On Friday we hauled our canoe across the ice for the first time. Soon we hope to travel far and wide over the frozen maze of snow-covered lakes and rivers that typically transform the Boundary Waters into an enchanting wintery Wilderness from early December to early April.
However, winter hasn’t really arrived in the Boundary Waters yet. The temperature is likely to shoot into the 40s for the 3rd day in a row today. The last two nights have not dipped below freezing and ice on Ensign Lake is rotten along the edges; we don’t feel comfortable walking on the weakened ice further from shore. Yesterday we hauled the canoe along shore so that we could hunt for firewood back in the woods away from our campsite. It was a beautiful warm day, similar to today. It feels more like spring in the Boundary Waters than the beginning of winter. The forecast calls for highs in the mid 30s to lower 40s for the next 6 days and we are unsure if ice will still cover Ensign Lake at the end of the week. As the sun set this evening the temperature dropped and we were elated to see thin threats of ice skimming the surface in the open patches along shore.
Typically the high temperature for this week is around 21 degrees with a low of about 8 degrees. This is a sharp contrast to what we are experiencing, but we are not alone. 2015 is predicted to be the Earth’s warmest year on record.
It seems fitting that the climate talks are happening in Paris this week. We hope that world leaders take the critical steps that are needed to lead us to a carbon neutral world and a sustainable future.
However, winter hasn’t really arrived in the Boundary Waters yet. The temperature is likely to shoot into the 40s for the 3rd day in a row today. The last two nights have not dipped below freezing and ice on Ensign Lake is rotten along the edges; we don’t feel comfortable walking on the weakened ice further from shore. Yesterday we hauled the canoe along shore so that we could hunt for firewood back in the woods away from our campsite. It was a beautiful warm day, similar to today. It feels more like spring in the Boundary Waters than the beginning of winter. The forecast calls for highs in the mid 30s to lower 40s for the next 6 days and we are unsure if ice will still cover Ensign Lake at the end of the week. As the sun set this evening the temperature dropped and we were elated to see thin threats of ice skimming the surface in the open patches along shore.
Typically the high temperature for this week is around 21 degrees with a low of about 8 degrees. This is a sharp contrast to what we are experiencing, but we are not alone. 2015 is predicted to be the Earth’s warmest year on record.
It seems fitting that the climate talks are happening in Paris this week. We hope that world leaders take the critical steps that are needed to lead us to a carbon neutral world and a sustainable future.
In a scientific paper published by Dr. Lee Frelich he explains that the boreal forests, of which the Boundary Waters represents 1.1 million acres, have a “large impact on climate at local, regional, and global scales.” In the paper he also argues that the combined effect of mining, invasive species, and climate change could be too much for the Boundary Waters ecosystem to handle, making it less able to recover from impacts like storms, insects, and fire, which it otherwise could easily handle.
We only have one Earth, we need to protect it.
#wildernessyear #savetheBWCA @petzl_official
