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Quetico celebrated its 100th Anniversary last year. Quetico was originally set aside in 1909 as the Quetico Forest Reserve, became a Provincial Park in 1913, logging was banned in 1972 and it was declared a wilderness park in 1978. Quetico is characterized by towering cliffs, rocky islands and sandy beaches in a watery landscape of clear water lakes, rivers, creeks and bogs. These compelling attributes that attract canoeists to Quetico are primarily the results of the actions of glacial ice and glacial meltwater at the end of the last Ice Age. 

Silver Falls at dusk the day after ice-out in 2008.

Continue reading ‘Quetico Park: Twelve Thousand Years in the Making – A Century of Protection’

During the winter, all life under the ice has to adapt to conditions that are strikingly different from those found in the summer. In the summer, our lakes are layered with the warmest water on top and the coldest on the bottom. As you descend, the temperature slowly decreases until you reach the thermocline where there is a sharp drop in temperature. This invisible line separates the more productive waters that contain microscopic plants called phytoplankton from the much colder, darker areas below.

Ice on a Northern Ontario lake.

The thermocline is just below the surface in the spring and fall and drops to twenty-five feet or more in midsummer. Lake trout, burbot and a few other species of fish spend almost all their time below the thermocline and just enter the warmer waters for short periods to feed. They move up and down depending on the thermocline and even come to the surface when the temperature of the lake water is the same everywhere in late fall and early spring.

In winter, the water beneath the ice is also layered, but it is the opposite of what is found in the summer. This, and the unusual properties of ice, is due to the bizarre chemistry of water. Water is the most dense at 39 Fahrenheit (4 Celsius) and consequently the water at the bottom of deep lakes is this temperature regardless of the season. This causes a topsy-turvey world where the warmest water in the winter is on the bottom (39 F.) and the coldest water is just below the ice (32 F.) at the top. Consequently, a lake trout swimming at a depth of 80 feet in the summer is in the coldest water in the lake and the same lake trout swimming at the same depth in winter is still at the same 39 temperature but is now in the warmest water in the lake.

Anyone who has forgotten to add sufficient antifreeze to a vehicle or didn’t drain the plumbing at their cabin is well aware that ice expands as it freezes. Water is highly unusual in expanding, rather than contracting, as it goes from a liquid to a solid. If it acted like most compounds, ice would sink as it formed, and ice would be continuously forming at the surface and dropping to the bottom. This would cause lakes to freeze from the bottom up. Much ice would form and sink to the bottom on a -35 night in January.

Virtually all our lakes, with the possible exception of the deepest, largest lakes, would be solid ice by March. This would obviously be devastating to life in our lakes. Since ice forms on the top of the water, it puts an insulating layer between the water and the colder air above. This greatly slows the formation of more ice. The accumulation of snow on top of the ice adds another, and better, insulating layer. Even with these insulating layers, we can still get over three feet of ice. This is a strong testimony to the severity and length of our winters.

Ice and snow protect from the cold, but they also greatly decrease the amount of light entering the water. The combination of low light levels and low temperatures causes photosynthesis to virtually stop in the winter. Phytoplankton levels drop dramatically and, therefore, the production of oxygen virtually comes to a halt. The amount of oxygen that is in the water at freeze-up has to last until the ice-cover melts in the spring.

Fortunately, the colder water is, the more oxygen it holds. Once again the chemistry of water works to the advantage of living things. Water obtains oxygen from two main sources: the photosynthetic organisms growing in it (phytoplankton, algae and photosynthetic bacteria), and from direct contact with the air. Both contact with the air and light levels are dramatically reduced at freeze-up and consequently very little oxygen is added to water during the winter. This means that for almost half the year, fish and other oxygen-using organisms, have to get by on the oxygen present when the ice forms.

Since photosynthesis virtually stops, no more food is being made and the amount of food under the ice dwindles during the winter. It’s no wonder that many organisms cope with these conditions by slowing their metabolism. Cold-blooded reptiles and amphibians that overwinter under the ice survive by hibernating in the mud at the bottom of ponds or shallow bays of lakes. A frog meet its oxygen requirements by simply breathing through its skin. The skin’s large surface area allows it to remain stationary and still take up enough oxygen so it can survive a sleep of half the year.

When hibernating under the ice, the heart of a painted turtle can beat as slowly as once every eight to ten minutes.

Turtles meet their oxygen needs in a different way. They are also found at the bottom of shallow bays or ponds, but take in oxygen through their cloaca, the opening to their reproductive and excretory systems. They can do this because it is lined with a rich network of blood vessels that functions as a gill. Since lungs are specialized organs for breathing air, organisms like frogs and turtles have adapted other ways of absorbing oxygen from water.

Many microscopic organisms, such protozoa and rotifers, form protective shells known as cysts and remain in an inactive state until the water warms up in the spring. Water fleas and other small crustaceans produce thick walled eggs in late autumn and these survive through the winter and hatch in the spring.

Many fish also slow their metabolism in the winter. Species that spend most of the time in the warmer parts of the lake in the summer, such as largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, and walleyes, become much less active in colder water. This significantly lowers their requirements for both food and oxygen. They won’t increase their activity until the water warms in the spring.

Fish that spend most of the summer in the cold water below the thermocline continue to be active throughout the winter. Lake trout are the best-known species of fish that stays active all winter. They thrive in cold water and travel freely throughout the lake in the winter. Their metabolism remains high and they have to continue to seek out and catch minnows and small fish all winter long. Although the cold does not bother lake trout, the decreasing amounts of both its prey and oxygen levels can be a problem.

It would be interesting to know how lake trout hunt in the depths of the lake where there is little or no light. The deeper you go in the water, the less light penetrates. Even in very clear water lakes, light only penetrates to fifty feet or so, and below that it slowly fades to pitch black. Lake trout are caught by people fishing at depths where virtually no light penetrates. Even at shallow depths in winter, they have to capture prey in the very low light that penetrates through the snow and ice. How they accomplish this is one of the many unknowns concerning the winter ecology of our lakes.

Another fascinating cold-water species is the burbot. This unusual looking fish, also known as eelpout or lawyer, is a fresh water relative of the codfish. Burbot have been caught, along with lake trout, in nets at depths of over 400 feet in Lake Superior. They are active all winter and are often caught by people ice-fishing. Their eel-like shape, elongated fins and smooth skin probably account for their being discarded on the ice in spite of their excellent taste.

Whitefish and their smaller relative, ciscoes, are other fish that are active under the ice. Both are usually found below the thermocline in the summer, but often enter warmer water to feed. Ciscoes can be seen surfacing on still days in the summer, but can also be found at more than a hundred feet. Their wide-ranging travels are responsible for their being reported to be important summer food sources for both lake trout and burbot in deep water and loons near the surface.

The conditions faced by organisms beneath the ice is similar in many ways to those faced by organisms at the bottom of the snow pack, in the pukak. The temperatures are constantly just a few degrees from the freezing point, it is either pitch black or with dim, filtered light, and the food source is constantly dwindling. Just like organisms in the pukak, they have met these conditions in diverse and inovative ways.

It is a real challenge for cold blooded animals like fish, reptiles and amphibians to survive the cold conditions under the ice, but there are also a few mammals that enter the water under the ice. A thick coat is obviously needed to survive our winters and animals that enter the water need coats that are waterproof as well as exceptionally warm. Water siphons heat from the body much more rapidly than air and it is extremely difficult for mammals to maintain their body temperature in cold water.

Beavers and muskrats spend most of the winter in their lodges huddled together for warmth. The insides of beaver lodges, insulated with mud and sticks, is many degrees warmer than the outside air. They spend much time grooming and keeping their fur well oiled. They have to enter the water to retrieve food that they have stored in a food cache next to their lodge. Even short immersions in the icy-cold water are enough to put a strain on their systems.

The contrast between the somber, grey winter morning and the activity beneath the ice is captured in this combination photo/painting. Painting by Jennifer Garrett, photo by Marie Nelson.

Beaver and muskrat have an unusual metabolic tactic that increases the time that they can spend in the water under the ice. They elevate their body temperature slightly just prior to entering the water and this gives them a few more minutes before their body temperature drops too far. Researchers have also shown that muskrats obtain oxygen from air bubbles trapped under the ice and presumably beavers do the same. Beaver and muskrat also have physiological adaptions that decrease the amount of heat loss when they are in cold water. In their feet and at the base of their tails they have a network of capillaries where the arterial blood flowing toward the extremities passes in close contact with the blood in the veins returning from the extremities. The arteries give up heat to the colder blood returning from the feet and tail. This warms the blood returning to the body and cools the blood going to the extremities. This allows them to maintain a higher core body temperature and their cooler extremeties lose less heat to the water.

Land animals, such as lynx and bobcat, also have a heat exchange system in their feet. This allows them to lose less heat to the cold snow they stand and walk on. They carefully avoid, however, getting their feet wet in the winter. Most other mammals also avoid getting wet, since wet fur loses most of its insulating value. There are exceptions: both mink and otter enter the water in the winter to hunt their prey. When I snowshoe along the French River in the northeast corner of Quetico, I often see otter tracks along the river. Their tracks clearly show that they swim for stretches in the open water and come out and travel along the shore where the river is iced over. I am amazed that an animal can come out of the water in sub-freezing temperatures and travel over land in a wet fur coat. Two special adaptions enable them to do so. They have extremely dense and oily underfur that is both warm and sheds water. They also have outer guard hairs that are hollow for additional insulation, and that interlock with each other to protect the underfur.

Otters have a streamlined body that, with extremely short ears, short legs and heavily furred tail, is also designed to minimize heat loss. Because of their short legs, they have to plow through the snow on land and leave a distinctive trough in their wake. It seems appropriate that this toboggan-shaped animal sides on its belly whenever possible.

The track of an Otter along the French River in Quetico Park in January.

The late biologist Olaus Murie, in his interesting and informative book “A Field Guide to Animal Tracks” recalled that he “…was snowshoeing up a small stream when I spied movement in the snowy stream bank up ahead. I realized that it was an otter, and the next moment it slid down the bank. Another one appeared, clambered up the bank and slid down. A third appeared from the hole in the ice, and for several moments I watched these frolicsome animals, climbing, sliding, climbing, sliding, over and over again – until all disappeared under the ice. Their playtime was over, and they all went on their way beneath the ice, as so often they do.”

I have never observed otters playing in the winter but I have seen otter slides in various places in Quetico. There is usually one into the water below the rapids from Quetico to Beaverhouse Lake. Otter slide down the hill adjacent to the portage directly into the fast water that remains ice-free year around.

The docks at both the Canada Customs and the Ranger Station at Prairie Portage were always covered with otter droppings when we arrived in the spring the years we were rangers at Prairie Portage. The open water below the rapids is a prime location for otter to hunt fish and crayfish in the winter. They obviously found the docks a convenient place to come out of the water, bask in the sun and relieve themselves. Beaver and muskrat huddle together for warmth in insulated lodges when they return from the water. Otters, on the other hand, are mainly solitary creatures in the winter and don’t have a primary lodge to return to. They evidently commonly use old beaver lodges for dwellings. They must consume a great deal of food in the winter in order to maintain their active lifestyle and stay warm.

To do this they seek out prey both in open water and under the ice all winter long. They have successfully adapted to our extreme winter conditions both in and out of the water by taking an extremely active and aggressive approach to winter.

When I first came to the Boundary Waters I was mainly interested in going canoeing and seeing a new landscape very different from the farm country where I grew up in southern Minnesota. I kept coming back primarily because of the wildlife and it is still thrilling to see moose, wolves, otters, bald eagles, ospreys and loons. I also enjoyed seeing walleyes and lake trout, but I only sought them out when it was time to eat.

My interests expanded as I spent more time in Quetico and other people caused me to see things from a different perspective. Quetico Park has been blessed with many terrific naturalists and I was strongly influenced by Shan Walshe and Shirley Peruniak. They were both working in Quetico when Marie and I started as Park Rangers at Beaverhouse Lake in 1976. Shirley is interested in the human history of Quetico and her enthusiasm and knowledge got me hooked on wanting to learn more about Quetico’s past. Shan Walshe inspired me, along with thousands of other people with whom he came into contact, to want to learn more about plants and their role in the environment. I enjoyed learning how to identify many common plants in Quetico, but I was the most impressed with the trees, especially big, old trees. I remember being shocked to encounter cedars much larger than I thought existed on the Emerald to Plough Portage. It is also interesting to come across trees that seem out of place. The bur oak along Have A Smoke Portage and the silver maples and American elms along the levees of the Wawiag are delightfully eccentric.

Large, mature white pines on McNiece Lake.

It was, however, the sight of an entire lake surrounded by old-growth white and red pines that had the strongest impression on me. I first saw these trees about twenty years ago when I took a trip north of Prairie Portage and last summer I was determined to return to McNiece to see these trees again. That is why I was standing in line at Prairie Portage with my wife, Marie, and our friends Andy and Paula Hill waiting for the Ranger Station to open in the second week of August of last year. I recall working on the inside of that building about twenty years ago and looking out at the line forming well before 8:00. Now they open later so I guess for an August morning we were fortunate in that the line was relatively short. A light very rain was falling and we were eager to be on our way.

The paddle across Bailey Bay was hard since we were quartering into a wind that was gradually increasing. It was a nice break from paddling to do the flat, easy portage to Burke Lake. The rain increased in intensity and I could feel the water slowly wicking its way up my sleeves as I paddled. Prolonged, intense rain always finds a way down your neck and spreads out from there. I figured by the time we stopped to make camp the water moving up my arms should meet the water moving down from my neck.

We stopped for lunch at the end of the portage into North Bay at a nice protected spot where overhead trees kept most of the rain off of us. We were headed to South Lake so we were able to take advantage of the islands to provide some relief from the wind. The paddle through the lilly pads that grow in profusion in the creek leading to South Lake is always a joy. There was just enough water to allow us to keep paddling except in one place where we had to get out and walk the canoes.

One of these years I’m going to spend some time exploring West Lake but once again we just quickly passed through on our way to supper and dry clothes. Afterpaddling a short distance past the portage coming out of West Lake, Marie noticed a pair of small, pink water lilies. Don’t think I’ve ever seen a pink water lily before. We decided to find a campsite on Shade Lake and after much looking we found an unoccupied one. It hadnít stopped raining since we left Prairie Portage, so we weren’t fussy, we simply needed a site with two tent pads. Andy has guided for many years and his expertise in dealing with setting up camp and preparing supper in the rain was appreciated since I have a tendency under adverse conditions to simply eat granola bars and get in the tent. The tarp came in handy and with a fire we were able to dry ourselves and our clothes, eat a hot meal, drink hot coffee and go to bed dry and contented.

The next morning, we woke to the sound of no rain. It was a spectacular morning with blue skies, light winds and cool temperatures. I remember having trouble on a previous trip on the portage from the unnamed lake west of Shade Lake to Grey Lake. It is as confusing now as it was then. There are two beginnings and a confusing intersection about halfway across the portage. If you began on the trail farthest west then you need to take a right at the intersection. Compasses do come in handy sometimes. There are many large white pines on Grey, Armin and Yum Yum Lakes but on Shan Walshe Lake they dominate the forest. As much as Shan loved mature forests and the plants they contain he had an even greater love of wet, boggy places. I hoped that nestled in behind the pines are some interesting swamps and bogs.

The last portage to McNiece passes through large cedars and pines and some of them have very old blazes on them. On McNiece, we were fortunate to find the high rocky campsite that looks west down the lake was unoccupied. We spent two nights at this site and did some fishing and a lot of walking in the woods. After we had set up camp we talked to two people who paddled by looking for a campsite. One of them, Pat Bergman, had worked with Marie at the Outward Bound School in Ely, Minnesota in the late 1960ís.

Mature white pines are the dominant species on McNiece but there are also many mature red pines. It was heartening to see numerous younger white and red pines scattered throughout, including many just a few years old. They were especially prevalent where large trees had fallen and left an opening in the canopy that allowed sunlight to reach the forest floor. White pine seedlings need a lot of sunlight in order to prosper and they are usually out-competed by balsam fir and spruce in shaded areas. Consequently, there are many balsam fir and spruce in the understory and they dominate the understory in many places.

Paula Hill admiring a very large white white pine.

We found white pines up to 3. 5 feet in diameter and there are thousands and thousands of white pine over 2. 5 feet in diameter. We were hoping to find the mother of all white pine but, more importantly, we found a healthy old-growth stand of white and red pine.

The shoreline of McNiece Lake seen through a fog filter at sunrise.

We decided to get up early on the second morning to take photos of pines in the early morning light and were extremely lucky to wake up to thick fog. What a thrill it was to paddle around the lake and take photos of giant pines appearing out of the mist. Hundreds of years ago, much of northern Minnesota and Ontario had pines like this and it was like seeing the past through a fog filter.

We didn’t spend all our time looking at old-growth.  Andy and Paula love to fish,

Andy Hill sitting around an evening campfire.

 which is terrific since all four of us love eating fish. Our days were full and we spent three glorious bug free, August evenings drinking “Quetico cocktails”, watching the sunset and solving the major world problems. It is hard to beat sharing one of the great places in the world with good friends. 

We decided to return to Basswood via Kahshapiwi , Side and Isabella Lakes. At the beginning of the portage out of McNiece Lake  we had the pleasant experience of encountering Scott Wentzell, a son-in-law of Shan Walshe. He and his brothers had started their trip at French Lake and were on their way to Shan Walshe Lake. It was surprising to encounter two groups with people that we know on a lake that is not heavily used.

Two of the portages that we did on our return trip; McNiece to Kahshapiwi and from the bottom of Side Lake southwest to an unnamed lake, made me realize that I, like the pines on McNiece Lake, may have evolved from being mature to being slightly over-mature. The first portage is simply long and has a good hill in to make sure you understand that it is a special portage. The other one must have the most brutal hill in Quetico, or at least that is the way I felt when I finally reached the top. It was good to get back to Prairie Portage, especially after once again crossing Bailey Bay quartering into a strong wind.

Looking back, McNiece Lake seems to be in the centre of a very large stand of old-growth white and red pines since the concentration of these pines increases as you approach the lake and decreases as you move away. Cliff Ahlgren in Lob Trees in the Wilderness states that this is not an illusion and it is what remains of much larger stand of pines. “By 1890, most of the stateís remaining tall pine was limited to the Arrowhead region of northeastern Minnesota, including the border lakes country. The tall pines extended in an irregular band north, east and west of Duluth. On large finger of tall pine reached into the central portion of the present BWCA, with the fingers tip ending in the Quetico, less than ten miles north of Basswood Lake. ” The finger extends a few miles north of McNiece Lake.

The decline in numbers of eastern White Pine over the last two hundred years has been astounding. At the beginning of the 1800′s, white pine was a common, and, in many places, the dominant tree species from Newfoundland in the east to the southeast corner of Manitoba in the west; and from Georgia in the south to the shores of Lake Nipigon in northern Ontario. Dr. William Carmean, professor emeritus of forestry at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, stated that ìin the early 1800ís, someone could have travelled from the St Lawrence Valley in eastern Canada all the way to the centre of the continent and virtually never been out of sight of magnificent old pines”.

Although the numbers of mature white and red pine have decreased greatly for hundreds of years, they now have many ardent and vocal supporters. The white pine, in particular, has become a symbol of the wilderness in many people’s minds. A forester for the Ministry of Natural Resources in Thunder Bay, Ontario has stated that “to say you are going to cut a white pine these days is about the equivelent of saying you are going to murder your mother. This is not just another species with a problem”.

Numerous studies have shown that mature white and red pines also play significant and diverse ecological roles. A study by the U. S. Forest Service showed that “when female black bears go off in search of food for their cubs, they invariably leave the cubs within a few meters of an old white pine if one is available”. Evidently the deeply fissured bark of a large white pine is the easiest for the cubs to climb if they need to avoid predators. Another study in the Superior National Forest found that approximately 80% of both bald eagles and ospreys build their nests in crowns of old white pines. They obviously seek out these old pines since less than 1% of the mature trees in the Superior National Forest are pines. Even standing dead trees play an important role in the environment. The variety of insects that infest these trees are important sources of food for woodpeckers and other birds. They also serve as nesting sites for a variety of cavity-nesting birds. 

Dead trees, such as this decaying white pine on the north side of McNiece Lake, provide habitats for numerous species of decomposers and the organisms that feed on them.

Researchers investigating the canopies of large trees in the Amazon rain forest and in the mature conifers in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia have found thriving ecological communities in the canopies. They have identified new species of insects, birds, fungus and lichens. It seems inevitable that fascinating discoveries will also be found in the canopies of large stands of old-growth pines in the boreal forest also.

The pines in the McNiece Lake area survived because of their location in an area that the loggers didnít reach before the logging restrictions, and, for some reason, they havenít burned. The logging of white and red pines helped to fuel the economies of the many places, including Minnesota and Ontario, where these pines were common. Both species declined dramatically primarily because of logging but have stayed in decline for many complex reasons that include disease, silvaculture practices and disease. The dead tops on white pines are the “flag” that indicates that white pine blister rust has infected many of the white pines in Quetico and the BWCAW.

Fire can obviously destroy large stands of mature pines but it also is the force that is responsible for the success of white, red, and jack pine forests. Miron Heinselman in The Boundary Waters Wilderness Ecosystem stated that “White pine and red pine can persist without fire for up to 350 and possibly even 400 years for occasional individuals, but without a fire that creates favourable conditions for stand renewal, most stands will eventually be replaced by balsam and spruce as the old pines die.” I couldnít find any records of coring to determine the ages of the pines in the stand around McNiece. We found white pines that were over three and half feet in diameter and there are literally thousands of white pines in the stand that are over three feet in diameter. Based on ages of white pines obtained from coring data, these pines must be well over three hundred years old.

There are many red and white pines in various age classes in the understory around McNiece Lake. There are also, however, many balsam and spruce growing in the shadows of the giant pines. This appears to be a stand that is gradually becoming more diverse as the number of non-pine trees increases. On the other hand, the mature white and red pines seem to be ageing gracefully and many pines, both white and red, are in position to replace them.

It is impossible to predict how much longer the old-growth pines will dominate in the McNiece Lake area. It is a distressing to realize that in the foreseeable future, the magnificent stand of old-growth white and red pines on McNiece Lake will be gone. The trees will not be lost not to the chainsaw or the axe but to the inevitable ravages of time. I remember portaging up a long hill on the northern edge of Mack Lake on the way to Munro Lake in the eastern part of Quetico Park in 1996 and being amazed at how few trees had survived the 1995 fire. The fire raced up the hill through many old-growth white pine burning almost everything in its path. The only trees that were still alive were some of the large, old-growth white pine.

They were blackened and had fire scars along their bases but were still alive because of their thick, fire-resistant bark and branches that remained above the fire. I havenít been back since but these trees probably acted as sources of seeds to the open, nutrient rich ground below. In the past, before fire suppression was so successful, this was how a new pine forest began. William Carmean has written that “old-growth forest management involves more than merely reserving scattered old-growth forest stands. For white and red pine we must also be concerned with regenerating new pine forests, and with the recognition and protection of mid-age pine forests. These newly regenerated areas, and these mid-age forests, thus can become the old-growth forests of the future that will inevitably be naturally harvested by insects, disease and fire.” Fortunately, both Quetico and the BWCAW have stands of middle-aged white and red pines that will be the old-growth for future generations of canoeists.

In retrospect, my reasons for canoeing in Quetico haven’t changed all that much over the decades. I originally came primarily to see large birds and mammals and on the McNiece Lake trip I wanted to see large trees. What is becoming obvious, even to a slow learner like myself, is that what I am really looking for is wildlife in the larger sense: mammals, birds, amphibians, trees, orchids, lichens, and fungi in a natural setting. In Quetico we can find all of this set in a wild landscape of cliffs, waterfalls, pictographs, bogs, creeks, rivers and lakes. No wonder I keep coming back.

Quetico Park contains a wide variety of different habitats: large stands of mature red and white pine, even-aged jack pine and poplar stands (the result of recent fires), wet areas with an understory of moss and overstory of black spruce, and open bogs composed of leather leaf, sphagnum moss and orchids. These and a variety of other habitats in Quetico are home to many different plants and animals.

These familiar habitats and the animals that inhabit them evolved out of the last ice-age, which reached its maximum about 20,000 years ago. At the peak of the last glacial period, called the Wisconsin, virtually all of Canada and a large portion of the northern United States were covered with ice. All of Minnesota was covered by glacial ice except for the southeast corner of the state.

When the glacier reached its maximum about 20,000 years ago it covered all of Ontario and almost all of Minnesota.

It has been estimated that this glacier may have been up to one mile thick. A glacier of this size obviously had an enormous impact on the land, both as the glacier was getting larger and as it was shrinking. As it grew, its enormous weight gouged out weak areas in the bedrock and ground up boulders and bedrock into a mixture of sand, gravel and small rocks. This glacial till is found throughout Quetico today. Boulders frozen into the ice sometimes left deep scratches called glacial straiae that are visible on the shores of many lakes, including Ottertrack, Knife and Cirrus. When the glacial advance stopped, long ridges of glacial till, called moraines, were left behind. A large terminal moraine, known as the Seep Rock Moraine, passes through the northeast corner of the park.

The slow retreat of the glacier was equally dramatic. The enormous amounts of water melting off the glacier created numerous lakes and ponds, and water levels were generally higher than they are today. A huge island-studded lake called Lake Agassiz temporarily covered half of Quetico Park. Big, fast-moving rivers deposited sand and silt into these enlarged lakes. When the lakes shrunk to their present size, they created flat, generally boggy areas from what had been shallow bays. The best example of this in Quetico is the flat, sandy area east of Kawa Bay of Kawnipi Lake. The Wawiag River now winds through silt and sand that was deposited in a shallow bay of what is now Kawnipi Lake.

The changes in vegetation that have occurred since the glacier retreated are striking. Fortunately, a record of the past plant communities that succeeded the glacier can be found in the bottom of lakes and ponds. Wind-blown pollen settles on lakes and sinks to the bottom, where it is eventually covered with more pollen. Since pollen from different types of plants is of different sizes and shapes, the pollen can be used to give an idea of past plant communities.

Pollen cores from the bottom of a variety of lakes and ponds in Northwestern Ontario and northern Minnesota have been analyzed, although no detailed pollen studies have been done from lakes in Quetico. Lake of the Clouds, a small lake in the BWCAW just south of Ottertrack Lake, has had an analysis of the pollen from the bottom of the lake, as has Rattle Lake, which is located just 100 miles northwest of Quetico Park. The pollen from both lakes shows similar trends in change in vegetation with time.

The bottom layer of pollen represents the first plants after the glacial retreat and the top layer represents plants from more recent years. In between is the pollen that represents the history of plant succession of the long intervening period. One of the many complicating factors is that some plant species produce large amounts of pollen that can be carried hundreds of miles by the wind, while others produce very little pollen. Analysis of pollen cores gives a picture, although somewhat fuzzy, of the vegetation change in a particular area.

It is currently thought that Lake of the Clouds became free of glacial ice about 11,500 years ago, and that Rattle Lake, being father north, became ice free a few hundred years later. The pollen from the oldest zone in both lakes indicates sparse vegetation that was composed mainly of lichens, herbs and shrubs. Pollen from higher lavels showed an increase in levels of spruce and birch. About 9,200 years ago at Lake of the Clouds and 8,600 years ago at Rattle Lake, the levels of spruce declined and levels of species of pine greatly increased.

The pollen from both lakes shows a strikingly similar pattern from tundra or tundra-like conditions, changing to a spruce-birch forest, which evolves into a predominantly pine and spruce forest. It apparently took over 2000 years for Quetico to make the transition from a land just freed from glacial ice to a forest mosaic similar to what is present today. Prior to the forest mosaic was a period when the vegetation was much different from today and when, consequently, the animals were not those we expect to see in Quetico.

This post-glacial period was characterized by a warming climate, large lakes produced by the melting of glacial ice, and vegetation that was a rich patchwork of herbs, grasses, mosses, fungus, shrubs and small trees that could have supported a high density of animals. This tundra-like vegetation is thought to have been unique, and no environment exists today that matches it. The tundra-like environment that was home to a variety of ice-age mammals is sometimes referred to as the mammoth steppe – named after the woolly mammoths, the largest of the ice-age mammals.

When the southern part of Quetico was first freed of glacial ice about 11,500 years ago, the land to the south contained a staggering array of large mammals known as the ice-age megafauna. They included woolly mammoths, mastodons, sabre-tooth tigers, camels, horses and woolly rhinoceroses. Some of these animals were of spectacular size, such as 500-lb. beavers, giant sloth that were 12 feet tall standing on their hind legs, and dire wolves weighing up to 200 pounds.

By 11 000 years ago, when all of Quetico was free of glacial ice, many of the large ice-age mammals were extinct or on their way to extinction. It is not known what caused their extinction, but there is no shortage of theories. The warming of the climate and the accompanying changes in vegetation may have made survival impossible for cold-adapted species like the woolly mammoth and woolly rhinoceros.

When the ice was retreating through Quetico, there was a Palaeoindian culture in the Americas known as the Clovis culture. The Clovis culture is characterized by large, fluted spearpoints called Clovis points. In numerous locations, Clovis points have been associated with the fossil remains of woolly mammoths. The Clovis people were successful hunters of woolly mammoths and other megafauna. Clovis points have been found in central and southern Minnesota and throughout Wisconsin, except for the northern extreme. No evidence of the Clovis culture has been found in the BWCAW or Quetico, but recently a Clovis point was reported from the Duluth area.

The extinction at the end of the last ice age left ecological niches that remain empty to this day. The warming of the climate caused a slow but steady replacement of the rich tundra-like environment, which had provided a side variety of food for grazers and browsers, with a predominantly forested environment. In North America, the mammoths, horses, camels, ground sloths, and giant beavers that once were prominent mammals disappeared with the rich post-glacial environment that they thrived in. The noted zoologist Alfred Russel Wallace once stated: “We live in a zoologically impoverished world, from which all the largest, the fiercest, and strongest forms have disappeared.”

There are skeletal remains of these megafauna throughout the Americas. In areas with hot, dry climates, such as much of the American Southwest, there are numerous well preserved remains of ice-age mammals. The LeBrea Tar Pits in Los Angeles contain thousands of skeletons from this time period, especially of carnivores such as dire wolves, sabre-tooth tigers and the American lion. In Siberia and Alaska, virtually intact woolly mammoths have been recovered from permafrost. In 1901, portions of a woolly mammoth that had been frozen for 20,000 years were eaten by a dog team when a Russian scientist came across a woolly mammoth eroding out of the ice in northern Siberia.

The acid soils of the Canadian Shield are, however, very hard on bone and antlers, and only in unusual situations do they last a decade, yet alone thousands of years. Moose bones and antlers two or three years old are usually heavily chewed by rodents and covered with fungus, moss and bacteria that rapidly recycle the valuable nutrients. Only unusual conditions, where the remains settle into a peat bog or are quickly covered with silt at the bottom of a lake, allow for long term preservation of bone.

However, the remains of a few ice-age animals have been recovered near Quetico. A skull of an extinct form of bison was found while dredging for peat on the edge of a bog near Kenora, Ontario. The skull of this bison was picked up intact by the backhoe. The operator of the backhoe joked, “I told my friends that I dug up the Devil himself.” The presence of a bison north of Lake of the Woods was a shock, but it is consistent with the concept of a tundra-grassland environment after the retreat of the glacier.

The bones of woolly mammoths have been recovered in southern Minnesota, Wisconsin and Manitoba; and recently, the bones of a mastodon were recovered in southern Wisconsin. In a few cases, the remains of large mammals have been found in association with human artefacts. The most clear-cut correlations are a bison kill site near Lake Itasca that dates back to about 8,000 years ago and a woolly mammoth in southern Wisconsin that dates to 11,000 years ago. Both of these sites had animal bones and stone tools found close together and were apparently kill sites.

The most spectacular find, however, occurred just north of Atikokan, deep in

Charlie Brooks holding a 10,000 year old caribou antler from the bottom Steep Rock Lake.

 the silt at the bottom of a lake. Iron ore was discovered at Steep Rock Lake in 1938, and diamond drilling showed that a rich ore body was located at the bottom of the lake. The demand for iron ore was high because of World War II, so the decision was made to drain the lake to get at the ore. Huge dredges were brought in to pump out the silt that covered the ore. The dredges were able to pump the silt from the bottom of the main body of the lake, but along the lakeshore the silt had to be washed into the rapidly draining lake using high pressure hoses.

On April 16, 1957, Charlie Brooks and Dick Kaemingk were surveying the monitored area along the shore. They noticed a large antler in the silt and dug it out and set it aside. Since the goal of the operation was to remove the silt and get at the ore underneath, the exact depth of the antler in the silt was not recorded. However, at the time of discovery, it was estimated that the antler was located beneath 60 to 100 feet of silt and clay. The astounding depth of silt above the antler indicated that it was probably quite old. It is of interest that there was about 450 feet of silt in the deepest part of Steep Rock Lake. The antler was deeply buried, but there were still hundreds of feet of silt below it.

The enormous amount of silt in Steep Rock was undoubtedly due to the fact that the fast flowing Seine River dropped its glacial debris into the lake when it slowed down upon entering the lake. The antler was found less than a thousand feet from the falls where the river enters the lake. Since the antler is in such good shape, it probably did not come down the Seine River and over the falls into the lake.

The caribou antler recovered by Brooks and Kaemingk was not the only one that had been noticed. Brooks remembers seeing other antlers on top of the monitor barges, presumably put there by other workers and later discarded. It is not surprising that the presence of caribou antlers was not considered unusual since woodland caribou were common in the area until the 1930′s. What is extremely fortunate is that someone had the curiosity and foresight to set one aside. (see photo of Charlie Brooks holding the 10,000 year old caribou antler from Steep Rock Lake at beginning of article)

It is ironic that the caribou antler was found near Atikokan, since Atikokan means “caribou bones” in Ojibwa. There are other references to caribou in the area, with a Caribus Lake and Caribus Creek just south of Atikokan. There is also a Caribou Lake in the eastern BWCAW. When I first saw the antler in the mid-1970′s, it had been hanging for over a decade in the entrance to the building that houses the Atikokan Library and Museum, a log building near the main street of Atikokan.

Lawrence Jackson, an archaeologist associated with Trent University, recently had the antler carbon-dated, and it was found to be approximately 10,000 years old. Originally thought to be from a woodland caribou, it was analyzed by experts and is now thought to be from a male barren ground caribou. The presence of barren ground caribou on Steep Rock Lake 10,000 years ago seems surprising, but it is consistent with evidence from pollen studies that strongly indicate that this area was primarily a mixture of spruce, birch and tundra at that time.

Barren ground caribou migrate in large herds and shed their antlers in early winter after the completion of the rut in the fall. A male caribou probably shed his antlers on the ice surface of Steep Rock Lake after spending the summer somewhere north of Atikokan. The caribou then continued on its journey with the rest of the migrating herd to its winter range to the south.

The herd of barren ground caribou that shed their antlers on Steep Rock Lake as they began their migration to their wintering grounds to the south would have been a major food resource for Palaeoindians living in the area. Caribou are hunted during the fall migration for both their hides and for food. The location of these ancient migration routes is a mystery.

In the winter of 1983, a local trapper named Phil Sawdo discovered some rock paintings on a creekside cliff north of Montgomery Lake. At this site, there are two sets of paintings about fifty metres apart. One set portrays a caribou and human-like figures and other a moose or caribou. These paintings are unique in Quetico in that they are not located on a navigable body of water; you can paddle up to all the other known pictograph sites in the park. Phil Sawdo thought that the caribou were formerly ambushed in the narrows formed by the pictograph cliff and a high hill directly opposite. Two creeks come into the area north of Montgomery, and the small valleys associated with them could have funnelled migrating caribou into the narrows where the pictographs are located.

It is not known how old the Montgomery Lake rock paintings are, and there are no rock paintings that are known to date back to Palaeoindian times. However, it is certainly possible that the Montgomery lake rock paintings depict caribou at a spot where they were hunted during migrations thousands of years ago.

Because of the similarity between barren ground caribou and woodland caribou that were present in Quetico until the 1930′s and the unknown date of the rock paintings, it is just speculation that there is a connection between the barren ground caribou antler from Steep Rock Lake and the rock paintings on Montgomery Lake. There is, however, other evidence that caribou were in the area 10,000 years ago and that they were hunted by humans. A large Palaeoindian site near Thunder Bay produced fragments of bone that have been tentatively identified as caribou. Archaeologists have suggested that this site, which is also about 10,000 years old, and others from the same time period are evidence of caribou hunting by bands of Palaeoindians along the north shore of Lake Superior.

There are also numerous Palaeoindian sites in Quetico and BWCAW that apparently date back at least 10 000 years. The culture in the area at that time is known as the Plano and is thought to have succeeded the Clovis that ended about 11 000 years ago. Because of the lack of organic material, none of these sites have been carbon dated. They have been primarily dated by the presence of large spearpoints which are very similar to those found at dated Palaeoindian sites to the south. The large spearpoints that are characteristic of Palaeoindian sites are beautifully worked and made from a variety of stones.

By the time the Clovis culture had evolved into the Plano culture, many of the ice-age megafauna were extinct. All of the evidence for Palaeoindians in Northwestern Ontario and the BWCAW is believed to be from the Plano culture. The Clovis people, and the woolly mammoths and other megafauna they co-existed with, may never have reached Quetico. However, the area was free of glacial ice in time for people of the Clovis culture and the ice-age animals they hunted to have entered and lived in Quetico. They would have, however, had to live close to the leading edge of the glacier.

So . . . I’m still looking for a Clovis point, a faced pictograph that depicts a woolly mammoth, and the bones of a mastodon or dire wolf eroding out of the silt banks of the Wawiag River. I may never find any of them, but the thought that it is possible adds another dimension to a trip into Quetico.  (An updated and enlarged treatment of Quetico’s Ice Age legacy can be found in my book.)

I love watching ravens fly. They seem to delight in performing a wide variety of aerial acrobatics. Other birds seem to fly primarily for practical purposes: searching for food, avoiding predators, or simply moving from place to place. Ravens, however, often seem to cavort in the air with joyous abandon simply because it is fun. Since they don’t seem to rely on speed or manueverability to obtain food, it seems unusual that they would be such skillful flyers. Maybe they have found that flying can be used for play as well as for practical reasons.

A drawing of a raven in winter in the Boundary Waters area. (Mary Lambirth - Blackduck, Minnesota)

I have often seen them do a “barrel-roll”, and sometimes they even do two or three in quick succession. Ravens can even fly briefly upside down. Their most exuberant flights seem to be during their mating season in late winter and early spring. Then they can be seen chasing each other and performing acrobatic tricks in tandem.

While it is certainly understandable that their mating flights would be boastful and exuberant, they also do barrel rolls, swoops and flips at other times of year. They even seem to enjoy flying on those -30 C and -40 C winter days when no other birds can be seen in the frigid skies. Any bird that incubates eggs in April when cold nights and snow are not only possible, but very probable, has to be well adapted to the cold. Possibly their inky-black colour allows them to absorb more heat from the sun and is an adaption for winters in the north.

In the Boundary Waters area, ravens are on the southern edge of their range, but they are also found in the much colder Hudson Bay Lowlands, as well as Greenland and Siberia. They don’t go south for the winter; but stay in the north and rely on their intelligence, adaptability and omnivorous feeding habits to get through our long winters. Ravens don’t seem to merely survive the winter; they seem to thrive and even prosper in the cold.

Ravens are as at home in the Arizona desert as in the boreal forest. (photo by Marie Nelson)

Ravens are predominantly a northern bird. All northerners, no matter where in the world they live, have one bird species in common: the raven. Not only is this large black bird found all across northern North America, it is also found in Greenland, Iceland, and across northern Europe and Russia. The raven, Corvus corax, is at home in both Upsala, Ontario and Uppsala, Sweden.

In North America, ravens have extended their range even beyond the tundra, boreal forest and mixed forest. They are also found in mountainous areas and even in deserts. Consequently, ravens are in Ely, Nevada as well as Ely, Minnesota. In the mixed forests of the Boundary Waters area, the ravens range overlaps with that of its close relative, the common crow. The main difference between them is that the raven is much larger than the crow; has a larger, thicker beak; and has a wedge-shaped tail rather than the squared end of the crow’s tail. Ravens are common throughout the Boundary Waters area, but crows seem to be more plentiful in the BWCAW than in Quetico.

One biologist has said that ravens make a wider variety of sounds than any animal other than humans. The call that I have heard them make the most often is a deep call that sounds like “kraa” and is sometimes repeated many times. It seems similar to the “caw” call of the crow, but is much deeper and less strident. They also make a “clunk” or “thunk” sound that is unlike any other bird sound I have ever heard. In contrast to these one-note sounds, they can also make very soft, melodious sounds that make the raven the world’s largest songbird.

Their most striking and unusual sound is a bell-like note that I’ve heard a few times while they were flying in late winter. They also do spectacular dives and rolls during this time of year. These unusual sounds and aerial acrobatics may be related to their mating season, which also occurs in late winter. Ravens usually build their nests in trees but, when available, they nest on the side of cliffs. They apparently seek out cliff sites where they can build a nest under an overhang. A nesting site on the cliffs on the north shore of Quetico Lake has a large overhang that completely protects the nest. I first saw this wonderful Quetico Lake cliff nest in 1976 and it was still in use last year. Ravens mate as early as February and are on their nests in late March and April. Since they are on their nests when both snow and freezing rain can occur, nests with an overhang to protect both the incubating adult raven and its chicks is a huge advantage.

The raven plays a major role in the mythology of many Native American cultures. In Pacific Northwest mythology, the raven plays a central role, and is known as both a creator and a folk hero. Many Ojibwa and Cree tales from our area also feature ravens. In many of these tales ravens are “tricksters”, creatures that are capable of heroism and courage, but also of trickery and even deceit.

In early European cultures, ravens also played significant roles. In Norse mythology two ravens, Hugin (thought) and Munin (memory), flew off at dawn and observed what was happening in the far-flung Norse realm. They returned in the evening, perched on the shoulders of the Norse god Odin, and whispered to him what they had learned during their day’s travels. Information received from ravens, because they could observe and understand things that were beyond the comprehension of mere humans, was considered to be extremely valuable. In Ireland, the phrase “raven’s knowledge” means to know all and to see all.

Although ravens are no longer common in England, they were so abundant in London in the late 1600′s that the King was petitioned to get rid of them. Ravens were held in high esteem by many and there was opposition to this extermination plan. According to the book Ravens in Winter, the raven extermination was not completed because a family of ravens lived in the Tower of London and a “soothsayer advised the King that if he removed all the ravens from the Tower a great disaster would befall England and his Royal Palace would crumble into dust. The King, not wanting to tempt fate, decided to keep six ravens and appoint a Keeper.” They are still there today, but their wings are clipped to ensure that they don’t leave the Tower. The Tower ravens don’t successfully breed, but whenever one dies, it is replaced by another bird. Another centuries-old tale states that a raven’s head buried at the base of London Tower protects London from invasion.

A raven incorporated into a contemporary design for a canoe club in Atikokan, Ontario. (design by Lise Sorenson)

Ravens are both predators and scavengers. As predators, they kill frogs, snakes, mice, voles, young and wounded birds, eggs, as well as a variety of insects and other invertebrates. One naturalist has labeled ravens the “bikers of the bird world” because they “dress in black, are big, and they are mean”. I’m not sure what the “mean” reference is for , but they do occasionally act as predators on surprisingly large animals.

A few years ago, farmers near Dryden, Ontario (north of Atikokan) reported that ravens were killing their sheep and cows. Ravens were seen landing on the heads of these farm animals and driving their beaks into the eyes of their prey. A few hard, well-placed blows were reported to kill the animals. Ravens are evidently capable of killing domesticated animals as large as cows.

At the other end of the food spectrum, they also eat some plant foods, and have been observed consuming large amounts of blueberries. The extremely diverse diet of a Boundary Waters raven can include large and small mammals (in any state of freshness or decay), snakes, turtles, frogs, toads, minnows, crayfish, tadpoles, worms, insects, seeds and berries. They are omnivores and opportunists of the highest magnitude.

Ravens seem, however, to get the vast majority of their food by acting as scavengers. In the winter, they rely heavily on feeding on moose and deer carcasses. They seem to have a symbiotic relationship with wolves and have been reported to follow wolf packs. There have been reports of ravens apparently signalling the location of prey to wolves by circling over moose and calling loudly. Not only do wolves kill the animals, they also open the carcass so the ravens can get at the meat and organs. Ravens also commonly arrive quickly after human hunters have killed an animal. They also take advantage of animals killed by vehicles by flying along highway corridors and feeding on the road kills.

A raven's nest on a south-facing cliff on Quetico Lake.

Ravens are known for their intelligence,

Raven's nest in a transmission tower in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

 and many biologists consider them to be the most intelligent bird of all. They exhibit their intelligence in numerous ways. They have been observed opening clam shells by dropping them on rocks or pavement. They are also excellent mimics, not only of other birds, but also of the human voice.

The late Konrad Lorenz, a renowned animal behaviourist, had a pet raven. He once fed this raven after it had brought him a piece of laundry that it had obtained from a clothes line. The raven, thinking it had been rewarded for bringing laundry, made repeated raids on neighbour’s clothes lines. The raven kept bringing wet socks and undergarments until it realized it was not going to be rewarded again.

One of the fascinating things about ravens is their ability to thrive in towns and cities as well as in wilderness areas. The same species that nests on cliffs on Quetico Lake and near the top of old-growth white pines throughout the Boundary Waters also nests on a large steel electrical tower on a busy street in Thunder Bay. I see ravens all summer in Quetico, but we also commonly have ravens in our backyard in Thunder Bay. They habitually search for animals that have died of natural causes or been preyed upon in the wilderness, but they also routinely inspect the back of hunter’s or trapper’s half ton’s looking for morsels of meat. Always the opportunist, I once saw one fly across the road at the French Lake campground with a whole sandwich in its beak.

My Norse ancestors, like many Native American cultures, not only believed they could learn from these intelligent and adaptable birds, but, also wove them into their mythology and spirituality. Since ravens have also successfully made the transition between wilderness and human-dominated landscapes, maybe we also have more in common with these intriguing creatures than we think.