An Easter miracle occurred
last weekend.
When we left for a family
get-together in Minneapolis Saturday morning, a foot of snow covered the
landscape at our home in Birch Creek Township. When we returned
Monday afternoon, all the snow had melted. It was like seeing a nephew you
hadn’t seen in years, and suddenly he is a foot taller, with a deeper voice and
stubble on his face.
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| Malika and Miss Emma outside in the small window between "The Snow is GONE! and the mud is here!" |
But what a sight on
Monday. The woodpile gaped like an open wound. I located the pile of slab-wood
that didn’t get stacked before our Thanksgiving storm. The bent hood of an old
Ford truck emerged, plus sheets of tin for a roofing project. And those rusty
band saw blades from an old sawmill were curled where I left them. Waiting.
The garden sneered at us,
cornstalks and Brussels sprouts leaning this way and that. Weren’t we supposed
to clean that last fall, after harvest? The front lawn showed a long winter’s
use by our dog, who must have thought it a perfect pet exercise area. Time to
get the rake out.
But spring is here, though
the countryside doesn’t proclaim it. A pair of robins flitted in mid-air under
the apple tree Monday evening and they weren’t fighting. They will nest again
in the white spruce. Green will push aside brown, frogs will break into song,
and roads will boil.
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| A little leery of the Canada geese in the spring. |
Roads boil? If you live in
Pine County, you know what I mean. Frost that is down nearly to China works its
way to the surface, and spits out into frost boils. I measured one two and a
half feet deep several years ago just south of our house. I’m sure older folks
can top that by a lot. They look like huge boils on the face of the road. New
ones jiggle when stepped on like Jello. Old ones swallow children and foreign
cars. The Guinness Book of World Records doesn’t list the world’s deepest frost
boil, but I would put my money on northern Pine County.
People west of Sturgeon
Lake will have a closer look at them this year, with the Kettle River Bridge
still closed. The old bridge on County Road 46 was removed last summer, with a
new one to rise in glory three months later. But bedrock, rain, or too many
cups of coffee kept it from completion. The detour roads to Moose Lake,
Sturgeon Lake, or Willow River, will show us some fine frost boils. Our cars
will suffer. Mechanics and front-end specialists love detour roads the way
dentists love Easter and Halloween.
But before we complain too
much more, we should remember what those roads must have been like not too many
years ago. If you are used to blacktop, our forefathers would have been pleased
with a little gravel. Many of the roads where I live are “corduroy” roads, made
to stand up to frost, water, and washouts, by laying logs in place and covering
them with dirt. Sometimes you can still see these logs when a grader
accidentally snags one out of the road after a rain, or in the spring.
The roads were often built
by local people who wanted better roads. Many contributed days of their year to
work on the roads in place of paying taxes.
Sometimes the work was
simply donated. O. Bernard Johnson, who grew up in Birch Creek Township, wrote
about such an effort in his very interesting book, The Homesteaders.
Postmaster Charles Olson,
who worked in Sturgeon Lake from 1901 to 1913, wanted to establish a rural
route east of town. The route qualified, with a minimum of 24 miles in length
and 100 or more patrons. But a postal inspector found the roads deplorable, and
turned in a negative report. It must have been frost boil season.
Writes O. Bernard Johnson:
The rejection was a
disappointment to the settlers, but they were not discouraged. Mr. Olson
informed them as to the reasons why the proposal was not approved and they went
to work immediately, without pay, and improved the roads of the suggested
route. When the Inspector returned in the fall of the year, he was so greatly
impressed with the improvements, that he approved Route No. 1. Route No. 2,
running east of the village was approved later.
Johnson also tells about
the muddy roads:
There is an
incident, related years ago, concerning a fishing trip made by Olaf Larson to
Sturgeon Lake in a two wheel cart, which in this instance was the front part of
the lumber wagon: He caught several wash tubs full of fish. On the way home, near the Ten
Post, due to the heavy load and depth of the mud in the road, one of the wheels
of the cart gave way and all the fish slid off the cart into the mud. No record
is available as to how he managed to transport the fish the rest of the
distance to his home. The story, however, is true.
If you are driving through
that area eight miles west of Sturgeon Lake in the next month, keep an eye out
for frost boils. You may even find a few of those fish still splashing around.
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