Wannaskan Almanac

THIRD MOVEMENT REMEMBERING   SONG EIGHTEEN A VOICE BETWEEN   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 41 Man Shares Treats Joe McDonnell, 79 and a resident of Palmville Township, Minnesota, recently brought coffee and treats with his wife to a friend at the nursing home. "We know our friend residing at the nursing home loves watching the Sunday football game" McDonnell tells the press, "so we thought it would be a good time to visit and bring her treats. We went to the facility dining room and got a carafe of coffee before going to our friend’s room. We were surprised to find her asleep. I cleared my throat and when she didn’t stir, we closed her door and visited another friend across the hall. This friend usually doesn't like treats but does like coffee. On this day she took one of our treats but declined the coffee. We had coffee and treats and watched Little House on the Prairie with her for awhile." In a later communication, McDonnell says the friend they originally meant to visit couldn't believe she slept through t...

Hello and welcome to a goofy Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is November 7th. I'm 5/12ths of the way through my 51st year. Hunters are out and about gleefully tromping through the woods, taking up residence in their deer stands, eager to get a big one sooner rather than later. Weather forecast looks good with a high of 53. We aren't hunters at our house, but we can get excited for our neighbors and peeps. It's good to feel good. Passing it along now to the Kid-Writer-in-Training to provide our WA readers - or, as he would say, "Weaders" - some updates in his own words! As you would think, all of my friends are going hunting. Or playing hockey this weekend. So I have nothing to do. Thankfully, I have a different adventure. I get to go to Brainerd with my mom. We're going to be leaving "at the butt crack of dawn," as my mom says. The reason for leaving super early is because it's a 4-hour trip all the way down to Brainerd. We are gonn...

  I'm on my eighth pope. Leo XIV is a young man so I pray he's my last. When I first arrived on the scene, Pope Pius XII had already been on the job eight years. He had been elected to the papacy in 1939, just as WWII was breaking out. He has a controversial legacy. Some say he failed to speak out against the Holocaust. His supporters say he saved thousands of Jews from extermination. The debate is ongoing. The church has named him "venerable," the first step towards canonization. Pius XII was not a warm and fuzzy pope. What I remember most about him is his death in 1958. We paid a lot of attention to the papacy in my Catholic elementary school. Once Pius was in his tomb in the grotto under St. Peter's, we turned our attention to the election of the new pope. When it was announced that white smoke was seen coming from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel, Sister Eubestrabius said Habemus papem , boys and girls.We have a pope! Everyone loved Pope John XXIII. He lived...

Novembers will always bring me back to this story I wrote in 1983. The facts are open to debate as my version of events will naturally differ from another's description of it for to each, their own. This handwritten journal excerpt is legible; an ability that I can no longer claim with any degree of repetition as a tremor in my writing hand has invaded me with irregularity; I hope my imagination is not affected similarly.        

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for November 4, 2026, the forty-fourth Wednesday of the year, the seventh Wednesday of fall, the first Wednesday of November, and the three-hundred eighth day of the year, with fifty-seven days remaining. Brought to you by Bead Gypsy Studio handcrafted jewelry, announcing the DIVA DAYS Trunk Show of Metal Art Jewelry, Saturday, November 7th, 9:00am-4:00pm, with treats, samplings, and multiple in-store specials; 101 Main Avenue North, Roseau; (218) 242-6975. Wannaska Phenology Update for November 4, 2026 Golden-crowned Kinglet Regulus satrapa — ozaawaawiiwikwaaneshii in Anishinaabe — is the world’s smallest perching bird, weighing in at 0.1763699536 ounce, or the equivalent of two pennies. Kinglets are named Regulus , meaning “little king,” because of their bright yellow, orange, and red crowns. Wannaska is on the southernmost edge of its breeding range, so many Canadian golden-crowned kinglets are now migrating to Wannaska for th...