Wannaskan Almanac

   Have you ever checked for the life preserver that's supposedly under your airplane seat? Don't worry, the plane's crew will have checked for them that morning before the first flight. Good thing too, because passengers sometimes take them for souvenirs.    The fact that we have top quality life preservers on board is thanks in part to the sinking of the ferryboat General Slocum in New York Harbor in June, 1904. The General Slocum seemed to be a doomed ship from the time of her launching in 1891. Just four months after her launch she ran aground.  That wasn’t so bad. Tugs pulled her free and no one was hurt.    In 1894 she ran aground twice and ran into a tug once, damaging her steering gear. Again, no one was hurt. In 1898, the General Slocum ran into another ship off the tip of Manhattan. No one was hurt. In August, 1901, some of the 900 intoxicated anarchists from New Jersey on board started a riot and tried to take over the vessel. The crew fo...

I’m not quite sure how I inherited this writing gig, but I think it has to do with sending an email to Kim Hruba at the wrong time asking if she had listened to the latest Sven and Ole ad I’d written and performed on the radio with that old Norsk, Dennis Smedsmo, for the Sno-Cat show. I’m sure you all must have heard it on one or other of the stations, if not, here's the link . Spoiler, Ole shows great mechanical prowess in his latest sled entry for the show, but, unfortunately, doesn’t quite get the job done, again. On the other hand, Kim did get the job done, so here I am, hammering away at the keyboard.  My own fault, but I’ve had a busy several weeks, having said in a weak moment that I’d do an article about the Polaris Experience Center beginnings for the 20th year anniversary event , and at the same time was making preparations for the ninth edition of the David Johnson Vintage Sno-Cat Spectacular . In case the name throws you off, a snowmobile show. When you have four very d...

     We Americans don't like to give full credit to France for what it did for us during our revolution from England. We'd rather focus on how we saved France from the Nazis. And we can't understand why France doesn't show more gratitude when we ask them to back up our foreign policy moves.    Our revolution would likely have fizzled without lots of help from the French. Of course the French had their own reasons for helping us. Just a few years earlier France had lost its possessions in Canada in the French and Indian War. Ironically enough, with the French threat gone, the American colonies no longer felt any need for British protection. We wanted them gone.    When Britain asked us to chip in to pay off the deficit she ran up in the French and Indian War, we started running British appointed governors and judges off the premises. We started hiding gunpowder and arms in the countryside and drilling militia in case our distant Mother tried to chastise...

  Trees are important to the health of the earth.    I’ve been reading a book titled, “Finding the Mother Tree: Uncovering the Wisdom and Intelligence of The Forest,” by Suzanne Simard, 2021.    This book is so nerdy that I’m surprised that I’m so far into it, but I really enjoy it and have been talking about it to others when I can, whether they are environmentally conscious or not. Although it appears highly technical, it’s very well written and entertaining, pulling the reader through a subterranean network world of fungi and tree-to-tree communication. !! Right there a turn off!     I saw your eyes roll to the back of your head. You don’t want to read another word about this biology book because you hated the subject in school, didn’t you? Well, Simard can broach the subject so well, it’ll make you admit you really liked biology when all your friends didn’t.    I didn’t think it was possible either, and I liked biology. I mean, I do...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday, December 15, 2021, the 50th Wednesday of the year, the thirteenth Wednesday of fall, and the 349th day of the year, with 16 days remaining. Wannaska Nature Update for December 15, 2021 Snow Flea Weather! Nordhem Lunch : Tater Tot Hot Dish w/ Dinner Roll; Chile/Grilled Cheese w/ Egg Salad. Earth/Moon Almanac for December 15, 2021 Sunrise: 8:11am; Sunset: 4:28pm; 32 seconds less daylight today Moonrise: 2:32pm; Moonset: 4:37am, waxing gibbous, 86% illuminated. Temperature Almanac for December 15, 2021                 Average            Record              Today High             18                     43  ...

It was one hundred and ten years ago today that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole, beating Robert F. Scott.  Britain’s Robert Falcon Scott and Norway’s Roald Amundsen both launched expeditions to reach the South Pole. Although both men eventually reached the South Pole, the end in victory for Amundsen – and tragedy for Scott.  Robert Falcon Scott had attempted to reach the South Pole once before in 1902 but his party were forced to turn back due to ill health and freezing weather. It was always Scott’s intention to return and, with the support of the British Admiralty and the government, he obtained a grant of 20,000 pounds. Scott secured the services of men from his original Antarctic voyage and from Ernest Shackleton’s ship Nimrod, which had recently returned from the Antarctic. His crew included naval seamen, scientists and paying members. His ship Terra Nova sailed for Antarctica in June of 1910. Roald Amundsen was determin...

Beowulf to the Rescue The world that Beowulf depicts and the heroic code of honor that defines much of the story is a relic of pre–Anglo-Saxon culture. The story is set in Scandinavia, before the migration. Though it is a traditional story—part of a Germanic oral tradition—the poem as we have it is thought to be the work of a single poet. It was composed in England (not in Scandinavia) and is historical in its perspective, recording the values and culture of a bygone era. Many of those values, including the heroic code, were still operative to some degree when the poem was written. These values had evolved to some extent in the intervening centuries and were continuing to change. In the Scandinavian world of the story, tiny tribes of people rally around strong kings, who protect their people from danger—especially from confrontations with other tribes.  The warrior culture that results from this early feudal arrangement is extremely important, both to the story and to our understa...