By Joe Crain
At long last it is starting to look like winter up here in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. It wasn’t looking to promising the first half of December… We watched what little snow was left behind from November melt away with highs for the first two weeks of the month in the mid-to-upper 30s, and reaching on several occasions well into the 40s. It wasn’t until the 24th that we saw things get anywhere near normal December temperatures. Of course, that was a bit off as well, 
when our high only hit what is usually a normal low for that date! It was quite a shock; we went from an abnormally warm 37-degree high on the 23rd to a 7-degree high on the 24th, which is the average low for that date. Thankfully, temperatures have been pretty much staying close to average since then, with highs in the mid 20’s and lows in the single digits. Things really started to look up on the snow front as well that same week. You may recall that we had a lot of snow in October, about 20 inches in total, that came and went by mid-November. We had some snow in November that also stayed on the ground a short time as the temps in that month also stayed above normal. Well for the first three weeks of December when we were expecting the start of our snow season, we got nothing! But at long last in the last week and a half the snow fell and by the end of the month we were only one inch off of the average snow fall for December (15 inches). That’s right: we had more snow in October, about 20 inches, than an average December, and yet we started the month of December with basically no snow on the ground!
The snow came just in time for our annual holiday break. Finally I was going to be able to do some real cross country skiing. The only skiing I was able to do up until break was a little skiing out on frozen Lake Nebagamon. The lake froze over rather late this year on the 1st of December. Though late, the conditions were ideal when it froze over with an absolutely wind free night and a 10-degree temperature that left the lake as smooth as glass that morning. Although the days reached into the low 30s that week, the lake ice was able to thicken through the week as the night time lows fell into the single digits. By the end of that week the ice was up to about four inches thick consistently from shore to shore producing the perfect ice skating conditions over the entire surface of Lake 
Nebagamon. I’m not an ice skater but Caretaker Andy, his wife Amy, and Adam Fornear all are and they were over the moon with giddiness with this year’s ice conditions. They were able to skate for miles on end out on the snow free surface of the lake. Amy and a friend even skated unimpeded all the way to the YMCA camp at the far end of the lake past the little light house, the same route paddled every year by Camp’s youngest campers for their first overnight camping trip. Andy was having so much fun out there skating every night after work that he went out and bought a new pair of skates! I was a very jealous skier sidelined with no snow on the lake or the ground but was happy to see them all enjoying themselves so much. Finally during the second week of the month, about a half of an inch of snow fell leaving just enough snow stuck to the ice that it was my turn to have some fun out there. The wind had blown the snow off of most the lake but I was left with a patch about a mile long and 100 yards wide and about ¾ of an inch deep. The snow was sticking to the ice just enough to give a good kick without slipping and I was able to ski laps from Lobber point in the west to the east about a quarter mile past the Dairy Queen. The tiny bit of snow wasn’t enough to ruin things for the skaters and was just enough to give me some skiing; we all were very happy “Campers”!!
Finally able to wake up “The Miracle on Snow” my 1974 Artic Cat Pantera snowmobile and pack some ski trails, it’s Caretaker Joe At Camp.