A Northwoods Almanac for 12/19/25 – 1/1/ 26
Ice-Up!
Woody Hagge has been keeping ice-up and ice-off dates for 50 years on 39-acre Foster Lake in Hazelhurst. This year, Foster Lake iced-up on November 29, two days later than the 50 year average of November 27.
There has been, of course, wild variation in these dates over the 50 years. Woody’s earliest ice-up on Foster Lake occurred on November 7, 1991, 20 days earlier than the average, while the latest ice-up date occurred on December 28, 2015, 31 days later than 50-year average.
Foster Lake over the 50 years has averaged 140.5 days of ice cover – 20 weeks – or about 38% of the year.
In case you’re already hankering for spring, just know that the average ice-out day on Foster is April 16.
But rather than anyone lament it, let’s hope that the ice stays that long, because that will mean we had an average winter, and winter is what makes the North Country what it is.
If you’re not familiar with the narrow band of forest that we call “The Northwoods” (also more scientifically called the Laurentian Mixed Forest Province), it only stretches north to the Canadian border and south to just below Hwy. 29 (see the map). If we moderate our winter, we quickly lose what defines us.
The "Northwoods" or Laurentian Mixed Forest Province
So, we need to buck up! The winter is already hard upon us, and it’s just as it should be.
With that, I’ll put on my snowshoes, share breaking trail with Mary, and try to keep up with her and our dog Pippa, smiling the whole way.
The Impact of Heavy Snows
Good friend and superb photographer/writer Bob Kovar in Manitowish Waters summed up the state of many trails after the Thanksgiving snows:
“There’s not a trail recognizable right now in the North, the tangled mess of branches, trees and heavy snow conspiring to confound our senses, turning lifelong routes that before the storm we knew so well we could proudly walk through with eyes closed into this immense, impassable, MC Escher jigsaw puzzle, into an alien drifter we have never met before, into a prison of sorts that we had to plot our escape from once the power came back on, from the inside out, one branch, one dangerously hanging tree at a time.” – 12/3/25
A few days later, Bob further reflected on the thousands of trees and shrubs stooped with their tips bent over so far that they’re now frozen in a coiled spring in the snowpack:
“I noticed something different this morning as I stepped onto the deck, that for the first time ever I could easily see to the river, as if the area had been clear cut, cleared out, the underbrush and smaller trees having disappeared, yielding to the onslaught of Thanksgivings’ heavy snow and ICE, their bodies crushed under the weight of something bigger, more powerful, almost sinister if you ask me, their tips imprisoned in the snowpack, the only visible trees being the elders that were old enough to know their rights and stood their ground, a spectacle of suffering, not unlike what is happening in too many tight-knit communities on a daily basis in our country these days, and I reached to gently tug at the scoliosed spine of one little white pine, pulling it free, and was surprised when it sprang right up, shaking the snow off as it stood, and then I watched it stand there dazed for a few moments, and it kept straightening almost imperceptibly, as if it was slowly stretching, and each time it blinked, a little more snow fell off, as if reclaiming its mojo, and so I did the same to another, and another, and pretty soon I was in the middle of a silent, but very powerful freedom march, and as the sunrise burned in universal indignation, I realized there is no keeping any one of us down if another is willing to help, and how even when you can’t see the forest for the trees, the forest is there, resilient, strong, bending, waiting.” – 12/6/25
The efforts by many, many hundreds of volunteers to clear all the chaos on ski trails, bike trails, and snowmobile trails speaks to the strength and big hearts of our small northern communities. We do come together, we do help one another, when we’re called to respond to a bigger story than our politics.
Sightings – Gray Catbird, Evening and Pine Grosbeaks,
12/4 - Pat Schmidt in Hazelhurst has a gray catbird in her yard that has failed to migrate, and she’s rightfully concerned about it. Catbirds typically winter in the far south of the U.S. and Central America, so, this guy or gal (they’re too similar to tell apart) shouldn’t be here. However, they are known to winter along the southeast coast of the U.S., so I suspect they can tolerate some degree of cold.
gray catbird range map
The issue for wintering catbirds is they rarely eat seeds – they’re a fruit and insect consumer – and we’re just a little shy on insects here in the winter. So, the question is whether there are enough fruits available for this bird to make it to spring. In one study, the percent of fruit in their diet, by volume, varied throughout year: winter 76%, spring 20%, summer 60%, fall 81%.
If Pat wants to try and keep this catbird alive, the literature says to offer high-fat, protein-rich foods like suet, mealworms, soft fruits (raisins, chopped apples/grapes/oranges), and unsalted peanuts. But that’s a lot to ask. And one always wonders in these circumstances, it nature should instead be allowed to take its course.
12/4 - Jean Hall in Arbor Vitae reported having many evening grosbeaks, a pine grosbeak, and a pair of cardinals at their feeders.
12/8 – We had our first bohemian waxwings appear in Manitowish, feeding on crabapples.
Wolf-Moose Interactions on Isle Royale
Isle Royale National Park lies 53 miles north of Copper Harbor and 20 miles east of
Grand Portage, Minnesota in Lake Superior. The island offers something rare: a living wilderness with a remarkably simple food chain – one top predator, the gray wolf, and one main prey, the moose.
There’s no hunting, no forest management, very little human interference.
Moose first arrived on the island in the early 1900s, their numbers rising and falling with weather and food supply. Then, in the late 1940s, a few wolves crossed an ice bridge from Canada, and everything changed.
Durward Allen launched the Isle Royale Wolf-Moose Project in 1958, and the work has now unfolded over more than six decades – the longest continuous predator-prey study in the world.
In January 2024, the best estimate of the wolf population was 30 wolves, which included four packs and one wolf living alone, similar to the estimate in 2023 of 31.
The estimated abundance of moose was 840, which is a 14 percent decline from the 2023 estimate (2025 estimates are not available due to their usual aviation resources being unexpectedly unavailable).
Over the 66 years, moose populations have gyrated from as high as 2,455 to as low as 500, while wolves have been as high as 50 and as low as 2 (see the graph).
A recent article in BioScience (Vucetich JA, SR Hoy, RO Peterson, 2024) entitled “More reason for humility in our relationships with ecological communities” notes that “every five-year period in the Isle Royale history has been different from every other five-year period – even after sixty-five years of close observation. The first 25 years of the chronology were fundamentally different from the second 25 years. And the next six decades will almost certainly be different from the first six decades.”
The article summarizes some of the ups and downs and unexpected occurrences that couldn’t be anticipated. For instance, in 1980, a mutant canine virus (canine parvovirus) swept Isle Royale, wiping out three-quarters of the wolves.
In 1996, the most severe winter ever recorded in the region struck. That winter coincided with the highest density of moose observed on Isle Royale, and the moose population crashed.
A year later, 1997, a wolf emigrated to Isle Royale by crossing an ice bridge – the only way a wolf can cross the channel between Isle Royale and the mainland. This new wolf revealed that the resident wolves had been suffering from severe inbreeding.
With the new genetics, the wolf population bounced higher for nearly a decade, but between 2007 and 2010, the beneficial effects of the genetic rescue dissolved, inbreeding resumed, and canine parvovirus reappeared after a 17-year (four generation) absence. The wolf population crashed to two.
As the wolf population headed towards extinction, moose abundance more than tripled to over 2,000, leading to moose severely over-browsing the island’s vegetation, particularly balsam fir. The worry now, among many, was that the moose would end up in mass starvation.
Those circumstances led the National Park Service (NPS) to restore wolf predation by translocating 19 wolves to Isle Royale in 2018 and 2019. Following the translocations, wolf abundance steadily increased and thankfully, moose abundance declined.
What about now? Well, today, male and female moose are growing smaller. The new question to try and answer is why?
So . . . this chronology means what? Well, it shows how complicated nature can be! For the researchers, the notion of understanding nature as some sort of machine that is easily predictable and easily fixable had to be scrapped.
Here’s the bottom line according to the researchers: “Rich, dynamic variation, not ‘balance of nature’ seems to be the force that guides nature . . . The only way we will know how [this works into the future], is to continue observing. The most important events in the history of Isle Royale wolves and moose have been essentially unpredictable events – disease, tick outbreaks, severe winters, and immigrant wolves. Natural history might be much like human history – explainable, but not predictable . . . This is the humility from which a rich relationship with Nature may be rooted.”
For more info, see https://www.isleroyalewolf.org
Celestial Events
New moon occurs tonight, 12/19.
Winter solstice takes place on 12/21, providing us with 8 hours and 40 minutes of sunlight, our shortest day of the year.
On 12/22, look predawn for the Ursid Meteor Shower averaging 10 meteors per hour.
Our latest sunrise of the year occur every morning at 7:40 from 12/27 to 1/7, when finally on 1/8, the sunrise will occur at 7:39.
Thought for the Week
“Science has no capacity to save us unless we’re willing to heed what it has to say. Environmental science describes the breakdown, the species loss, the poison of the atmosphere. It’s love, both committed and fierce, which must then say, ‘Got it. We will change now.’ Science illumines our understanding; it’s love that saves our lives.” – Marianne Williamson
Please share your outdoor sightings and thoughts: e-mail me at johnbates2828@gmail.com, call 715-476-2828, snail-mail at 4245N State Highway 47, Mercer, WI, or see my blog at www.manitowishriver.blogspot.com
