Wannaskan Almanac

   Boat Trip Up Mikinaak Creek  2020    “Looks like you found some quicksand there Ozaawaa,” I said to my nine-year old grandson, from the jonboat. “Neighbors always said there was quicksand down here.”    “What’s quicksand?” O asked, with both his rubber knee boots stuck in creek mud up to his ankles. “How do I get out of here?”    “Quicksand is a watery mix of sand and mud that’ll suck you down and drown you, the more you struggle,” I said, laying my paddle against a gunwale. “It’s sort of like the Chinese handcuffs that you get at the carnival. You know, the kind that you put your trigger finger and your pointer finger into, and when you try to get them out, the way they went in, it won’t let you go. That’s what you got there. Good thing you’re not alone. I’m here to help you should you get up to your chin . . . This is a good life lesson.”    “I can use my paddle,” O said confidently, leaning on it, this way and that, trying to ...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for September 16, 2026, the thirty-seventh Wednesday of the year, the thirteenth and last Wednesday of summer, the third Wednesday of September, and the two-hundred fifty-ninth day of the year, with one-hundred six days remaining. Brought to you by Bead Gypsy Studio and Scandinavian Shoppe , featuring $5 off Leather Bracelets for the month of September; 101 Main Avenue North, Roseau. Wannaska Phenology Update for September 16, 2026 Giant Puffball Calvatia gigantea , commonly known in English as the giant puffball, and as bikwaajish in Anishinaabe, can now be found in meadows, fields, and deciduous forests in around Wannaska. The classification of this species has been revised in recent decades. Puffballs, earthballs, earthstars, stinkhorns and several other kinds of fungi were once thought to be related and were known as the gasteromycetes or "stomach" fungi, because the fertile material develops inside spherical or pear-...

I am coming to grips with one of the biggest fallacies that I fell for in my younger years.  Way back...way, way back...I watched some documentaries that early in life set me on a path.  Those documentaries were called "Animal House" and "Real Genius".  They, and other documentaries, made me believe that college was going to be much diffetent than I found it to be. First of all, college girls are not attracted to intelligent nerds.  Well, maybe Mark Zuckerberg...but I am pretty sure money had something to do with that.  In my case, I was a broke intelligent nerd.  No money, lots of brains, and serviceable looks.   Second, nobody warned me that the “wild, chaotic, toga‑party‑every-night” version of college was apparently only available to people who had either rich parents, social skills, or a complete disregard for academic survival. I, unfortunately, had none of the above. My idea of a party was staying up until 7 a.m. working my third job and wo...

  THIRD MOVEMENT REMEMBERING   SONG SEVENTEEN BURNING GROUND   III   I keep moving retracing steps I decide the City will be next I intend to confront it – I will not wait             to find that old terrain and know its sound Back to the city – back to gray walls journeying outward, inward – burning ground   I continue with courage heading there and time being a relative thing dances and laughs in shifts and shimmers             as I open to hear the City’s old sound First, a river flowing inside a littered border that I hardly saw when I ran anxious  to join the gray-skulled order   Now there is time and I will proceed             and proceeding I will begin and beginning I will know the river’s voice that sings to me          ...

The Palmville Globe Volume 2 Number 33 Man Finds Missing Closure Joe McDonnell. 79 and residing in Palmville Twp, Minnesota, recently found a twist tie to replace the original one. "Every year before we exit the fair, we buy a super large bag of kettle corn," McDonnell tells the press. "The kettle corn is very hot so the attendant leaves the top open and gives us a long, red and white twist tie. We eat some kettle corn so we can get the twist tie on, but this time our twist tie could not to be found when we needed it. We did not want to walk all the way back to the kettle corn stand so I startled scanning the ground for a twist tie. Before we reached the exit we found an exact replica of the lost twist tie, though it appeared to have been stepped on."  In a later communication, McDonnell says that once they were home, they found the original twist in a purse. "In the hubbub of the fair, things often go missing only to turn up later." he says.  Man Avoids Z...