Lanesboro Nights

Lanesboro Farm VRBO

4/1/18 Sunday Easter

Been a real nice time staying here.

But it was funny that first night when I heard something scritchin around in the top drawer of the dresser here. So I thought it was maybe a mice or something so I turned on the light and looked in there and in there was a cut off finger but  not like cut off sharp but blunted off somehow. But when she saw the light she skittled about in there and shot out of there like a scalded rocket ship or something and went on down in back of the drawers and under the chest and down. Never saw her again but then maybe she ran our of the door once when we weren't looking. And then one night I hear dripping in the other room across so I go and turn on the light there because I know there was no sink in there and it sounded like one with a bad gasket you know and here I see blood commencing to drip down the wall and rolling down everything like that and it got all on my sluffies and then I was making tracks you know and I go in and I wake up Dixie - we just call her that but her name is really Billy-Jo - but we don't want to get her mixed up with her twin sister Shurleen. So I wake up Shurleen, Dang, I mean Dixie and I tell her about the blood issuing from the wall and how it was going to be a big mess and all for her to clean up in the morning but she just rolls over and tells me not to worry get back to sleep. And the next morning it was all gone and cleaned up after and Shurlene, I mean Dixie, was still sleeping! I just quit listening to it cause it went away in the morning always anyways.

So it was a good stay here and we went out for walks and the dog liked it too.

                                                                                                                                            -Smitty 

                                                                                                                                              4/1/18

4/2/18

Good Morning.

    Time to check out of this lovely farmhouse VRBO N of Lanesboro MN. A fine time was had by all plus excellent Italian cuisine at a Restaurant in nearby Rushford last night. Weather is expected in the form of snow. Our party will now split up and head our separate ways.

    Many fine memories here though. Like Joe and Rosie and I getting locked out all yesterday morning while Kristi and Mesa were at Easter services nearby.

    All's well that ends well I always say.

                                                 Fergus Falls MN

                                             VRBO review 2/1/21

    It was a grand stay here for us.

    I should mention that Thursday night I awoke and rose to take in the view of the full moon on the new fallen snow. I was surprised to note, traversing the back yard, several, singular apparitions.

    They were led by an old and stooped man in a robe with a staff holding the hand of a young girl also wearing a robe with a peaked hood. Then was a gangling joker as one would see spring forth from an old Jack in the Box toy when the crank was rotated sufficient. Then followed a goat and a bear and a tall man, also in a robe,. He surely was some type of Sultan, or Hindu, for he had on his head a large turban which in its center had a large Ruby which glowed red in the night. There was, in the morning, no tracks in the snow which proves the fact that they were specter.

    They, I assume, were in no connection to the flying saucers we earlier had witnessed that day near Ashby. We had paused to view the Seven Sisters when they appeared from the SW, just under the low cloud ceilings that draped the sky. They passed on the far side of the largest sister, but did not emerge from the opposite shoulder as expected. This can only mean there is an underground base, a saucer base, on the far side of that moraine.

    They were the typical stainless steel in colour but, interestingly, they rotated in an anti-clockwise rotation. And emitted a low hum. Unlike the saucers we see in Duluth which rotate clockwise and whistle. I suspect these new saucers are from a different planet from the latter. I hope this does not mean a saucer war is imminent. 

    As I said, It was a relaxing, if not serene, stay here in these ample and comfortable lodgings.

                                                                -Jeff Smith 1/3/1/21

Zumbrota VRBO

 

Zumbrota VRBO

4/4/21 Easter Sunday 0215

 

Enjoyed our stay here very much. Delightful accommodations, a location with attributes, and friendly people.

Plus, the weather is outstanding.

Altogether time and money well spent.

Further, I had a most remarkable experience tonight, - well, I guess it was last night as, I see now, it’s 2 in the morning.

It was late and the weather lovely – a soft breeze infusing the apartment here. We are from Duluth and in a day or two we will be returning there. If you don’t know that city, well, we have no reason to expect similar weather for a month, at least. On an impulse I decided a walk would be nice. The moon was full and the sidewalks inviting.

Naturally I walked to the covered bridge. In the park I noticed the crows were gathered in the trees overhead. They murmured and stirred.

I recalled how, years ago, when I worked in downtown Minneapolis, the crows would assemble in Elliot Park across from our office.

Out the window I’d see them, black clouds distant coming from all points of the compass, in the premature winter dusk. When I took my walks on my evening break there they would be. Watching.

On my return here I decided to walk up East Ave take a look at the old Congregational Church in the moonlight.

Upon ascending the hill, I was stopped dead in my tracks. A rickety clacking sound caught my attention. It was not the sound that halted me though. It was its source.

There crossing the street in front of me was a singular, dare I call it so, apparition.

For ahead of me, on the street, crossing diagonally, roughly from the hardware store parking lot, was an old, no, rather, an ancient woman.

Stooped and bent, she hobbled across the avenue, leaning forward, both hands upon a crooked cane – hence the sound. She was swaddled in some sort of black robe, or shawl perhaps, her head covered by a black hood, face obscured within.

Just when I had regained myself, I saw something fall from the folds of her garments. A black object laying there in the center of the avenue.

She continued on oblivious to her loss.

I hurried to the object and picked it up. It was a piece of black cloth wrapped about some small heavy objects of various sizes and shapes.

“Excuse me.” I called after her. “Excuse me! You dropped something!”

She stopped. She did not turn for a few heartbeats, but then she rotated a bit and turned her head slightly. From inside the shadows of the hood a small dark eye glittered. I could, in profile, see a surprisingly large, and sharp, nose.

I approached, and as I did, she held out a thin, pale, claw of a hand – she cupped her talon-like fingers into a skeletal cup.

I placed the object in her hand.

She tilted her head to the side and down.

She looked at it.

“Aye.” She rasped. She nodded and turned and continued on her way.

She walked along the front side of the Quonset roofed business there (Siding and Window?) her hunched shadow followed her along the façade. She disappeared around the south corner of the building, into the dark.

I watched, rooted to the spot.

Finally, I resolved to look after her – it was so dark beyond the corner and she seemed so…vulnerable.

I approached the corner, peered around the edge and…she was gone! There laid her cane, which I saw then was nothing more than a broken, gnarled branch. There was no place for her to make an exit, a chain-link fence stretched across the area.

Just then, startling me severely, something landed at my feet! As I was about to look down a soft ‘Caw” came from overhead. A shadow passed over me and I quickly looked up. A large crow, or raven, soared then across the disc of the moon. I followed its glide, in the general direction of the covered bridge until it disappeared from view in the darkness.

Again I looked down and there by my feet was a stone. And not any stone. Being from Duluth, even in the moonlight I could recognize it as an agate. I picked it up.

It is nearly the size of a walnut. On all sides, save one, it is unremarkable.

But on the one side, the flat one, the shiny side, there is revealed a series of concentric bands, one inside the other stretching, seemingly, into infinity.

Except there, deep within, they pause, yielding to an open area.

And here, tonight as I sit here at this kitchen island, under these lamps suspended, I can see, framed by those white concentric rings, the dark image of a crow.

                                                                                                                        -Jeff Smith

 

 

                     The Hungry Hand

(From The Writers Cabin, VRBO, Grand Marais MN, 11/15/23)

        I find myself remembering things now. Details that at first, right after, had slipped my mind. But now are recalled. For instance, it was a nice day when we started out, but, as the events I will try to describe here happened the weather was overcast, colder, dreary, bare. Strange I cannot recall that transition occurring.

          But I am getting ahead of myself, or, maybe, behind actually. Foremost I am of 100% Dutch ancestry. My father’s parents were immigrants. My mother’s, second generation. They grew up in, tiny towns that were, almost exclusively, Dutch. My father by Holland MN, near Pipestone. My mother in Pease MN, about 25 miles south of Lake Mille Lacs.

          Myself, I grew up in Milaca, just North of Pease. Attended 8 years of Pease Christian School. The Christian Reformed Church dominated the community. When my mother was a child the services where in Dutch. As they were in my father’s case as well. Dutch language and customs prevailed then. Not unusual for first generation immigrant communities.

          My story here predates those immigrants by a generation, or two, likely. It is the story of Pieter DeGroot.

DeGroot was a pious man. Probably a minister back in the Netherlands but became disenchanted with the ways of The Dutch Reformed Church there. Apparently their brand of Calvinism was not strict enough for him. He reported having visitations of The Holy Ghost who instructed him to abandon the established church. He assembled a group of those equally devout in these convictions and formed his own sect. Somehow DeGroot made the arrangements, homesteading or otherwise, to place deposit on a large tract of land northwest of here. Grand Marais. In the latter quarter of the 19th century he, and his followers, roughly 6-10 families, and others, made their way here to establish a colony where they could dairy and enjoy a life with freedom of their religion.

Arriving here in the spring they set to work building their community. Although they made significant progress, they were woefully unprepared for the winter.

The majority perished that season. The few survived. Whispers of cannibalism were heard. (This is not unusual in Minnesota -see the story of the founders of the town of Rollingstone near Winona.)

DeGroot however would, too, survive – what little reporting made of the incident indicates an exodus, skeletal and abject, filtering into town out of the forests. A gathering totally dependent on the kindness of strangers.  

(News reports are minimal. Newspapers at that time [Fort William. Two Harbors] were rife with tragedy and loss in that era – especially so in regards to immigrants.)

DeGroot and the other survivors would somehow find their way to Hull Iowa. The sect would enjoy better fortune there but some would fall to ignominy. DeGroot would report further visions and visitations by The Holy Ghost, some of those, apparently, included commandments to adopt practices including polygamy, incest and so forth. The sect fractured and dissipated. Hull’s established Reformed Churches, as well as local authorities, persecuted him. He fades into disgrace.

Now, one of those children that emerged from the woods that spring was my grandmother’s aunt, Johanna. She would lead an uneventful life, raise a family, be admired.

She was a meticulous keeper of notes – journals, diaries. She was a writer.

My grandmother was given these notes and, in turn, my mother would gain possession. I discovered these notes after my mother’s passing early in this century.

Penned in English, although somewhat broken, they are a trove of information regarding her everyday life.

And they included vivid details in regards to that Grand Marais episode. At least the happy times. The leaving of the Netherlands, the journey, arrival, building of the settlement and so on.

          However, there is no mention of the starving or depravations, - only to refer to it as “The Dark Days.” (She lost a little brother that winter.)

                                       

-------------------------

         

My wife, Jessica, and I now live in Duluth. We come to Grand Marais about once a year, engaging various lodgings here. We always have a good time.

Well almost always.

I brought with us this time one of Johanna’s journals. Specifically, the one about the failed colony here.

Over the last few months, I had the notion that, based on her accounts, we might be able to locate the remnants, if any, of the doomed immigrant project. In fact, by just employing Google Maps I thought I could already, back in Duluth, locate some of the landmarks: The pond (“pool”) for instance, the rock outcroppings, the creek, the boulder and so forth.

So, day before yesterday we pulled out. A lovely day it was then. Just North of town we parked the car and followed the Superior Hiking Trial east and, sure enough, landmarks as described began to manifest. We broke from the trial and followed the stream upwards and, there was the pool. – the going not so difficult, late autumn foliage affording less resistance.

We found the boulder, just as described. We were there.

We looked about…. nothing. Not a foundation, or log remnant to be seen. Perhaps some vague depressions that could’ve been natural or, wrought years ago by the settlers.

As we penetrated deeper, we noticed some stones that seemed unnatural in their placement; leaning and inserted into the ground… intentionally placed there.

We looked at each other. A graveyard?

And as we went deeper still into the forest, we began to notice bones. Lots of them. Bleached. Not human, mind you, animal bones they were. Deer for sure. Bear? Raccoon? Squirrels? A myriad of mammal bones and skeletons.

And yet, beyond that, a stench. Here then was a deer carcass, the author of the stench. It looked to be nearly totally consumed by some kind of cadaver feeders and, not far away, similar partially consumed remains of a bald eagle and some crows.

I said, “What the hell?”

Just then Jessica shrieked. She was looking at the ground. I looked down. A skeletal hand had emerged from the leaves and was grasping at her ankle! Shaking her ankle wildly would not dislodge the claw.

Calling upon some kind of primal instinct I did not know I possessed I, somehow, recalled passing by a mound of bones. On some primitive level I noted then a huge bone, the femur of a moose perhaps, protruding upwards from the mass. I swung around and there it was. I grasped it and arced down upon the hand with a savage intensity.

It shattered.

I grabbed Jessica. The earth was boiling now about us, leaves, grasses, the very dirt itself vibrating with vicious dreadful intent. Arms, other skeletal hands, legs, all fluttering from the forest floor. A frenzy. And skulls! Skulls rolling wildly, jaws snapping, eye sockets dark with malice.

I was as wild as they. I clubbed and smashed and fractured everything in our path.

Later we were on The Superior Trial again, winded, gasping. We were sobbing uncontrollably. I looked with disturbed surprise at that femur still in my grasp and hurled it away from me.

It came to me then. I realized with horror that the skeletal hand I crushed back there in the forest was the hand of a child.

                             

-----------------------

 

Now here I sit. How do we push forward after this? What do we do now?

You might be asking yourself, why am I then writing this?

Here is the answer:

I am warning you, that’s why.

Don’t go there.

Please don’t go there.

I beg you. Don’t go to the starved cemetery!

Briggs Lake Guestbook

 

Briggs Lake Cottage Guestbook

2/21/21

2330

 

               We are greatly enjoying our stay here at the Briggs Lake Cottage. Our hosts have spared nothing in the ways of comfort and convenience. The full moon, moderate temperature, and the silhouettes of the trumpeting swans above and across that same moon would make this visit unforgettable…save for the fact that something so astonishing happened to us out there on the ice today…so remarkable that I am convinced few human beings have ever experienced such a revelation.

               But first I must include some background. Years ago, in the late 1970’s, I was a Nurses Aide in the nearby town of Milaca’s community hospital. (We preferred “Nurses Aide.” (N.A.) “Orderly” seemed to Jerry Lewis.)

               At any rate, a patient there, an elderly fellow, was speaking of fishing. Many of them did. Somewhere in the narrative he mentioned that he would never again fish Mayhew Lake, a lake in Benton County north of this place.

               When I inquired further, he shrugged it off but did allow that he felt it dangerous for some reason of which he did not care to elaborate upon. Being young and impressionable, I found this intriguing.

               And then another time, another patient, another old-timer, told me, completely unsolicited on my part, that he would never fish Mayhew Lake again. Immediately I enthusiastically asked him why. He became distant, withdrawn – he turned to the window and shrugged. His bright and engaging demeanor replaced by a grimace. He shuddered then. 

                Naturally my interest was accelerated thereafter. I did, on occasion, stop at Mayhew Lake and just look. I sat there in my Pinto and watched. Never once was the surface disturbed by unusual currents, roiling springs or any troublesome phenomena whatsoever. If Mayhew Lake held secrets – she never revealed them to me.

            

                 I have, infrequently, returned to those conservations over the years, and, given more time and life I have wondered if maybe there was something confessional in their revelations to me. Perhaps they just needed an impartial, nonjudgmental party…get it off their chests so to speak. For instance I do not know if they were fearing an ominous future in regards to their medical conditions and therefore felt compelled to speak… before it was too late. This, my long experience has taught me, is not an uncommon behavior in those facing the end.             

               

                And so today…this morning. The four of us were out there, skating in the sun. Even though our hosts here provided us with an ample rink, recent conditions had allowed the snow to melt and then refreeze inviting us to exceed the rink’s boundaries and glide off across the lake mostly unimpeded. And, the ice was nearly transparent, affording us the sensation of flight. As if we were floating in the air.

            Soon we noticed, through the ice, that we could easily view the depths below and, given the clarity and undisturbed nature of the water, fish were easily made apparent. and some of them were large. Perhaps Pike? Maybe carp? We could clearly see their shapes and strangely, even more readily, see their shadows on and across the bottom.

Now what I am to describe next is, as I have alluded to already, singular. I, too, have gratitude for the fact that all FOUR of us witnessed this manifestation. If it had only been one - well, perhaps he or she could be forgiven for keeping it – let he be thought mad by the rest. And two? Well, that claim would surely most certainly be met with ridicule. But four? That does not accommodate any of us to question our own faculties, or sanity for that matter.

The entire incident could’ve lasted no more that fifteen seconds. – surely not longer than twenty. And as with any startling event, each of us, the witnesses, were resulted with differing perceptions, impressions and conclusions as to what we had borne witness to out there on the ice.

So this evening we assembled, at this very table, to distill our separate realities – a post-incident debrief so to speak. Now to the precipitate of that review – and although there were some disagreements, sometimes sharp, what follows is a reasonable accounting of our experience on Briggs Lake earlier today.

 

As I said before we were out skating in the sun. We had just made note of those fishes below when suddenly, and without warning, bearing down upon us, from the northeast, there came, under the ice at a great velocity, an immense shadow.     

Surprisingly we all saw this at the same exact instant, nobody needed shout “LOOK!”

It was then there passed below our feet a most miraculous creature that will certainly surpass my puny powers of description.

But I will try.

Here will follow a brief head to tail description of the creature:

Its head was about this size of, perhaps, a picnic cooler and shaped like a missile. Eyes forward. Clearly a hunter. The entire thing, it seemed to us, gave the impression of a bird rather than fish or reptile, not least because there extended forward a long cutlass of a beak, pale ivory, or slightly yellow in color. We feel there was an aperture at the nape which was employed when skimming along the undersurface of the ice to consume the oxygen trapped under there as a result of wintertime plant photosynthesis. The water-swept head was suspended upon a long and elegant neck which arced the head to and fro gracefully. The large body followed and was teardrop in shape and from alongside there sprouted not fins, or flippers, but rather vestigial (or nascent?) wings. It employed these with impressive alacrity to the ends of navigation, course adjustment. Then after followed a huge powerful fan-shaped tail which could produce incredible thrust and, likewise, braking.

The entirety of the beast was not adorned with a solitary feather or scale but, rather, was sealed in a black, or dark navy blue, seamless hide. Overall we figured its entire length to be slightly longer than a GM Suburban or a large modern-day pick-up truck.

In an instant we were off and giving chase. It moved with a studied deliberateness, but it also performed with a grace and dignity not expected given the size of the thing, its swift undulating motions defying its apparent mass. Overall the entirety the entirety of the thing was very essence of hydrodynamic streamlining.

Understandably we could not keep pace. Soon we approached an area of crusty snow that impeded our forward progress. But just prior to passing from our sight, we saw it impale one of those big fishes I spoke of earlier, pinioning on its rapier bill.

And there we stood watching its shadow against the snow diminishing, fading, and finally, disappearing entirely.

 

Now to return to those fishermen and their shared revulsion for Mayhew Lake.

Not less than 10 years ago we went one night to a roadhouse in nearby hamlet of Santiago. We were dancing to the Lamont Cranston Blues Band there when, between sets, I wandered over to a bulletin board affair on the wall. Glassed in, it contained clippings, some colorful, some quaint, garnered from a long defunct local country newspaper.

Suddenly my attention was fixed upon two words: MAYHEW LAKE. The article reported that a man’s severed arm had been found at nearby Lake Julia. This was in 1936 or thereabouts. The story continued noting that the arm had before belonged to an unfortunate ice fisherman who had recently perished when he had plunged though the ice one early spring day while in pursuit of “Crappies that were really biting that day.” Through the ice on Mayhew Lake!

The arm had been identified by the remnants of his shirt and his wristwatch which, remarkably had stopped running “At about the same time his fishing companions saw him go under for the last time. About 3:30 in the afternoon.”

Local authorities were still trying to locate the rest of his remains. Naturally the fact that his arm was so far removed from Mayhew Lake was the cause of much speculation. A local game warden had fairly put that concern to rest when he had opined that the arm was probably delivered to Lake Julia by an eagle or other large raptor.

I found that explanation dubious and lacking in the rationalization for how the extremity had been severed in the first place but, maybe it was thought that an eagle could do that too.

These events reverberated here in my mind tonight along with another, perhaps related realization.

Within the last year or two, while idly perusing the web, I came upon some research done in 1966 by the institute for Great Lakes Research, now part of the EPA. It is located in Duluth MN where we now reside.            

At any rate, what caught me eye was a monograph by Adkins et al regarding some basic readings done on a selection of anomalous lakes in the upper Midwest – curious lakes that have very little similarity to those predominating nearby.

One of those grouped into the study was the cluster of tiny – surface area wise – “pothole” lakes just to the west of Lake Mille Lacs. Southwest of Garrison to be more precise.

This piqued my interest because my grandfather, fifty or more years ago, would icefish on those very same “potholes,” as he called them too. He mentioned that they were “Bottomless.”

The paper confirmed the same: Lakes of little surface area but of considerable volume due to incredible depth.

The research also recorded scientific measurements of temperature, clarity, pH, and other numerous details.

However, and this may be germane to today’s event, the author hinted as worthy of further consideration/investigation, the fact that they had noted unexpected currents and wide temperature deviations, and strange tidal effects which, just as a cast-off observation, might suggest deep subterranean communication between the bodies.

Now couple that with the fact that in Santiago that night there was another article from the same extinct newspaper, dated the early 1950’s, describing the discovery, by some children at play – on the shores of Briggs Lake no less - of an old boot which had entombed therein the skeletal remains of a human foot, ankle, etc.

This story included wild speculation upon the source of these remains. Apparently the editors had forgotten their own story of 20 years prior, that of the fisherman’s severed arm…at least at the time of the publishing the above.

But someone had speculated upon the link though, since there was drawn, with a red marker, a two-headed arrow linking the clippings. There also was a large red question mark above that arrow.

And there is a figurative bright red question mark over this story I am penning here late tonight. Is there an extensive network of underground waterways frequented by the creature we saw today?

What had those fishermen witnessed on Mayhew Lake?

                                            

Like I said, we are having a fine time here at Briggs Lake Cottage.

                                                                                                         -Jeff Smith