice floating in the lake. The bergs collide with a brittle crack each time a new wave readjusts them. Above all, he is guilty of not telling me about the sun's lakeside magic—the rays of glorious rose and orange and blazing gold. The rays refract through the ice on the trees and rocks, filling my eyes with brilliant, piercing white sparkles and glints.

"Care for some coffee?" Ruurd offers. "I made it with steamed milk and chocolate, just like we used to do in Holland.

I take off my gloves so my chilled hands can feel the toasty steel thermos; the steam rising from its mouth looks as inviting as a roaring fire. I hold the thermos close to my face for a moment to thaw my cheeks before taking a swig and feeling the coffee's pleasant burn roll down my throat.

"Is it too strong?" he asks.

It is on the bitter side, despite its milky shade of brown. But it's also hot. And my teeth are no longer chattering.

"No, it's perfect," I say.

We speak in hushed tones. Amid this crystalline palace, it almost seems inappropriate to speak at all. I take a second sip of coffee, then remove my hat and untie my scarf. The stiff wind blowing off the lake has mellowed into a gentle breeze.

Ruurd points out the tracks of a timber wolf that wind along the tree line on the shore. A former wildlife preserve director, he knows about the north woods and its inhabitants.

"You see how wide the wolf's paws are, how his tracks only depress a few millimeters into the snow? Their paws are designed to give them excellent flotation," he says. I nod in agreement, though I don't think he noticed.

"Now you see these deer tracks? Look how their hooves sink so deep. They don't have a chance, struggling through the snow while wolves run on top of it."

He pauses to stare out at the lake for a moment.

"Then again, deer don't really belong up this far north. This is supposed to be caribou country."

I listen to Ruurd's story about the hardships of timber wolves and deer in winter. Then our conversation wanders to other topics—the canoe trips we hope to take this summer, what a great life it would be to work as a sailor on a Lake Superior freighter ship, how we met our wives.

As the talk dwindles, I notice the coffee thermos is empty and I have taken off my jacket and balled it up under my head as a pillow. I'm reclining on the icy rocks just as if I were at home on the couch, watching football on a Sunday afternoon. The only chill I feel is at my fingertips, wrapped around the thermos that is now filling with falling snow.

"Well, we better get going," Ruurd sighs. "The girls will be up soon." My jacket and hat, gloves and scarf, feel heavy now. The sun has been sucked into the gray, snowy clouds that have moved over the lake. I push on my pole to start the ski back to the cabin, and a gust of wind sneaks down my collar to send a shiver down my back. A few swishes of my skis, and my cheeks are numb again.

Gustave Axelson is managing editor of Minnesota Conservation Volunteer.