By Joe Crain
November is a big transition month for us few who remain at camp year round. The month often starts with fair fall-like temperatures that are in the mid-40s for highs and mid-30s for lows. By the end of the month however, winter is more the mood as the temps struggle to stay above freezing and the lows often flirt with the low teens. As we enter November, the lake is still ice-free and the delight of wave watching is still a favorite pastime. But as the month ends we begin to see a permanent calm come to patches of water as ice begins to form out in the main body of the lake, as well as along stretches of shore. Often, the smaller bays are frozen over by month’s end. If the conditions are just right, on a wind-free night with a clear sky when the temperature falls into the low teens, we may wake to a perfectly motion-free lake that has transformed into a giant sheet of glass-smooth ice. It is really something to see a nearly unblemished sheet of ice stretching from the shore of camp’s waterfront all the way out to the mini light house on the point of land about a mile out. We woke to such conditions on the morning of November 29th, and for a short period of time the whole lake was frozen over with perfect, glass-smooth ice! It was short lived though as a bit of a breeze came out of the south and a persistent bright sunshine opened a few cracks. By lunch time the glassy surface yielded and was replaced by the usual chop of open water that eroded the ice down to covering maybe half of the lake. With the forecast calling for temps in the mid 30’s for the next few days it looks like a complete and persistent freeze over won’t happen until December this year.
One of the biggest transitions ushered in with November affects us caretakers directly. Our already small crew of three becomes only two at the middle of the month when our seasonal caretaker finishes work for the season. In an average year, the first two weeks of November find us winding down our outdoor work with a bit of wood splitting and stacking. This year, nature threw a spanner in the works when a four-inch snow dump occurred at the beginning of the last week of October, when we would normally start the fall leaf blowing. Caretaker/Cook Cody Keys and I had to switch things up this year and put off leaf blowing in hopes that warm temps would return and melt the snow off of the fallen leaves. We reversed our normal schedule and went after the wood piling up at C.N.O.C. first. The cold temps persisted and our late October snow stuck around for more than a week. But with Cody’s time with us growing short we were forced to start leaf blowing in poor conditions and had to move about camp’s grounds to blow leaves in any open ground we could find. The conditions forced us to be nimble; we were able to do the front yards of the waterfront houses but not the back shady areas. The Lumberjack Village gets good southern exposure to the sun so we were able to blow leaves throughout, while there was still two inches of snow covering the grounds of the more tree-shaded Axman Village. Thankfully, things continued to melt and allowed us to make steady progress as we hopped about camp in an odd pattern, blowing leaves wherever the melted snow allowed. One last big warm up occurred the weekend before Cody’s final couple of days and we were able to get all of the grounds’ leaf blowing completed on his final day with us. We were so excited to be that close to finishing at the start of his last day that we made a pact that we would go home at whatever time we finished. All day we worked hard and pushed ourselves forward, at last we did it and had blown the final leaf. I checked my watch, and what would our bonus time be? We were able to treat ourselves with a whole extra hour off!!
Looking forward to good smooth ice and lots of lake skiing this winter, it’s Caretaker Joe At Camp.
