Strange Outfits at Wirth Park
Posted Wed, April 29, 2009 - 8:52 PM
orienteering
(No, it's not what you might think.) Last night Jerritt invited the whole group out to Wirth around 6 PM
for an... audition, of sorts. He and a friend were making a short promotional video to be shared between
True North Adventures
and the
Minneapolis Tri-loppet, and he was looking for volunteers to run, bike and paddle in "corporate"
wear. So of course, those of us interested in hamming it up all showed up after work without changing clothes. I even put on
a tie. Both Mollys were there in power suit attire, and Tom showed up everybody by arriving in a dark pinstripe suit with an
orange tie and sunglasses.
We did all three disciplines, including a paddle on Wirth Lake in Jerritt's old aluminum canoe. We ended up taking almost
an hour to record the video; the videographer didn't seem to have a
real solid plan of what to do for each segment, so we ended up putting together scenarios and executing them two or more
times, which was quite a bit of fun as we had to remember things, like what order we were in running over the crest of a hill.
The video will be a couple minutes long, and I'll post a link when I know it.
After that, we changed into real workout gear and ran the actual course. More after the jump.
Read More...
Anishinaabe - Part III. Seasons
The book that the last story was quoted from is organized into four sections:
Ziigwang, Niibing, Dagwaaging, [dash] Biboong.
(Click to listen ). This just serves to highlight the
importance of the seasonal rhythm to traditional Anishinaabe culture.
On the west side of Misi-zaaga'igan (Mille Lacs Lake) is the small reservation for the Mille Lacs of Ojibwe. Probably the
most well known feature is the casino. It's a modern day revenge that never fails to amuse me, but more constructively, it also provides an
extremely valuable source of income for an area that traditionally has been on the bottom of the economic ladder in modern America.
On the other side of busy Highway 169 and a little ways down is the
Mille Lacs Indian museum, jointly run by the Mille Lacs Band and the
Minnesota Historical Society. In fact, the storyteller from the previous installment, Maude Kegg, worked there for many years. The
highlight of the museum is a guided tour-only circular room about twenty-five feet in diameter. It is entirely enclosed and divided
into four quarters (minus room for the entrance), representing the four seasons. Arranged continuously
around the outside of the room is a beautifully kept up, life-size diorama showing typical scenes for each season.
Read More...
Spring is Springing (Slowly)
It's been a busy week, and I haven't had much time to post recently! But this weekend, I managed to get away for a short time
and take a trip up to
Helen Allison Savanna SNA in northern Anoka County.
This 100+ acre plot is owned by the Nature Conservancy and managed in cooperation
with the Minnesota DNR's Scientific and Natural Area program. The terrain is beautiful - small rolling hills and damp depressions
on the Anoka Sand Plain, covered by a mixture of open prairie, oak savanna, and oak woods. The sandy soil lends itself to a xeric
to mesic prairie environment, not much helped by the dry conditions we've had so far this year.
Read More...
Prairie buttercups at Helen Allison Savanna SNA
F*@#^%n' Sand Dunes
Posted Sat, April 18, 2009 - 6:22 PM
orienteering
Another MNOC meet today, on a sunny, above average day - but it was at Sand Dunes. The terrain is terrific,
but the large amount of undergrowth (i.e., prickly ash, assorted raspberry vines, and more prickly ash) and
active "forest management" (i.e., logging) tend to cause a pretty slow and painful pace. Throw in an
alarming amount of poison ivy and some active wood ticks, and you've got a fun day in the woods.
Read More...
Bridges Galore!
Posted Fri, April 17, 2009 - 9:16 PM
orienteering
This week's training, courtesy of Mike, down in Bloomington. He set a "Bridges of Hennepin County" course in the
Moir (Central) Park
- Nine Mile Creek Area. We started at the park, just off 104th St, and had to visit nine bridges (a numerical coincidence),
subject to the constraint of having to visit at least one marked control point (any one) in between bridges. By their very
nature, all the bridges were at the bottom of the valley, and Mike set most of the interim controls near the top of the valley,
making this a great hill workout.
Map and route after the jump.
Read More...
35 miles of the Snake River
Posted Fri, April 17, 2009 - 9:01 PM
paddling, advracing
I've only paddled the Snake River
once, but it sure was a doozy. Our team
started the Memorial Day 2008 practice race by putting in the Snake River just downstream of Mora. We had six solo kayaks,
for me, Mark, Roz, Dave, Brian, and Rick. The water was up, as usual in late spring, but the section between Mora and Pine
City is generally a slow, lazy, winding river with heavily wooded banks hiding the frequent cultivated fields.
View Snake River (lower) in a larger map
Read More...
OTNT at Tamarack
Posted Wed, April 15, 2009 - 11:24 PM
orienteering
Another Tuesday night training as the spring weather just continues to get better. This time it was at Tamarack Nature
Center on Tuesday the 7th. We all met in the parking lot between 6 and 6:30 PM, and did another "Scrabble-O" like the one Ian set up at Lake
Elmo last year. Tamarack has a permanent orienteering course with control labeled A-X, so as each of us arrived, we shook
up a tub full of 24 Scrabble tiles and drew 10 consecutive control letters. The training event was to visit them all in
the order we drew them. This was also billed as "Scrabble-O plus", so Ian enlightened us by specifying that we had to drop
and do 10 pushups at each control, for a total of 100 on the night.
Map and analysis below the fold.
Read More...
Anishinaabe - Part II
Following up on my earlier post about Anishinaabe language, history and culture.
With the rise of writing, near 100% literacy in many countries, efficient distribution networks for various forms of
writing, and especially, the Internet, the oral tradition that has contributed to human culture for arguably hundreds
of thousands of years now seems like it could fade away as a quaint vestige of the past. (And yes... I feel the irony of talking about it this way.)
But still, that's not how people work -
even the biggest iPhone and Crackberry fanboyz still like to get together and just talk. Stories about the trivial, the sublime,
and everything in between flow over cups of coffee, mugs of beer, or crackling campfires every single day all over the world.
And what child isn't happy to hear a bedtime story?
Read More...
Anishinaabe - Part I
I mentioned earlier how Anishinaabemowin is the presettlement language of my native state of
Minnesota (more so in the north and east). I'm interested in
more than just the language, though - the history and culture is also fascinating, and recorded in pretty good detail due to the span of time
between the first European settlement and the start of cultural extermination - at least a full generation. This is the first post in a series
looking more closely at the Anishinaabe, but in bite-sized pieces. Whole books can (and have!) been written on the subject, and I strongly
encourage you to follow links and seek out some of the references if you want to learn more.
Here's a first taste.
Read More...
Wallace Falls
After a couple of days just hanging around town, Annie and I got up early today and drove out to
Wallace Falls State Park, near
Gold Bar in the
North Cascades.
This is a centerpiece of the park; Middle Wallace Falls. Notice the dusting of snow on the trees
at the top of the picture.
Middle Wallace Falls.
Read More...
Subscribe
