Writing by Michael Chase, Drawings by Jenny Hershey
Heather is a member of the great Ojibwe Nation. She lives in Grand Portage, MN, on the Grand Portage Reservation near the US/Canada border of Lake Superior. Heather, whose Ojibwe name is Gizhiiwe, was born and raised in the Gichi-onigamiing Ishkonigam (the Ojibwe name for the reservation lands), and she manages a marina next to a campground. The marina, campground, and a nearby casino are all owned and managed by the Ojibwe Reservation. Heather is raising four daughters, a friend’s son, and a niece. A hardworking woman who has experienced many joys and sorrows, her kids are her biggest joy. Heather still grieves over the loss of her twin boys, who were the unfortunate victims of physical violence by their father toward Heather when she was pregnant. Her personal resilience and support for other women who are victims of abuse helps her to heal.
We asked Heather if she had noticed changes in the weather over the years. She answered, “Not only have winters gotten warmer and warmer, there’s a lot less wildlife than a few decades back when I was a child.” Then her father, sitting nearby, added, “They used to keep to themselves, but now the black bears come out of the forest hungrier than they used to in the Spring to search for food. Now they are more aggressive - they can even open a car door!” Jenny asked Heather what worries her at night, and she said neither of the two old men running for president understood the real issues of native Americans. And she also worries about warmer winters decreasing the moose population and ruining the tribal custom of partridge hunting. Jenny asked Heather about her tattoos. She pointed to her chin, “This means, ‘She speaks Truth’. The two dots on the top of my checks stand for two perspectives …because there is always more than one.”
“As the environment changes, you should expect to change too. It is the job of your brain to model the world as it is. And the world is mutating.“
Clayton Page Aldrin, from “THE WEIGHT OF NATURE; How a Changing Climate Changes our Brains,” published by Penguin Random House, 2024
Some years ago, while transitioning from a theatre professor to a climate activist, I took a hiking vacation (by car) with a companion to the Tombstone Mountains in Canada's Yukon territory east of Alaska. Along the way, we decided to camp north of Whitehorse near some hot springs. We were setting up a tent when I noticed two older men ride up to a nearby campsite on bicycles. Their bikes were heavily loaded with gear, and the men seemed tired but happy. After a few more moments struggling with my tent, I looked back at their site, and to my astonishment, two small tents were up, the bikes were leaning against a tree, and the men were nowhere to be seen. I was puzzled about how they got there and where they were going. The only paved road I knew about in the Yukon out of Whitehorse was a section of the Alaska Highway on the way to Dawson City, which was bikable but ended at Fairbanks. The Dempster Highway was another choice some 50 miles or so to the east of Dawson, a northward-bound mix of pavement and gravel that passes through the Tombstone Mountains as it winds its way up to the edge of the American Continent and ends at the Beaufort Sea, part of the mighty Arctic Ocean.
An hour or so later, I found the men relaxing at a pool fed by natural hot springs that offered a refreshing respite from the chilly air. I started conversing with one of the men, who introduced himself as Don. He looked weather-beaten and sturdy like an old oak tree, maybe in his mid-seventies. I asked him if they had come a long distance. “We’re returning to Juneau, where John and I live, he said, gesturing to his slighter counterpart. “I want to get there in time for July 4th. Gotta party with my family and friends.” “Where are you coming from?” I asked. Don deftly pulled himself out of the pool, dug through a pack nearby, and brought out a map. He pointed. I could see a road in the eastern part of the Yukon that began at Whitehorse. “There,” he said. “We did that loop.” I could see a triangle made of several roads that started at Whitehorse and ended there, but they still had to get back to Juneau, about 250 miles south of Whitehorse. As far as I could figure, they had just biked several hundred miles on unpaved roads, mostly in areas without services, which would total out to a trip of 700 miles or more in very rugged country.
My head was spinning. These old guys did that? (Then I could too!) Don went on, “I’ve lived in Juneau my whole life. Great town, fantastic country right out your door. I used to backpack all over. But now I'm older I don't like to carry a pack anymore. So I let the bike do it. All I gotta do is pedal and not fall over.” As I was thinking that over, Don added, “And it's every bit as intimate an experience with nature as backpacking is. I still have to deal with everything that Mother Nature offers up. I get to experience it all on my bicycle. Only difference is the bike is hauling my stuff.”
A map of our journey; Jenny and I originally intended to bike around Lake Superior. However, we were forced to stop at Schreiber, Ontario, and head back to Thunder Bay because Jenny had developed a bruised pubic bone from a seat that wasn’t working out (…a common problem for women who bicycle long distance). Jenny needed both rest and to change her saddle, an option about 150 miles to the west or 500 miles to the east. Chalk up our mistake to the unfortunate consequence of traveling on new bicycles we hadn't already subjected to challenging conditions. We write more about the new bikes below.
Intimacy with Nature. What does that feel like?
It can feel like a lot of things: the smell of soil after a hard rain, the shape of a hill you are trying to walk or bike up, the wind as you descend, the scream of a hawk, the song of a warbler, tall grass grazing your legs as you walk to the lakeshore. But even more central to our experience of nature is weather. That is all around us: it's visual, tactile, olfactory, auditory. Its coldness can give you energy and kill you, and its heat can make you tired and kill you. It can be so dry you can't stop craving liquid, your skin dries out and your lips crack and bleed, or so wet you forget to drink and you feel as though insects are crawling around your torso while your skin shrivels like a prune. Or you can feel the sublime relaxation and letting go into perfect conditions, neither too hot nor cold, too humid nor too dry, as light delights your eye and lulls you into momentary contentment.
A view of Lake Superior near Rossport, north of Thunder Bay, Ontario.
Friend or foe, weather envelopes us. The experience of it is always intimate, making us feel many things, but above all, bringing us to right here, right now. And all other experiences flow from that. Think of a cherished outdoor memory, perhaps even an indoor one. As you reconstruct the memory, do you remember what the weather was like? Odds are very high that you do, and with considerable clarity. But weather is not climate. Weather just transpires, and it is the panorama behind all our experiences. Some psychologists and neuroscientists think that weather is the “skeleton of memory” because it is so fundamental to human experience.
Canada Geese in the distance looking toward Pie Island from Mission Island just off Thunder Bay, Ontario.
Climate, in contrast, is a construct of the human mind. Climate is the measurement - or for most of humankind simply imperical evidence - of weather in a particular place over time. A mental model, climate represents how humans think something works in the real world. So a "dynamic mental model" of the climate involves imagining - or studying - how this complex system works, with many interrelated variables changing over time based on various forces and feedback loops. It's a way of visualizing and making sense of ever-shifting systems that have historically changed at a rate unnoticeable to most humans yet are now speeding up. Fast.
To test this out ask yourself, “How does the climate feel?” And then ask yourself, “How does the weather feel?” The latter question is definitely easier to answer. We feel the weather, we count on the climate. Or at least we used to. Now the climate is changing so fast we are much less able to predict it. And interestingly, losing our capacity to predict means we know less about the future because we can no longer rely on the past to be our guide. In a curious way, this is a kind of forgetting the future, almost as if climate change is giving us reverse amnesia.
Storm clouds brewing on a summit on the iconic Trans-Canada Highway 17 approaching Schreiber, Ontario.
The Climate is like the stock market; it makes us happiest when it's predictable and very uncomfortable when it isn't. And it's becoming less and less predictable.
Even if you are lucky not to have noticed, hundreds of millions of people (including those who follow climate records) have been subjected to and astonished by a dizzying cascade of record-breaking temperature increases over the past year. Average global temperatures have hit unprecedented highs for the last 12 months, from April 2023 to April 2024. Then, to make it a baker’s dozen, May 2024 just concluded the warmest month in recorded history! And, if you’ve been paying attention, or you live in India (126F), Africa (Sudan, 122F), the Mideast (Kuwait: 128.5F, Iran: 159.3F, Saudi Arabia 111.2F), or North America (Mexico, 125.6F), and the American Southwest (122F), the Midwest (98F) or the Northeast (98F), you have good reason to believe that global temperaturesres for June are likely to eclipse May. Records are being broken not only for how hot it gets but for how long that heat endures. Already this year, India has experienced the country’s most prolonged hot spell on record, spanning 24 days in April and May. And Greece is currently in its third week of deadly heat, less than a year after experiencing a record-breaking 16-day heat wave. It’s not as if climate scientists didn’t see worsening impacts coming, but they are indeed surprised by their ferocity. And now, at 2.34F (1.3C) of total average warming beyond pre-industrial levels, we are being forced to reckon with a planetary climate system that is becoming increasingly turbulent, mercurial and downright dangerous.
Of course, there's only one way out: stop burning fossil fuels. (It's interesting to contemplate the inevitable time when the burning of fossil fuels for our energy needs will be a distant memory. But I'm getting ahead of myself…)
Jenny met Tim in Nipigon Bay, Ontario, as he loaded groceries onto his bicycle outside the only market in town. An avid cyclist and “Warmshowers Host,” Tim mentioned he was hosting a cyclist that evening who was halfway through a biking trip from Vancouver, BC, to St. Johns, Newfoundland (about 5,000 miles). “Maybe we wanted to come by and meet him”? Tim added that he had worked as a forest technician at Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources. Jenny eagerly accepted. We enjoyed meeting the cyclist Ben and were very impressed by his gentle determination. Clearly, he was going to make it all the way. And we were fascinated by Tim’s career. Except for a short stint in BC, Tim focused on Ontario forests for his entire career, designating, designing, and approving logging areas and procedures used by private companies to harvest timber. Interestingly, the Crown owns the land in Canada, and private companies lease land for resource extraction. Over the years, Tim has seen the weather change a great deal. Winters are increasingly shorter and dryer, summers are longer and hotter and vacillate between extreme dryness and wetness. Along with every other local we queried about the weather, Tim quickly mentioned that this past winter was the warmest he'd ever experienced. The only precipitation was rain. When the one snowstorm of the winter of 2024 finally came, it was mid-May, and the snow disappeared in a few days. Correspondingly, the ice pack on Lake Superior set a new record as the most diminished in recorded history.
Back to Lake Superior
I once took a road trip with my ex-wife from Denver to Toronto for a professional engagement. We drove the northern route around Lake Superior from Duluth through Thunder Bay, Nipigon, and down through Sault Ste. Marie to Toronto. My memories are very general, mainly limited to lovely or rainy weather and my fascination with the seemingly endless forest of what I thought were scrappy and smallish trees as a result of the harsh Ontario winters. (I have since learned that such characteristics can also come from logging practices, erosion snd slope orientations, and wind.) And strangely absent from my memories are the extraordinary hills on the Ontario side and the magnificent highland views along the north shore of the Trans-Canada Highway from Nipigon to Sault Ste. Marie.
The Pays Plat First Nation, a small First Nation Ojibwe reserve community located in Canada near Rossport, Ontario, erected this sign. Anishinabae is an umbrella term that encompasses several tribes, including the Ojibwe, who have their own distinct identity within a larger group. This is the same clan that lives on the Grand Portage Reservation in Minnesota. Like many Indigenous people in other countries, the national boundaries of Canada and the United States were formed with little regard for their regional homeland.
This biking trip, in contrast, has offered Jenny and me a very intimate experience of this region. Traveling along Lake Superior on a bicycle has deepened our understanding of the landscape and its inhabitants far more deeply than driving through it ever could. After years of long-distance bicycle riding, I've come to believe that our relationship with place becomes less intimate the more hermetically protected we are from the weather. And, as exciting and useful as speeding up can be, traveling faster than human senses can assimilate results in a shallower experience of our environment. In other words, the faster we go, the less we experience. The same might be said for life in general.
About 60 miles northeast of Thunder Bay, on our way to Schreiber, Ontario, we rode into Red Rock, a lovely small fishing village on Nipigon Bay facing three small islands. Looking for a grocery store and lodging, we found ourselves at the Red Rock Inn, an old hotel built in the 1930s. The proprietor, Don, was raised down the street, and as a child he and his family lived in the Inn for a while. While living there, Don discovered an extensive library of Hardy Boy novels that he read voraciously. Today, on the bedside tables in every room is a Hardy Boys novel and, as Don says, “To be politically correct,” a Nancy Drew novel as well. Don moved away from Red Rock when he went to college and spent the next 40 years in the States, building multiple yacht dealerships on the Gulf Coast, primarily in Florida. Then, about nine years ago, he sold his businesses, moved back home, and took on the challenge of bringing the Red Rock Inn back to life. The place is chock full of memorabilia, antiques, and much artwork (Don’s mother and his second wife were artists, and many of their works are on display). There is also a surprising number of paintings by the Group of Seven, once known as the Algonquin School, a group of Canadian landscape painters from 1920 to 1933 with similar visions. Believing that a distinct Canadian art could be developed through direct contact with nature, the Group of Seven is best known for its paintings inspired by the Canadian landscape. When we asked Don if he had noticed any differences in the weather over the years, he responded, “Of course, winters used to be much more intense and lasted much longer. And there was no snow last winter until one small storm in May! And I could see open water out there.” Don gestured toward Lake Superior, “Our weather is really crazy now.”
The Winters are Warmer
Minnesota is famously known as the land of 10,000 lakes, but it actually has 11,842 lakes that are at least 10 acres or larger. Michigan (which we didn't visit this trip because of our change in plans) is equally known for its abundance of lakes, with approximately 11,000 inland lakes and 3,288 miles of lake shoreline (eclipsed in the US only by Alaska). Ontario, in contrast, contains an even more impressive number of lakes - over 250,000 - that collectively account for about 20% of the world’s freshwater supply. Tragically, every one of these lakes is experiencing shorter winters with accelerating losses of ice cover, a trend that has gained speed over the past few decades. Ice duration on the Great Lakes alone has declined by 31 days on average since weather records began around 1865, while ice cover on Lake Superior has decreased by a factor of six over the past 25 years. More than 15,000 lakes in the Northern Hemisphere that historically have frozen every winter for as long as can be remembered now experience ice-free winters. This trend in ice loss is forecasted to continue, and scientists estimate that the remaining lakes with ice cover will lose an additional 10 to 40 days over the next decade alone, yet another manifestation of our rapidly changing climate.
Jenny stands by her bicycle in front of the Red Rock Inn. Somewhat frozen in time, this hotel reminded us of a benign cousin of the Overlook Hotel in “The Shining.”
The Water is Warmer
The loss of ice on the many lakes in the Great Lakes region is far from the only result of global warming. Like our oceans, increasing atmospheric temperatures drive the average temperature of inland lakes upward. Lake Superior is among the world's fastest-warming freshwater bodies. Below are some average yearly temperatures for the lake:
1910, 39F
1950, 41F
1990, 43F
2020, 57F
Note the rate of increase in average water temperature from the 30 years from 1990 to 2020 is significantly steeper than any 40 years prior! Lake Superior has long enjoyed a reputation for its unspoiled water, but that is diminishing as the decades progress. Although algae blooms were non-existent on Lake Superior a century ago, increases in average water temperatures are now creating fertile conditions for their growth. Unlike Lake Erie and Green Bay in Lake Michigan - warmer, shallower, and surrounded by sources of agricultural runoff - Lake Superior has remained cold, deep, and nutrient-poor until recent decades. However, algae blooms have now appeared on the lake in a recreational stretch from Duluth to the Apostle Islands. Because there is neither significant nitrogen pollution from agriculture nor significant urbanization, these blooms are driven by increasingly warmer water temperatures. Among undesirable impacts on recreational activity, such blooms deplete oxygen and create toxins that are harmful to fish, other aquatic life, and humans. They are not a good sign for things to come.
The Kakabeka Falls on the Kaministiquia River, about 20 miles west of Thunder Bay, is the second-highest waterfall in Ontario. With a drop of 150 feet, the falls have carved out a deep gorge over millions of years. The falls are also famous for the Ojibwe legend of Green Mantle, a Chief's daughter who sacrificed herself to save her people. When an Ojibwe chief learned of an impending attack from the Sioux tribe, he asked his daughter, Princess Green Mantle, for help. She went to the Sioux camp, pretending to be lost, and offered to lead them to her father’s camp in exchange for her life. However, instead of leading them to safety, she guided the Sioux warriors over Kakabeka Falls, where they met their demise, as did Green Mantle. Legend has it that the mist of the falls is Green Mantle’s spirit, a testament to her selfless act.
Whether you believe it or not, our atmosphere is warming up, fast.
So what hope is there? Have we passed the point of no return where our climate will spin out of control no matter what we do? Many people think not. If you are hard-headed enough to accept reality (unlike those who buy into fossil fuel propaganda and either deny climate change outright or minimize what science is telling us), you must learn to hold two competing truths in your mind simultaneously. One is that our situation is difficult and we are going to suffer losses and disruptions. The other is that things are changing rapidly for the better and we have significant reason to believe that we can slow down, and ultimately stop, the climate crisis.
Sunny Skies Ahead For Clean Energy?
At the same time climate change is accelerating, so is the global transition to clean energy. A recent report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), a globally focused non-partisan energy security NGO led by 31 countries, indicates that the world’s economies have shifted away capital investments in fossil fuel energy to clean energy sources by a factor of two in about ten years. Investments in fossil fuel projects will soon be in our rearview mirror, and it seems that before long they will be a dust trail.
All signs are that clean energy funding worldwide will go above the $2 trillion mark for the first time before this year ends, an amount greater than the GDP for all but 10 countries. In the US alone, clean energy spending is predicted to increase to $315 billion, compared to $280 billion in 2023. Much of the investment comes from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. In spite of right wing media hype, capital investments in clean energy are likely to remain robust in Red States because the geography of these states is more conducive to the production of wind and solar power.
Globally, clean energy costs are plummeting. Renewable energy investments now go more than twice as far in terms of energy output than a decade ago, plus clean energy investment has gotten a boost from the growing number of countries that have adopted emissions reductions goals in recent years. Most investment is currently flowing to solar projects, which are projected to attract more clean energy investment than all other power generation sources combined in 2024, including fossil fuels. The rise of solar power has also sparked significant additional investment in energy storage and grid capacity worldwide. Battery storage alone is expected to exceed $50 billion in investments this year, more than double what was spent in 2022.
Our new bikes, fully loaded with our gear. We are proud to be pioneering long-distance travel on e-bikes. Since my first two cross-country biking trips were on a traditional road bike, I can speak to the pros and cons of electric pedal-assist bikes. One can get quite a workout (and increase one's range considerably), and one can be pretty lazy for shorter distances. There are e-bikes with throttles that can be ridden without pedaling, but one’s range is limited. Besides, why lose the workout? These bikes were manufactured by the German company Reise and Muller and feature Bosch motors, the major supplier of electric motors to Merdedes Benz. Although somewhat challenging to find in the States, we obtained our Reise and Muller bicycles through a bike store in Brooklyn called Propel Bikes. We like them a lot!
A few afternoon thunderstorms
Yet, there are some storm clouds ahead for global clean energy investment. While the record-high investment is a promising sign for the future of clean energy, spending is not distributed equally. Most of the investment is in China, the United States, and the European Union while developing economies make up only about 15% of this spending. This must shift to successfully transition the world from fossil fuels fast enough to meet global climate goals. Total investment in clean energy not only needs to double by 2030 to meet COP28 goals, it needs to quadruple in developing economies. But overall, the news is good. Capitalism is finally turning away from fossil fuels and toward a more livable future.
We ran into Gary Grono on highway 17 between Red Rock and Thunder Bay. We were biking south, and he was WALKING north. He was an odd site, walking against the traffic on the Trans-Canada highway (in a new section that is a four-lane freeway), pulling a two-wheeled cart with handles behind him. Gary was in his 81st day of a trek across Canada from Victoria, British Columbia, to St Johns, Newfoundland (almost 5000 miles), and is raising money for the Andean Institute, an organization in Maras, Peru, that “builds community and supports Andean culture”. Gary was affable and talkative, so we shared war stories about our travels. Many of Gary’s stories seemed more intense than ours. Jenny had gotten a tick bite earlier on this trip (not her first time) and took doxycycline immediately as a preventative measure. Gary, on the other hand, told us a harrowing tale about being attacked in the evening as the sun was setting by an army of ticks that got into his tent and infiltrated his clothing and sleeping bag. Several weeks later after discovering a tick that had made himself at home, Gary found an urgent care clinic and started a strong regimen of antibiotics. We were impressed with Gary’s commitment and resilience. He camps most nights, and only occasionally stops at a motel to wash his clothes, shower, and sleep in the comfort of a bed. He loved our bicycles and our rigs, calling them a luxury set up. We were amused; our perspective is that we are spartan in what we carry. We learned that Gary had little power left on his phone because he only uses a solar panel mounted on the back of his hiking trailer. Because it had been overcast and rainy for two days, Jenny offered him the temporary use of a portable battery to give his phone a boost. Gary hopes to meet his wife, Wendy, in Newfoundland in September. We had already been thinking about biking in Newfoundland in September so we hope to meet them both in the future. With Jenny’s help, Gary was finally able to charge his phone enough to communicate with his daughters, who manage his Facebook page. You can find him at @Gary Grono.
Postscript
I have written every post on an iPhone since I began this blog site in 2017 (some 125+ posts ago). On a bicycle, weight and packing volume matter, so I shipped my laptop home early on my first cross-country trip. It’s slow, painstaking work to write on an iPhone, but I’ve grown used to it, and, to my surprise have come to prefer it.
Some months ago, the platform I used to host this blog site (Squarespace) released a new mobile editor. It is much simpler than its older editor; I like it except for one feature - it doesn’t contain the capacity to create links. As you may know, I am not a fan of misinformation. In my last post, I used the regular Squarespace editor through a website as a workaround to create links to my sources. But on this trip, I discovered that capability had also been removed. I’m shocked Squarespace’s programmers would do this; about half the world has computing abilities on a smartphone ONLY. Linking is ubiquitous in email, so why remove it from a blog site? I may be forced to leave Squarespace, but I cannot evaluate that now while biking. I accepted the situation a few weeks ago and decided my writing might improve by embracing this limitation. For some time, I have wanted my non-fiction writing to be less academic and more vivid. I’d be very grateful for any thoughts you, dear reader, might have. Do you miss the links? I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts by email or in the comments section at the end of this post.
We met Chuck in Covill, about 20 miles northeast of Grand Marais, Minnesota. Like so many others who pass by, we couldn't help but notice the massive driftwood, rock, glass, primitive art, and random sculptures covering more than 200 feet in front of his home on Lake Superior (see inset picture). It’s taken Chuck 14 years to create this extraordinarily witty and ornate tribute to veterans, nature, and the human spirit. We were lucky enough to find Chuck outside, touching up some of his work with paint. Jenny asked Chuck, “Why the military references?” and he answered, “Its out of respect for my daughter and father who both served.” Jenny then asked, “Where does all the driftwood came from?” Chuck explained the lake washes up the driftwood in huge waves during big storms. We later learned that Chuck’s last name is Wiger, and he has been a Minnesota State Senator since 1997 for District 43 in the northeastern Twin Cities metro area. Chuck, a Democrat, has fought long and hard for clean energy, equal access to education for all and safer work conditions for healthcare workers. We were deeply touched by learning about the many sides of this kind, highly creative and compassionate man
Stay vigilant! Thanks for reading. If you haven’t done so, please subscribe to this blog to follow our next biking trip.
Blog writing by Michael Chase. Drawings by Jenny Hershey. Unless otherwise noted, all material is the copyrighted property of the blog post authors.
Jennifer Hershey’s drawings can be enjoyed on Instagram @deeofo.