Wild Ice Heaven & Other Inspirations

by Joan Farnam on December 10, 2020

Tina Hegg Raway celebrates wild ice heaven on Seagull Lake as she carves her mark on the perfect ice. Photo by Ada Igoe.

It’s been wild ice heaven in Cook County for the last two weeks. All the lakes have frozen over with perfect black ice from shore to shore that has been thick enough to skate on. Usually, wild-ice skaters get a couple of days a year, if they’re lucky, to make their marks on a frozen lake before snow covers it, but not this year.

This year, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime event, an absolute joy, seeing a northern lake completely covered in seamless black ice reflecting the clouds in the sky and being able to ice skate on it. “It was heaven,” said one skater, “It was like dancing in the sky,” said another.

Here’s a video David Welch did of a few skaters exploring a lake early on.

Here’s another video narrated by John Oberholzter and filmed by Matthew Baxley, posted on WTIP’s website.

Skating Beyond The Canoe from WTIP North Shore Community Radio on Vimeo.

Snow is predicted in the next few days, which will cover the ice and change, if not end, the wild ice skating experience. Either way, it can be a dangerous sport if the ice is too thin, and there are cautions all over about being prepared with an ice pick and ropes, a change of clothes in the car and never skating alone. Truth be told, there have already been a few accidents where skaters went through the ice, but they were veteran wild-ice skaters and were prepared and got out safely.

For all of that, it’s been an extraordinary year of the wild ice.

Wild ice in my back yard by Kjersti Vick.

Meanwhile, back in the “real” world, our on-line lives continue.

On Thursday, Dec. 10, North House Folk School will present the webinar, “Go Gently Into That Good Night: Astronomical Highlights at the Winter Solstice with Bob King” at 7 p.m. The presentation will focus on several exciting sky events you won’t want to miss, including the Geminid meteor shower (best of the year!) and the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, which will occur on Dec. 21.

Jupiter and Saturn will come together in the sky on Dec. 21, in a conjunction that hasn’t happened since the Middle Ages. (Illustration by Randal John)

The webinar is free, but registration is required. To register, click here.

Also on Thursday, Staci Lola Drouillard will give an online presentation about her book, “Walking the Old Road: A People’s History of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Anishinaabe,” which won the Northeast Minnesota Book Award in Best Nonfiction this year.

Staci Local Drouillard. will give an online presentation about her book on Thursday.

The Zoom event costs $20, but scholarships are available. To register and for more info, click here.

On Friday,Hazel Belvo and Julie L’Enfant will be interviewed on WTIP’s The Roadhouse about their new book, “Hazel Belvo: A Matriarch of Art,” just out from Afton Press. Copies of the book are available at Drury Lane Books in Grand Marais as well as online.

Belvo and L’Enfant will also present a Zoom artist talk about the book through the Grand Marais Art Colony from 2-3 p.m on Tuesday, Dec. 16. It is free. To register, click here.

Hazel Belvo will talk about her biography , “Hazel Belvo: A Matriarch of Art,” with writer Julie L’Enfant on WTIP on Friday. The show airs from5-7 p.m. In this photograph, Belvo is standing in front of her painting, “Matriarch.” Photograph by Rik Sferra.

Art goes on exhibit online at 9 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 10, when the 2nd annual North Shore Artists League Member Show opens a virtual exhibit at the Johnson Heritage Post Gallery. The multi-discipline show includes sculptors, potters, painters, fiber artists, quilters, jewelers and more.

More than 20 artists will be exhibiting their work in this exhibit, which continues online through Jan. 3. To see the work, click here… at 9 a.m. on Friday.

And here’s an opportunity to listen to an extraordinary musical experience celebrating this season created by members of the Borealis Chorale and Orchestra. Usually, the orchestra performs a wonderful Christmas concert at Bethlehem Lutheran Church on the second week of December, but this year, it wasn’t possible because of the pandemic. Instead, Karina Roth and other members of this talented group of musicians, developed an online concert, entitled “The Gift of Darkness: An Advent Celebration,” directed by Roth.

Roth wrote: “This autumn, as it became clear there would be no Borealis this year, I started to think about what was possible with the limitations of Covid… As a community, we are rich with many talented musical ensembles that perhaps could be recorded individually.” Looking for readings that celebrate the darkness and speak to why we should cherish times of darkness as well as times of light, Karina discovered Jan Richardson’s book Night Visions.”

From there, the concert presentation,”The Gift of Darkness”, evolved, featuring readings and music by members of the Borealis Chorale and Orchestra with sponsorship by the North Shore Music Association and Bethlehem Lutheran Church. The performance is available online and will also be broadcast on WTIP Community Radio Dec. 14 at 7 p.m. and Dec. 24 (TBA).

As always, donations to BCO are appreciated and will help fund their traditional Christmas concerts in 2021, when the community is able to gather safely again. Tax-deductible donation checks can be written to the North Shore Music Association (with “BCO” written on the “For” line) and mailed to NMSA at P.O. Box 1376, Grand Marais, MN 55604. Online donations can be made here. Scroll to the bottom of the page to “Add a Dedication” and add ‘BCO’ to make sure it gets to the organization.

Opportunities:

The Arrowhead Regional Arts Council is now accepting nominations for the 2021 Arrowhead Arts Awards, which includes nominations for the George Morrison Artist Award, The Award for Transformative Art and the Maddie Simons Advocate Award.

Nominations are now being accepted for the Arrowhead Arts Awards.

The Grand Marais Art Colony is helping organize this year’s 100DayProject, which invites artist to participate in 100 days of developing a creative process for their art. The project is free and online, with Zoom meetings for face-to-face discussions and sharing available.

The 100DayProject begins on Dec. 21 this year.

The title of this year’s project t is Solstice to Equinoc–Out of the Darkness into the Light. To find out more and to register, click here. The event is free.

Artists at Work: