Water Water Everywhere

And many drops to drink...













The daily comparison for maximum water usage in the Dassler Cabin on Isle Royale versus our home in Grand Rapids:

Drinking and Cooking
Home: 2 gallons
Dassler Cabin: 2 gallons


Washing Dishes
Home: 5 gallons (filled wash tub to wash, faucet running to rinse)
Dassler Cabin: 1 gallon (wash tub, rinse tub)

Bathing
Home: 30 gallons (two 10 min showers)
Dassler Cabin: 3 gallons (2.5 gallon solar bag, .5 gallon sponge bath for Andy)

Toilet Use
Home: 20 gallons (2 gallon tank flushed 5 times a day for 2 people)
Dassler Cabin: 0

Laundry
Home: 40 gallons (Maytag top loader)
Dassler Cabin: 10 gallons (2, 5 gallon buckets, one for rinsing, one for washing)

General Cleaning
Home: 1 gallon (washing hands, rinsing the sponge after doing dishes, brushing teeth etc.)
Dassler Cabin: 0

MiscelaneousHome: 1 gallon (watering the plants outside with the hose, car washing etc.)
Dassler Cabin: 0


Daily Total:
Home: 99 gallons per day
Dassler Cabin: 16 gallons per day

Life is different without a faucet and a running tap.

Concert 3 On Isle Royale

A Program of Original Music Inspired by Lake Superior















High Tide, Andrew Bergeron
Walkabout Sparrow, Andrew Bergeron and Carmen Maret
Alpha's Last Dance, Carmen Maret (premier)
Waves and Waterfalls from Lake Superior Suite, Andrew Bergeron
Gauntlet of Death, Carmen Maret (premier)
Fog Break, Andrew Bergeron (premier)
Nineteen Knots, Carmen Maret (premier)
Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer from Lake Superior Suite, Carmen Maret and Andrew Bergeron

Wildlife Sightings on Isle Royale

western painted turtle (at hidden lake)
garter snake (all around)
bats (lots every night, especially around the bench, one flew in the house with me and we had to shew him out)
snowshoe hare
red squirrel
red fox (Scoville point resident)
river otters (Tobin Harbor visitors)
moose (6, all along Tobin Harbor)
loons galore (they nest in the harbor)
horned grebe
double crested cormorant
great blue heron (on Dick and Mary's Island)
wood duck
lesser scaup
goldeneye
mergansers
bald eagles (2, one adult perched in Tobin, one yearling on passage island)
merlin (passage island)
spotted sandpiper (seen from the canoe, on Tobin Harbor shore)
herring gulls
black capped chickadee (by Dassler)
red-breasted nuthatch (by Dassler)
winter wren
cedar waxwings (everywhere by Dassler, look up)
shrike (Rock Harbor spotting)
black and white warbler (by Dassler)
yellow-rumped warbler (by Dassler)
white-throated sparrow (can be heard everywhere along lake superior it seems)
song sparrow (all over)

Anniversary on Passage Island

Today is me and Andrew's 4th year anniversary. We practiced till 3:00pm, then Pat Valencia, a musician and former park service employee friend took us out to passage island, a spooky but really wild place about 3 1/2 miles off the northeast shore of Isle Royale. Pat calls it "the real wilderness of Isle Royale."

Korena, another ranger friend on Isle Royale and botany expert told me she was jealous we got to go out there. She said the diversity it has for such a small island is amazing, something like 700 different species of plants.

We saw wild sundews for the first time, a carnivorous plant with sticky pads about the size of my index fingernail. We also saw lots of Canada yew and ash, "moose candy" that has almost vanished from the Isle Royale mainland.

We also saw a young bald eagle perched on a tree in the harbor on the south side of the Island.

Our last full day is tomorrow. We have internalized such a peaceful, relaxed and receptive way of being that it is hard to imagine our mental and physical states before arriving and of course our response when we return home.










Canada Yew














Sundew, carnivorous plant

Discovering Birds

When I first arrived at the cabin, walking to the outhouse (about the length of a small city block) was a drudge that seemed to take too long. But, over the last weeks it has turned out to be one of my favorite activities.

I have learned to watch birds. I never go to the outhouse now without binoculars and my camera. Today I got a great photo of a cedar waxwing in the top dead branches of an ash growing along the shore.

I also watch for changes: water, boats, skyline, wind speed and direction, animals (including people).

I think the birds have warmed up to me over time. I notice they kind of loom around now, where it seems in the beginning they always quickly flew away. Maybe I walk and look slower now too.

Last Few Projects

We finished our composition projects today. Andrew wrote a final hand copy of his piece "Fog Break". He swore a lot today, surely a sign of the intense process of copying music with a permanent pen. He said he used the leftover brownie that Dick gave us to keep him going. Andy would take a small bite of it after successfully writing each line of music.

I finished a poem and piece of music about the wolves based on a story in Rolf Peterson's book "The Wolves of Isle Royale" that tells a story of the Alpha Female in the East Pack that saved the wolf population on Isle Royale from extinction.

Concert 2 on Isle Royale

Title: "Bach on the Water Part II"

Even more people came this time! 80 or more. So rewarding to have an attentive and packed audience to play for.

Prelude in A minor, J.S. Bach
Fall: Grape Stomp, from Lake Superior Suite, by Andrew Bergeron

Prelude in E minor, J.S. Bach
Walkabout Sparrow, Andrew Bergeron and Carmen Maret

Prelude in G major, J.S. Bach
High Tide, Andrew Bergeron

El Decameron Negro (The Black Ship), Leo Brouwer

Prelude in D minor, J.S. Bach
Footprints in the Snow from Preludes, Claude Debussy

Prelude in B minor, J.S. Bach
Silueta Portena, tango

Prelude in F# major, J.S. Bach
Waves and Waterfalls from Lake Superior Suite, by Andrew Bergeron

Wilderness Composing

We worked hard again today. I am getting a neck ache from writing so much music by hand. It is a good thing we take a lot of breaks out in our wilderness backyard.

Andrew was like a mad scientist today scheming up a flute and guitar piece about our previous fog experience. He is writing it in 11/8 and wants to do a 3+3+3+2 division of the beats. He was out at the inspirational bench for about an hour thumping the side of it with his hand and then came in with a gleam in his eye.

I finished a draft of my solo piccolo piece called "Nineteen Knots" and started a piece about wolves called "Alpha's Last Dance."

The birds distracted and excited us today. I kept grabbing for the binoculars. Cedar waxwings, yellow-rumped warblers and black-throated warblers were all outside the dining table window where Andrew and I strew all of our papers, pencils and erasures.

After dinner Andrew came running in for the binoculars, "a cormorant is fishing just off the bench" he said quickly. Sure enough we saw him catch a fish too. (Cormorants, we later found out from talking to folks in Tobin Harbor, were actually a problem for a while because they were draining the fisheries in the small harbor areas around the island).

We walked the small loop around Scoville Point and I saw a shrike on a big spruce near the split. I heard it and then quickly spotted him in the binoculars, big body and hooked beak.

Dick and Mary Scheibe, our new caretakers for the end of our stay came over to the cabin, Mary calling a loud "whoo-hooo" before she was close to the cabin. Mary has been coming to the island since he was three. Mary and Dick are the official folks who drive the artists around, make sure they have everything they need, and show them a good time.

Other than Dick and Mary, we had no other human contact all day.

Rumbles of thunder over the lake tonight. Maybe we will receive a little cooling blessing tonight. It has been in the upper 80s. Bad for moose, who don't feel feel even the slightest bit cold until 25 degrees BELOW zero, and start to over heat about 56 degrees ABOVE zero!