Wannaskan Almanac

The "Creek Path" wasn't a path in the way people in Millersville would understand it. It wasn't groomed or paved, and if you followed it for more than twenty yards, you’d likely end up with a boot full of mud and a face full of spiderwebs. It was a winding, stubborn trail that hugged the water where the willow trees leaned so low they looked like they were trying to drink the creek dry. Folks said the Creek Path was the original "Main Street" of Walnut Bend, back before the gravel road was cut and before Earl’s grandfather built the store. It was where the women did the washing and the men traded pelts. Now, it was just a place where the kids went to hide from their chores and where the shadows seemed to stay a little longer than they did anywhere else. One humid Tuesday, when the air felt like a wet wool blanket, I found myself in the back of Earl’s store. Earl had asked me to help him move some of those heavy bread crates because his "bad hip was acti...

THIRD MOVEMENT REMEMBERING SONG TWELVE MEMORIAL DAY II Walking farther North, leaving even trees behind no arching limbs against this white-empty sky the sun rises above the horizon but a few hours then sinks into night again into deep cold that rakes the flesh like fire Here’s a long night to be sure – an endless night with no time yet for sleep I watch shards of ice rise to the dark surface of a winter lake fed by an underground river that flows below mountain peaks crushed silver under moon Walking by myself, I listen to the stories I have left behind good stories that I tell myself – the ones I’ve never told another – not even once – good stories that I am re-membering about the One who has always been here, the un-named One -- now  named Here, walking in this longest night, I cannot tell if the stars are lights above me or fires below I am ice-cracking splinters into shards and I am jubilant in the breaking Mapping to the center dead-reckoning...

  The Palmville Globe Volume 2 Number 9 Man Expands Compost Storage Joe McDonnell. 79 and a resident of Palmville Twp, Minnesota, recently discovered a method to get more food scraps into his kitchen counter compost bin. "Once the bin is full," McDonnell tells reporters, "my wife or I carry the bin to the big compost bins near the garden. I noticed recently that if I happened to leave fruit or vegetable skins on the counter overnight, they shriveled up by morning. One morning I weighed a fresh banana skin: 75 grams. Twenty four hours later the skin weighed 52 grams. That's a 27.8% weight loss. I theorized that I could get a lot more in my bin if I let everything dry out for a day before putting it into the covered bin." McDonnell thinks he probably won’t do that. "The purpose of the bin is to keep the counter tidy," he says. In a follow up communication McDonnell says he calculated that the inedible skin of the test banana made up 37.6% of the banana...

Hello and welcome to the last Saturday of March, here at the Wannaskan Alamanc. Today is March 28th. Good grief, Charlie Brown! Someone please tell me that the month of March was out of planetary alignment, the stars were scattered, and chaos reigned, because that sums up my experience. Wild.  The original Wannaskan Almanac Kid Writer-in-Residence, aka WAKWIR, was home on his spring break. "Help me write the blog," I told him on our drive down to the Twin Cities last night. "Write about me and all the things I did," he answered. So, here we go. He flew to Minnesota a week ago and spent a night with his brother. He later reported that it was "the best time," and "honestly, Ma. If my flight home had been delayed, I wouldn't have minded spending another day with him." His flight north was on time, however, and after his dad picked him up, they went to Walmart because, as you know, when in civilization, shop. According to the WAKWIR this was NOT ...

  Equanimity    Newcomers say it's hard to meet people and make friends when they move to Roseau County. Getting to know the locals was not a problem for Joe and Catherine Stenzel when they moved here twenty years ago. Roseau County is in a remote part of the U.S. And Beltrami Island State Forest where the Stenzel’s cabin is located is in a remote part of Roseau County. But that’s a good thing because the hardy souls who live in the Forest get to know each other for survival.     Joe and Catherine jumped into the Forest with eyes wide shut. They had seen an ad in the Minneapolis paper for a hunting cabin and drove into the Forest in a blizzard to inspect it. It was love at first sight. It took them five years to wrap up their affairs in the Twin Cities and settle into their new nest in 2004.  The cabin had a wood stove and an outhouse. Over the coming years they moved their things up and civilized the cabin without losing the coziness. They continue to...

  "Sven and Ula snoozed, their legs stretched out into the aisle, their old-man butts fairly gripping just the edge of the chair seat for dear life; their heads tipped back, eyes closed, mouths open; their fallen lower jaws jutting back against their bearded wrinkled necks."    “Einar iss drivin’ to Saint Paul, Minnesoter to catch a plane 'ome tonite,” said Ula, his face looking like a large strawberry from all the mosquito bites. A few beard hairs protruded from each puffy reddish welt across his face and inside his nose; his eyes almost swelled shut. Living close along Reed River as he does, his yard has been a virtual malaria-infested jungle these past couple weeks as is most everyone’s in northern Minnesota where mosquitoes have been so thick that the whine of re-purposed snow blowers and leaf blowers are heard from every quarter section as residents get creative removing mosquito carcasses from their sidewalks and doorsteps. Great billows of smoke f...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for March 25, 2026, the twelfth Wednesday of the year, the first Wednesday of spring, the fourth Wednesday of March, and the eighty-fourth day of the year, with two-hundred eighty-one days remaining, sponsored by Bead Gypsy Studio , 101 Main Avenue North, Roseau, March Madness sale: Purchase any bracelet or necklace at full price and get a pair of earrings 50% off. Wannaska Phenology Update for March 25, 2026 Sandhill Crane Here at Word-Wednesday headquarters, we're all ears for the first call of Antigone canadensis — ajijaak in Anishinaabe — as one of our favorite harbingers of spring, and we heard our first song on Monday. This comes as no surprise; in Anishinaabe oral history, Ajijaak is the leader tasked by the Creator with finding a suitable home for the people, ultimately guiding them to the Great Lakes region. Sandhill cranes are social birds that live in pairs or family groups throughout the year. During migration and ...

If you want to understand the history of Walnut Bend, you don’t go to the library in Millersville. You go to Earl’s and wait for the "Council of Three" to convene near the kerosene heater. These are the men who have sat in the same mismatched chairs for so long they’ve practically become part of the floorboards. I was leaning against the counter, nursing a soda that tasted vaguely like the metal cap it came under, when the topic of "The Old Miller Run" came up. To a stranger, it’s just a stretch of washboard gravel that ruins your alignment. To Walnut Bend, it’s a legend with three different beginnings. Silas spoke first. He was seventy-five, which made him the "kid" of the group. He claimed the name came from a horse race back in the days when a '55 Chevy was still a drawing on a board. "Old Man Miller had a stallion that was more lightning than muscle," Silas said, staring out the window at the dust. "He bet a man from the city that th...