Pike Island: Among the deer

 

Hanging out with the deer of Pike Island was fun. Every once in awhile I stopped taking pictures of them and reveled in the largesse of nature. I thanked the great spirit for the magnificent gift of deer company. I praised the small gods for the mercurial bounty of nature.

 And then I hoped none of the deer were giving me Covid, because it turns out a huge number of white tailed deer in America are infected with our dreaded virus.

One of the deer even had a runny nose!

But mostly I went with the thankful thing. 

And then I took some more pictures. They're such good pictures I decided I'd better make them less impressive by adding cheeky captions.

Check out his tongue!

Photo bomb!

Hiding in the bushes to avoid the photographer doesn't work so great when there aren't any leaves:

We were of mutual interest to each other

Pike Island: Portrait of the deer

 

While our expedition to Pike Island has been increasingly concerned with deer, and while you have seen in this space an increasing number of pictures of deer, starting with glamorously lit pictures of deer at a distance, and then, suddenly, an also glamorously lit deer, but very close up, I have only begun to scratch the surface of all these deer. I still have plenty of deer pictures for you. Because when I finally came upon the deer of Pike Island they were everywhere. They were all around me. And the more time I spent among them the more relaxed they became around me. And I might have relaxed a little myself.

Still, as much as I'd like to say the deer and I became friends, I have to admit that an hour among them was not adequate for such a thing. Nevertheless we did strike up an acquaintance, and they did let me take their portraits.

Which is why today is Deer Portrait Day. I took, as you will see, a fair handful of formal deer portraits. 

And in the process I learned what all naturalists learn, over and over, but have a hard time talking about: 

All animals are individuals.

Pike Island: Closer to the deer

 

Deep into our expedition to Pike Island, as we last left it, we finally found our holy grail: The Deer. 

We represented our first sighting with a picture somewhat like this:

And in anticipation of our deeper time among the many deer of Pike Island, I have shown a few pictures of deer I saw at a distance.

But did I get any closer?

Did the deer abide my company?

Did I get to spend a little time among the deer sharing the forest quietly?

Here is my answer for today:

Pike Island: Sunset Interlude

 

Where last I left you on our great journey to Pike Island we had finally spotted the elusive White Tailed Deer. We represented the glory of this moment with a picture sort of like this one (though not, actually, this one):

But to be honest with you, the first sighting was actually this:

And if you have been following along with our 600 part photo journal of a three hour trip to Pike Island hoping to see pictures of deer, I want to assure you that soon you will be knee deep in deer. 

But today we have to take a short aside to answer a question that has consumed many of my readers:

"Was this whole trip during sunset?"

The answer is:

Yes.

With all these pictures exhibiting a plentitude of golden, slanting, brilliant light, it is natural that people have wondered how a three hour trip can be all during sunset.

Last night it snowed here in Minnesota. But before the snow falls, if it deigns to hold off as long as it did this year, in December, in Minnesota, among the deer, and the dead grasses, and through the bare trees, from 11:30 in the morning until 4:30 in the evening, the sun is slowly setting the whole time.

It's very pretty.

Pike Island: The Search

 

The original, instigating reason for my epic journey to Pike Island was because not that long ago my wife and I went for a walk there. And we saw a lot of deer.

A       lot     of          deer.

I thought I would like to take some pictures of all those deer.

Once, when I was still friends with Gregg, roughly a quarter of a century ago, we went to the northern end of Vancouver Island. There we took a sea kayak out onto the Johnstone Strait, one of the most famous places in the world for Orcas, Killer Whales. We went to see the Killer Whales.

They did not come to see us.

Though it was a credibly wild place we still ran into the occasional biologist, explorer, and wanderer, each of them talking of the strange mystery of why the Killer Whales had not yet come. There were rumors of:

The tragic death of an Orca Baby delaying the pod.

Something something something ocean currents.

And

This is normal, they'll be here in 15 minutes.

But we did not see a single Killer Whale.

I was reflecting upon this history as I walked alone down the center of Pike Island, where a week earlier we had seen dozens upon dozens of deer. And where now I had seen precisely... none.

I saw trees, and I loved to see them:

I saw open fields of dead grasses:

I saw the strange skeletons of last years plants and their burst seedpods:

And I saw the woods. Ever the woods in the low hard light.

I peered into them eagerly...

But no, nothing.

And so I walked on, deeper into Pike Island, wondering at my fortune, and I looked again...

Pike Island: The Bridge

 

Pike Island is an island. And though we have inched our way through dozens of blog posts to get to this fabled Pike Island, until we cross water there is no island, and we will have arrived nowhere.

Pike Island has the shape of a very rough, long bird's wing. On one side is the legendary Mississippi River. On the other side, coming down to join with the Mississippi at the wingtip, is the Minnesota River. This is of historical importance because in the days before the Mississippi was tamed, and damns were built, this confluence was the end of the reliably navigable river. North of it the river level was often too low for most river traffic.

 No bridges cross either of these mighty Rivers to Pike Island. 

At the top of the Pike Island river wing is, um, let's see...

we'll call it...

Clerkmanifesto Creek!

Where the tributary is the Life is a Fountain!

And Clerkmanifesto Creek runs from the Minnesota to the Mississippi.

Across it is precisely one bridge.

"It must be an amazing bridge!" You exclaim. Maybe because you are optimistic, or because you are from Europe and expect that sort of thing, or because you're being agreeable in a desire to move the proceedings along.

But no, it's not that great a bridge, though it is well situated. And it performs the miracle of getting a person from not standing on Pike Island to standing on Pike Island. Which is a pretty neat trick.

To the right here is the mainland. And there, above in our picture, behind the bridge, lies Pike Island, our first view!

And here is our bridge again, once straight on, once reflected in the water. Two more looks before we head into the wilderness.

It's not a bad bridge, not at all. But greater things await us ahead.

Pike Island: Almost to the bridge!

 

We have slowly been working our way, through blogpost after blogpost, to our three hour tour of Pike Island. Over the course of the last several hundred essays we have finally, painstakingly, bit by bit, made it to the Fort Snelling parking lot. 

There we took one inconclusive, blurry picture of an extremely rare Snowy Owl.

Will today be the day where we finally make it to Pike Island and I can start to show you all the amazing pictures I took there?

I wish.

No, today we walk all along the front side of the old Fort Snelling. We take a pip over to the Fort Snelling Chapel, we go down the big hill (really big for Minnesota, and steep), and, just as we're about to come in sight of the beautiful Pike Island, the lights go out for the day because we are telling this tale on the installment plan.

Questions?

Did you get any nice pictures of the fort, or the chapel, or anything, on the way to the Island?

In short, no. 

All the good pictures are on or of Pike Island. This means you have a lot to look forward to! But that doesn't mean I didn't take some warm up pictures on my way to the Island!

And so I will now show you the not at all great pictures I took, in a desultory manner, on my way to Pike Island. 

Think of it as a kind of limbering up to prepare you for the emotional power of the pictures to come over the next several hundred days.

Here is a red door in the outer wall of the fort:

Here is a crow in a field next to one of the fort buildings:

Here are some shadows on the wall of the fort.

Here is a Lincoln plaque from the twenties in honor of Union Veterans of the Civil War:

Here is the chapel which has the characteristic round towers of the fort, but that I suspect was built a fair bit later:

Curiously amid the great stone fort, this is the back of another memorial of some kind, made of pink Italian Marble, possibly in honor of Italian veterans:

To be honest these pictures were all pretty uninspiring, so I got a little bored and made up this one, not that it made me feel much better, but at least we're finally almost there:

Pike Island: The Omen

 

And so our journey to Pike Island begins. Over the course of the next eleven years I will be posting accounts and photographs, in a serialized, daily form, recounting the course of a three hour tour I took of Pike Island.

You're probably thinking "Whoa, that's a lot of detail. Do I really want to look at all 7,468 photographs from your three hour trip? And how many of the roughly 4,000 stories you will be telling about those three hours be of sustaining interest to me?"

What?

You're not thinking that?

You are just super excited to get going?

Thank you. What a relief!

I drove to The Fort Snelling Visitor Center. No matter how much I am growing to understand the natural geography of the area, with all its paths and channels and rivers and lakes, the way the road access works around there, with its tangle of bridges and highways looping and constantly disconnecting, keeps me constantly confused. So I took the wrong exit three times, which caused me to not only get sent over the rivers in the exact opposite direction I wanted to go, but also left me screaming in my car in frustration.

So things were not off to a good start as I finally, finally, pulled into the Fort Snelling Visitor Center parking lot.

I parked.

I got out of my car.

I looked up into the great blue sky.

And I think I saw a rare and amazing Snowy Owl flying overhead.

Me and my camera smiled at each other.

Cleaning house

 

Today I went on a three hour photo safari to Pike Island. There, surrounded by an astounding Island of nature and history, on a brilliant late fall day burning with golden light, I took over 500 pictures! I also accumulated dozens of charming stories and anecdotes. Then I came home and spent seven hours editing the pictures down to five really good ones.

Also I forgot all the stories I thought of.

But to make it all worthwhile I have to spread my five pictures out over, like, two weeks of blog posts, mostly by padding it out with my extensive assortment of pretty good pictures that came out of that same editing process.

I also have to recreate all those anecdotes, probably by making stuff up.

But before we all head to Pike Island for an extended stay, I first have to show you all of last week's pictures. While there is no coherent theme to these "cleaning house" pictures, the good news is that they're like a smorgasbord. You can just pick the random one you like and go with it.

And if you don't like any?

Soon there will be deer!

It will be worth the wait.

They're just loans

 

I suppose I have a reputation for speaking my mind here at the library. But a person can't do a half-decent job of customer service without knowing the many, many things not to say.

A man came up to me at the front desk of the library. He had a book he wanted to renew. The computer wouldn't let me renew it because it had already reached its maximum of three checkout periods. He'd had the book for nine weeks. 

But I'm fairly indulgent on this matter, so I said "It looks like you've hit your maximum of two renewals, but I'm going to go ahead and override that and renew it one more time so you can have it for another three weeks. I'm just letting you know because you definitely won't be able to renew it again in three weeks."

He didn't say thank you, or anything like that. He said, in a well put out frame of voice "What am I supposed to do if I still need it in three weeks?"

I didn't say "Buy a copy."

Security Gates

 

At my library the only way for the public to get in or out is through our security gates. To put it simply, if you have a library item that hasn't been checked out properly, which is a simple process that turns the library item's security off, and you walk through our gate, a loud, high pitched, screeching alarm will sound.

I probably don't have a great many blog posts about our security gates because it is not a high interest area of my library. But I did realize today that with this one simple, albeit insanely loud alarm, the entire story of all transgressions is told in the number of times the alarm goes off.

One alarm:

This means that someone is stealing something. 

This is expressed in a person setting off the alarm and continuing on their way.

Two alarms:

This means that an error was made and an item was not checked out or desensitized for the alarm system. 

It is expressed in the alarm going off and then the patron hearing the alarm and returning to the library thus setting off the alarm the second time 

Three or more alarms:

This means that we have a hopelessly confused person on our hands.

This is expressed in a patron setting off an alarm. Hearing it, coming back. Trying to leave again, and then repeating the process in an endless loop until we intervene.