Long Lake Yarns

US-23 from just south of Alpena to just north of Harrisville is a feast of public folk art. Dinosaur Gardens is so 1950′s that you’ll want to dust off your hula hoop and bring your poodle skirt out of its mothballs. I confess to not having toured Dinosaur Gardens or even played putt-putt at its [...]

It wouldn’t be half so horrible if they’d learned what we two-legged mammals teach our young’ns: “Finish the one you have before you take another.” They are eating the living part of the tree. And they are only eating birch trees. I get it that beaver think birch is especially tasty. The Girl Scout Mint [...]

The unseasonably warm weather is hurrying up ice out this year. The big thaw is being hastened by temperatures in the mid-seventies! This “river” cuts a swath near shore in the first bay, if you are coming out of the Narrows, on the east side of the big part of Long Lake. My theory is [...]

My brother Norb is an avid fisherman and a wonderful woodworker. A few weeks ago I received a surprise package from him: this set of hand-painted fishing lures. He salvages hooks and parts from old lures and carves and paints new bodies. Of course, they are way too cool to load up with nightcrawlers and [...]

This weekend we saw our first sled dog race. A Mid-Union Sled Haulers (M.U.S.H.) race. It was a perfect day for spectators. 20 degrees and sunny. About 8 inches of snow on the trails. We watched the 5-dog event and the very exciting 7-dog event. We also watched one and two-dog skijoring.  In skijoring, a [...]