Temptation and tragedy at Temperance

There is no place finer on the North Shore than the mouth of the Temperance River, where you'll find a gravel beach and some very scenic campsites. The river has run through the deep gorge and rounded kettles and completes its path to Lake Superior in a last push of current. When the river was first named, there was no "bar" at its mouth (hence the no-drinking name), but now it does. It was right here on Saturday the Fourth of July that divers searched for the body of Ari Sommerfeld.

You'd think with a name like Temperance, a famous North Shore river would be a place of modesty and caution. But the Temperance River took another life this weekend. Overly brave men take risks there all the time, and in a few cases, the odds turn against them and the power of the river wins. The temptations at Temperance are too strong.

At least eight other people who have died in the Temperance River over the last 25 years. Four of them were men in the dangerous age range of 14 to 31. Statistics show that young men are by far the mostly likely to be drowning victims, probably because they overestimate their abilities and feel immortal.

But tragedy has struck older men and also women at the Temperance. Two young women drowned last year when they were carried into the current above the gorge.

Ari Sommerfeld, the victim this weekend, was exactly my age, 45. He was not saving a child's life; he was jumping into a whirlpool he'd jumped into numerous times before just for fun. His widow urges that no one go there again. But they will.

When I was young and immortal, my cousins and I used to jump off the cliffs just upstream from the highway, at the mouth of the main gorge. It was a thrill. We all survived. Once as an adult I met up with a group of teenagers from Duluth for an educational program on Lake Superior. They were polite but restless, asking their leader during most of my program "Can we go jumping now?" As a liability-conscious grown-up, my only response to that was, "After my program."

For me, the saddest tragedies at Temperance came in 1999 and 2000. Twice, fathers age 48 and 50 found their child in trouble, went in and saved the child, but then drowned themselves. Not even swimming themselves, taking no risks for themselves, they were drawn into danger by the tragedy of their child. As a now-cautious dad, I totally understand that.

You can't ban swimming at Temperance, any more than you can ban hiking on steep trails or crossing wide highways. With the temptations, there will always be tragedy.

Smelt!

Come on now, does anything really say "North Shore" more than smelting?

Thanks to Happy Hooker Charters for these great photos of smelters ceremoniously biting off the heads of their first smelt.

Ecologically speaking, the smelt run is a fascinating story. Whoever dumped some smelt into the Great Lakes back in the 1910s didn't know they'd create a whole culture, or fill such a hole in the ecosystem. As the lamprey and commercial fishermen killed off the lake trout, smelt had few predators and their population soared. Lake Superior is a huge, cold, sterile place, and even at the peak of the smelt population, the little buggers spent most of their year scattered all across the lake straining the water for zooplankton like little humpback whales.

Dip a net in a North Shore stream in July and you'll get nothing. For a few evenings in spring, though, the lake seems ripe and abundant and teeming with life.

As the smelt jammed the rivers and beaches, so did the people. The mouth of the Lester River was a crazy party scene. At least five men died there smelting in the 1960s-1970s, carried out by raging frigid water into even more frigid water in the dark.

I'm old enough to remember the good old days of smelting, though as a 12 year old on the Cross River or Caribou River, I did not partake to the level of serious adults. Like our Governor Ventura, who remembers coming to Duluth to smelt at the Lester River, but not much after that. A sure sign of spring was when the Holiday stores would put those smelting nets out in front for sale, the round nets on the 8-foot poles.

Smelting was the most sensory experience I had on the North Shore as a child. It was dark, I could smell the cold water rushing by and smell the fish as they piled up in the bucket. I could feel the cold from the water and the warmth of spring air. And the excitement was palpable. It was amazing to dip a net into these rivers and pull up, in one swipe, dozens of squirmy fish.

Now I live right at another smelting hotbed, Park Point. The Sivertsons have had their smelt net out in the bay for a week or so now, just two blocks from our house:



According to the Minnesota DNR, they are catching almost a ton of smelt each day.

Last night, the real action moved to the beach, in our backyard. The seiners are out. Yesterday evening, as dusk set in, they arrived on our street and came through to the beach. They light a driftwood fire, pull on their waders, and working in pairs drag a large net through the water. There are so many fewer smelt nowadays that this is the only way to get decent numbers.

They are still a little slobby. Someone left a shoe and a fire that was still smoldering this morning:



It used to be a lot worse. Guys would bring worn-out car tires to the beach and set those on fire. Aachk!

For a few days in spring, the waters of the North Shore come alive.

In my spare time...

... I am researching the unpleasant topic of death on Lake Superior. I came across this mighty fine image today, and I'm sorry to say I was excited to see it.

I feel a bit like Lemony Snicket, like I should warn you to turn off your browser right now, or switch to the Disney Channel.

But should you insist on looking at this picture more, you may find that it shows the Ojibwa of Madeline Island slaughtering a group of invading Fox Indians, somewhere off the Montreal River. Apparently, the Fox had come down the Ontonagon River and snuck onto Madeline Island a few days before. They had, well, dishonored a few of the Ojibwa women. Although the call for vengeance was hot, cooler heads prevailed, and the Ojibwa waited until a fog had descended. Then they followed the Fox upshore until the lakeshore banks were steep and unclimbable. Then they pressed the advantage of their larger lake canoes against the small and tippy river canoes of the Fox. The party of 400 Fox was lost, apparently, "to a man."

Pleasant, huh?

Just ask me about some Lake Superior lighthouse keepers! Now there are some great stories of dead people. And heroic rescues, too. Something about 400 people dying in one attack on Lake Superior is extra creepy and extra sad.