Britt, MN Monday August 21
Arrowhead Lake at Laurentian Environmental Center, Britt MN
Summer Camp for the Senior Crowd. My preferred title was going to be Summer Camp for Geezers but Chris tells me Geezer normally refers to men. My title succinctly describes what Chris and I will be doing for the next five days. We are at the Laurentian Environmental Center (LEC), a 30 acre property run by the Community Education Department of the Mounds View MN School District. The property is leased from the state of MN. It is located on what is called Section 16 land; land dedicated by the Land Ordinance of 1785 to provide for the use and benefit of public education. We are about 15 miles north of Virginia MN, about 50 miles south of the Canadian border, in the Superior National Forest, nestled in the Minnesota Iron Range.
Our bunk space at LEC
The LEC offers educational programs for school kids from Mounds View and numerous other school districts around the state. One week of each year, in late August, a program for senior citizens is offered. The official title is something like “Young at Heart” or “Summer Camp for Seniors”. Room and board are included in the fee; we are sleeping in bunk beds in the Cedar Lodge along with about 10 other couples. We can spread out, we are not lodged right on top of each other. We have our own bathroom and share a shower. There are other cabins for single women and single men. There are probably about 50 people here “at camp”. The oldest person is 87, down to about low 50s. There is a roughly 2/3-1/3 division between women and men.
During the five days we are here, there is a mix of loosely scheduled pre-set programs and activities and of free time and/or programs chosen/organized by the participants. In addition, if you really want, you can just take off and explore the broader Iron Range area. For instance, we are planning to visit both Bear Head Lake State Park and Tower-Soudan Underground Iron Mine during the time we are here.
Enger Tower, Duluth MN
View of Duluth Harbor and Lift Bridge
We arrived here around 11 AM today. We drove up north Sunday, stopping in Duluth MN to eat lunch at the Thompson Hill overlook rest stop providing a grand view of the St. Louis River emptying into Lake Superior. We made a visit to Enger Park and Tower, a city park in Duluth also contributing a view of Lake Superior and Duluth, this time from the top of an 80 foot tower on top of the bluffs overlooking the lake. Enger Park was a tip from Chris’ sister. It was our first visit to this park, despite numerous visits to Duluth. We spent the night with friends in Babbit MN. They live on Birch Lake, a quiet lake bracketed by a high percentage of land owned by the state or feds.
After checking in, we unloaded our stuff, picking out a section of the Cedar Lodge that seemed to provide a bit more privacy. Checking in early was a good idea; this year there are more participants than usual. We were allowed to pick our own location in Cedar Lodge; later arrivals discovered some couples spread out a bit more than the program had expected and the later arrivals had to be accommodated in cabins other than Cedar Lodge. Not a big deal, but some expectations had to be adjusted.
(A side note. Today is solar eclipse day. We did not get excited about it. We are at a location with only 75% coverage and we had cloud cover all day. If you are looking for fantastic news and photos of the solar eclipse, look elsewhere.)
Evening bonfire, Community lodge, our bunkhouse
Lunch was simple but good. Wild rice soup, sandwiches, cut veggies and grapes and pumpkin cake. They even had milk. We made name badges and spent time introducing ourselves. Chris and I did not know anyone but numerous connections are evident. This was the first year Mounds View advertised this program in the St. Paul Community Education booklet and numerous attendees have a St. Paul connection. I can overhear other conversations discussing topics and people who would allow me to chip in comments, but that would be rude. This appears to be the first time here for about one half of the people. The other half have been here three to 20 times. Some are returning after 15 or 20 years, bringing friends or siblings. The five staff have tenure ranging from 27 years to only three years.
Two programs were offered for the afternoon after intros. Chris chose a session of Night Sky which covered new and old information. She came away determined to sign up for a notification service that projects when the aurora borealis should be highly visible. If we see an upcoming night, we might just hop in the car and head north.
I took the outdoor class on phenology–the study of cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena, especially in relation to changes in climate and plant and animal life. For two hours the group went walking around the property learning about various topics. One participant had brought a cage with monarch butterflies in various stages of growth; releasing one of them to begin its long journey to Mexico. From that beginning we found milkweed plants and our instructor plucked a milkweed pod. The pod is at a time when the seeds are tasty even for us to eat, the pod and seeds could be tossed into a cooking pot and would taste like cashews.
Release of the Monarch butterfly
On our walk, it was evident the participants had a range of knowledge. Some people were able to educate the instructor on specific topics, others were more interested in watching the solar eclipse on their smart phones. We saw (and some were able to sample) choke cherries, hazelnuts, raspberries, and serviceberries. Serviceberries, also called June berries, were named serviceberries (according to our guide) since when people died in the winter, they could not be buried in the frozen earth. When the June berries blossomed the ground was soft enough to bury people and have their funeral service.
Our guide mentioned that northern Minnesota has not had the frequency of -40° weather that it needs to kill harmful insects. This has resulted in an increase in the number of wood ticks. One result that is still being verified is that the increase in wood ticks makes the moose population scratch their bodies more frequently against tree trunks, reducing the amount of fur they have on their bodies, leaving them less able to survive the winter. Our guide has seen his first raccoon in his 27 years up here due to the warmer weather.
Dinner was sloppy joes, corn, cut vegetables, etc. After dinner we had some down time in which I worked on this blog. A bonfire gathered many of us around 8 PM while others worked on puzzle, played cribbage and other games, or just talked. It is an easy group to set up conversations; and yes, daughters, even I did some talking although not as much as other people.
We were in bed by 9 but not asleep until after 10. Our neighbors spent an hour in conversation and lights out was not until 10 PM-we share a light switch controlling the lights in each of our bunk pods. We did not hear major snoring, just a loud clock going tick-tock-tick-tock all night. Neither of us hit our heads on the upper bunk. I slept no worse than at home, I was just lacking the ability to wander anywhere so I just tossed and turned in the bottom bunk.
Tuesday morning dawned cloudy and cool but we did have several hours of mixed sun during the morning. Breakfast was sausage, scrambled eggs, muffins, yogurt, and fresh fruit. Chris and I split up again for the morning session. Chris went to gourd making; a highly popular activity. The instructor was one of our participants and started with a 45 minute slide presentation about the art of gourd decorating. Participants would choose their gourd, cut and shape it if desired, and then decorate it. Chris stuck to a small gourd she only had to decorate.
Stuffed wolf at our morning class Tuesday.
I went to the session on Minnesota mammals held in one of the classrooms filled with skins, bones, stuffed animals, etc. The instructor began asking us to identify the four identifying traits of mammals–we could not. (Fur/hair; live birth, warm-blooded, and milk feeding of young) Then we progressed to examining the specimens and we were asked to identify the four mammals in the display not native to Minnesota and the three specimens that were not mammals. We did not complete the task until the very end of the 2.5 hours as our group digressed unto multiple topics, ranging from mammals, mining, bogs, etc. Some of the discussion involved simple questions I thought anyone should know, other conversation went to current scientific research, to personal experience with environmental and scientific travels we had undertaken, etc.
Before lunch,some people, Chris included, participated in a stretching yoga session on the lawn. Lunch was salad, sphaghetti, garlic bread, watermelon and chocolate cake.
End of first blog on Summer Camp for the Senior Crowd. More to follow.
Ed and Chris
Britt,MN. Aug. 22
Chris Klejbuk and Ed Heimel travel adventure 
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