Fishing:

Spartan1 and I have never been fishermen. Back in 2007 when we were bringing Anna to the Gunflint for her first trip, I contacted our friends Bob and Marti Marchino, the former owners of Clearwater Lodge, and asked if one of them might be interested in taking a four-year-old on her very first fishing trip. We just thought that fishing might be an experience that would be memorable and fun for Anna, and we didn't think we could provide it properly. So that is how Anna met her dear friend Marti, the brave volunteer who takes Anna out fishing on Clearwater Lake every year, in spite of the fact that Anna is very tender-hearted and squeamish and hates more than anything to hurt any living thing.

I was proud of Anna this year. She actually did bait her own hooks with the worms, and she took the fish off the hooks herself to let them go. This was the first year for that. In 2007 when she was asked if she wanted to keep her fish for a fish fry dinner, she looked rather aghast, and she replied, "I think I want to put them back in the lake. It just seems like a better ending for the fishie."

Fishing with Marti in 2007:

Fishing in 2017:

Just being on Clearwater Lake is such a wonderful experience for all of us, and of course spending time with Marti, who has been a dear friend for a very long time, makes it even more special.

Because we were on the lake on the day of the total solar eclipse, we noticed, of course, that around noon an unnatural twilight was beginning to fall. Anna had brought along the eclipse glasses that her school had provided for all of the students, and she shared them with us so that all four of us got small glimpses of "the moon taking a bite out of the sun"--as much as we could see on a partly cloudy day in an area where the totality was only about 70% anyway. But it was still fun to experience this phenomenon in such a special setting. At the end of our "viewing", a dark cloud began to obscure all possibility of seeing anything at all, and we realized that rain was approaching, so we headed back to Marti's cabin on Clearwater. After stowing away all of the gear, we treated Marti to lunch at Trail Center. Another one of those traditions!