Paavola Wetlands and Slate River Hikes
Catching up on the remainder of last week, I would complete some much needed grass cutting on the Chassell Fitness Trail and Misslitz Field warning track on Tuesday before attending that evening’s Chassell Lion’s Club meeting.
Starting from the back of the Chassell Heritage Center, the fitness trail includes ten stations at various intervals over either a 2k or 4k route. The Chassell Township Planning Commission worked with former MTU physiology professor John Durocher on selecting an appropriate blend of equipment for the trail. I submitted a successful recreation grant proposal to the Copper Shores Community Health Foundation which helped fund 80% of the equipment and materials costs (the Chassell recreation millage funded the balance). We then had a significant volunteer effort that resulted in the installation of the equipment and the building a new bridge along the trail. Several planning commission members, township trustee Dan Palosaari, a handful of Chassell Lions Club members, John Durocher and a few of his MTU students, and Chassell Township Schools construction trades teacher Mike Randell and his students were all instrumental with this volunteer effort to put the trail and reconstructed bridge in place. Subsequently, some of John Durocher’s students created a video about how to use the trail’s equipment. After John moved on to Purdue Northwest, one of his students who also went to Purdue Northwest for graduate work developed signs about how to use the equipment for each of the stations and they secured funding for the printing of the signs and the posts. As I noted recently, we are currently working with the Chassell Township Schools of the development of signs to direct those using the trail of the proper course.
We would host guests from Tulsa, Oklahoma, this past week with connections to Dodge City, Kansas. Kevin knew Julie’s uncle who had practiced law in Dodge and he had played football for Pat George who went on to be the Kansas Secretary of Commerce during part of the time I worked for the agency. It was definitely one of those small world moments.
Earlier summer hours for the pool at MTU definitely squeezed the distances I put in swimming as I only tallied swims of 2,700 and 2,800 on Wednesday and Friday. I would sandwich in a four-mile rail-trail run on Thursday at an 8:36/mile pace which was punctuated by a swan dive on the stamp sand which left an array of blood-drawing abrasions.
The Recreation Committee would meet at the old ice rink on Thursday evening to examine the damage caused by the recent rainstorm. The bridge near the grooming garage was moved about thirty feet downstream. As soon as conditions dry up enough, we will get in there to cut up fallen trees and remove the debris ahead of pulling the bridge back onto its footings. It looks like we could use a bigger culvert just uphill on the trail as we are not getting proper drainage from a ditch where water is continuously pooling up on the north side of the trail.
Speaking of water pooling up, Lakeshore Drive had a culvert connecting a ditch west of Lakeshore Drive to the lake that accumulates drainage from the hill to the west of US 41 that blocked up with silt. The blockage caused the ditch to overflow during the recent rainstorm and resulted in washout damage to residents’ driveways. On Friday, a significant effort was put forward to get the water flowing beyond a trickle.
Ultimately, the culvert was opened up and the water was flowing again. Dan Palosaari would be on hand later to do additional excavating to further improve the conditions.
Another good news item that occurred late in the week was the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approval of the approved EGLE dredging permit for the Sturgeon River kayak launch. After getting the hard copy of the approved permit from EGLE, I reached out the USACE offices in both Sault Ste. Marie and Detroit. They wasted no time in providing approval a day later.
Saturday, I would stop by to see Ryan Gray who took me on a tour on his project to add additional short-term rentals to his property in downtown Chassell. An exciting development here is their work to create a coffee house which will be an excellent business addition to Chassell!
Saturday evening, we would go to our friend Beth’s place for a potluck dinner highlighted by a Karelian Stew that she prepared. After dinner, I would make a presentation on the trip Julie and I took to Finland back in February and March. This was a great warm up in preparation for the presentation I will be giving at the Chassell Heritage Center in August.
Sunday, we would meet up with our hiking group at the Keweenaw Land Trust’s Paavola Wetlands for a three-mile hike. The weather forecast had been promising rain, but the weather turned out great! We would start the hike by taking the boardwalk out into the wetland.
Blue tag iris surrounded us and to the north we spied a sizable beaver lodge surrounded by water lilies.
Nearby in an upland area, a significant rock fence dating back to when the land was farmed can be seen.
The trail comes upon a break in the woods where a structure from the original farmstead can be found.
We would then wrap around the west side of the wetland which in large part is created from the many beaver dams on Boston Creek. You can see more from the hike in my GoPro video on the Remote Workforce Keweenaw YouTube channel at this link:
The current week got started with a 2,900 yard swim at MTU and catching up on personal business.
Julie and I would travel down to Baraga County on Tuesday so she could put up postings about the upcoming Copper Country Strawberry Festival coming up in Chassell on July 11th and 12th. While we were down that way, we would drive up the Skanee Road from L’Anse to go for a hike along the Slate River at Quartzite and Black Slate Falls.
You can see my GoPro video from the hike on the Remote Workforce Keweenaw YouTube channel at this link:
Tuesday night I would get out for a successful evening of fishing on Portage Lake with our friend Eero, but more about that next time!
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