We've been blessed with kind of weather that convinces tourists that there is no more beautiful place on earth than Lake Superior's North Shore. Brilliant warm days filled with cooling breezes and the calming view of Lake Superior. The weather and the tranquil lake have lured swimmers from the camp ground next door. I've never seen the beach so crowded with swimmers. Most amazing of all is the fact that they aren't screaming! In past years, anyone who leaped off the rocks into the water emerged screaming and howling with fear and laughter. Then they'd make a mad dash for the shore.
Though I'm hesitant to test Lake Superior's temperature I don't like the thought of it becoming scream-free. I ask myself what these warmer waters mean. People have been swimming here since early July. My husband Bill has even caught them shampooing and bathing in the lake even though they have access to showers and hot water at the campground. When Bill tells them that they are polluting a fragile lake they look at him as if he were crazy. What could a few soap suds mean in so much water. It reminds me of the woman who once wrote a letter to the editor scorning the water-saving devices one Lake Superior hotel had installed. "Imagine. And with all that water right outside our windows!"
It is difficult to look at Lake Superior (which we know can be formidable in her power) and see a fragile eco-system vulnerable to global warming and human abuse. It is not so difficult if you have seen photos of the desert that was recently the second largest lake in Central Asia, Lake Balkhash, or of the rapidly disappearing Aral Sea with fishing boats sitting in the middle of the desert. This was not a slow decline in water levels, this was fast enough to beach boats on a sea of sand.
The other day, when our 6-year-old Cassandra came huffing and puffing up the stairs from the basement where Bill's exercise-bike is located, announcing she was exhausted from "riding the bike," and we wondered how she'd managed to do that when she couldn't reach the pedals, she told us that her little brother and sister had pushed the pedals while she "did" the handles. This is a stationary bike, but Cassandra's remark reminded me of what I see happening throughout our world. Water loss and pollutants are the pedals threatening our existence. With global warming taking us in new directions, we too might find ourselves breathless over the changes that lie ahead. Some of us might poo-poo the whole global warming scenario but when the heat index world-wide climbs as rapidly as it has within the last two decades, we'd be wise to take notice. We have a choice. We can decide to ride the handlebars or we can attempt to control the bike.
Published in the Cook County News Herald September 1
My grandson never finds it too cold to skip rocks in Lake Superior -- of course, this is the sandy beach on Park Point and not the rocky beach 80 miles north in Schroeder.
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Comments: 24
I'm afraid money will probably grease some hands and the Sands Products company will get their way!
I grew up in a small town on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan and so I like reading about Lake Superior.
On the "Global Warming" issue, that is very questionable whether that can be affected by human intervention. Nature and physics are defined by constant change and fluctuations--not statis.
The photo of your grandson brings the point of the article home on a direct level; just as with your writing, your interpolation of outside image in pre-Sim terms is transparent, iconic in the part/whole sense, and sincere with a fearless transparency I try to also cultivate in my virtual presence (even though this article was originally published in analog press, its online presence and the subsequent blog thread raise these themes of how an author creates a reliable narrator/account of the world.
The latter statement reflects my own views in a nascent state of pre-Simulationist thought, and I only reflect upon your work in this new way because of wanting to restore the importance of the Author in my hyper-linking to you as reader/author, rather than reader/critic, for you are an author I supremely respect, Beryl.
My aunt used to live a couple of doors down from the Glensheen Mansion and I recall looking out over the glistening lake when we visited her. I also remember Aunt Bonnie saying (with her adorably coy smile), "You don't want to go in there!" because it was frightfully cold. Back then, it would have been unimaginable to find people swimming and bathing in the lake. But today, it is tragic and telling for those of us who have embraced the truth of global warming all along.
[Sigh] How I love Park Point!! Especially walking the beach at night with the lights of Duluth flickering before you. Soooooo romantic.
I learned to skip rocks on Lake Superior's northern shore.
Cute Kid!
I've never seen Lake Superior but would like to one day. I just saw my first Great Lake last year, Lake Michigan and it was breathtaking. For a girl who grew up on the Atlantic Ocean, I couldn't believe I was looking at a lake!
Even our benighted president has gotten around to accepting that global warming is happening. His "reality makers" unbound by "reality-based" governance are scrambling, though getting SUVs reclassified from "trucks" to "cars" or unrenouncing the Kyoto Accords are too horrifying for them to contemplate.