Scenes from Bayfield

"Spring has come again the snow has finally stopped
the crescent moon and leafless trees look
thinner than before"  – Han Shan












A nuthatch was fooled by an afternoon sun
the bay is now a dark bowl of uneasy ice
she leaps to a sagging tamarack limb
and won't return until sky and water are blue

Scenes from Bayfield

"Snow obstructs my brushwood door with me inside alone" –Han Shan













The day before two men stood golfing in the park
the next a pollen of snowfall has turned to shadows
On Stockton Island lying in the Great Lake beyond
bears sleep in pine dens under a warming white sun

Scenes from Bayfield

"Snow covers earth and sky everything is new"
       – Han-Shan













Rabbit tracks are your companion on Pike's Creek trail
A crow caws somewhere off in the distance
each sound caught by the tumbling surface of a snowflake
the pines stand creekside undisturbed by the wind

Scenes from Bayfield

"Flat lake cold penetrates water-lily clothes
the mountain by the lake is neither right nor  
                                                        wrong
dusty tracks all end the world is far away
white clouds and gulls have no hidden plans"
        – Han Shan










The great city docks jut out into the ice unshaken
Madeline ferry alone sits rocking gently in its slip
The peaking cap of a cathedral sits snug up on the hill
above as the ice plates bob in accidental unison

The South Seas

"On the whole it is clear that the financial attractions of privateering were greater than those of the queen's service. In the latter the men were paid ten shillings a month, whereas a single share in a successful privateering cruise would amount to four or five pounds, giving the ordinary seaman twelve or fifteen pounds for a few months' service, quite apart from what he might gather by way of pillage or embezzlement." – from Elizabethan Privateering

Upon the second dive down into such shallow water, the grandfather took an enormous breath.  His lungs were of course not what they used to be -- there had been a time when such a task, a mere six feet below the surface, would have hardly been felt, but there were slight catches in his breath, his sternum perhaps a bit softer now, but there was one thing that had not yet been taken from him, his determination.  He could still see clearly and what was his utter disbelief that now, after thirty three years of coming to the same place, of looking over virtually every inch, secretly, always secretly, of the island, that it would be an accidental dive off of the most obvious shoreline that may have found his privateering ship.  Yes, this was it, he was certain.  In the logs that he had read, it did mention that the English vessel The Jezebel, owned by one Rone Culper, had slipped into these shallow shores in among the hundreds of islands off of Fort Myers in waiting for the Spanish Hispaniola, which carried, if any of the legend could possibly believe, the only great load of gold ever taken from New America in Colorado.  The Spanish had claimed the inner states above Mexico and named it Sante Fe De Nuevo Mexico.  There the mountains were high, the winters unusually dangerous to Conquistadors not prepared for such climate.  They had interacted with Arapaho at modern Boulder enough to learn their trading routes and their stores of buffalo. They had also found, by accident, what was then called the cave of the Mother Lode, supposedly made of gold, which filtered down the Flatirons through its rushing creeks.  It was said, the grandfather knew well, that the Spanish did not have the patience for the mere flakes of gold and forced the Arapaho under harsh circumstance, to lead them up the mountain and to what appeared an "enclosed cave, the entrance no wider than a man's body." Two Spanish witnesses had written that what lay inside was beyond anything yet encountered in the Americas. "Entire walls of only the gem. Torchlight revealed a solid wall of gold." The same two men began an immediate excavation and had even melted many pounds into transportable blocks, only to then disappear after the shipment had arrived at the docks near Tampico, Mexico.  Two months later, it was recorded that the Hispaniola had skirted along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico to the shores near Cape Coral, hidden in among the many islands for repairs before its journey to the other shore and across the Atlantic.  It was here that Culper and his infamous Jezebel laid in waiting for the new Spanish traffic.

Blue Ribbon
Cookie of the Year Award

"These make great ice-cream sandwiches!" – Dorie Greenspan, from Dorie's Cookies













We've tried a hundred cookie recipes over the years, always seeking that one great masterpiece that has that elusive quality of being both tasty and perfectly textured at the same time.  I finally found a cookie that met these standards, but it wasn't our own.  We found the great chocolate chip in the most unlikely of places -- up on the top ski chalet at Lutsen. As we were going through the cafeteria line for a snack and a decaf coffee, I noticed that the cookie jar at the checkout counter was steamed and
the cookies inside barely visible. I reached in and found that these large chocolate chip cookies must have just come out of the oven and delivered here into the jar.  These were large and were the kind that held a crispy edge but inside still virtually gooey, the perfect cookie and the kind that tempts the hungry lunchtime eater to skip the lunch and order enough of these to tide them over until dinner time, which might have happened.  Two days ago we tried a recipe out of the great Dorie's Cookies cookbook, written by Dorie Greenspan, a famous American French food expert who wrote the James Beard award winning Around my French Table.  The Snowy-Topped Brownie Drops are, as she

plainly states in one of her great little introductions to her recipes, "At heart, they're a brownie. In fact, the recipe is a variation of my Classic Brownie, which I've been making forever." There is always a key to every great recipe, especially the ones that end up, luckily, just like you want them.  For this recipe, it starts with a perfectly melted and stirred combination of 8 ounces of blocked semi-sweet chocolate and 5 tbsp. of butter melted in a double boiler. If this overcooks, as we have all experienced, the two ingredients begin to separate and the mixture will become runny and the cookies eventually won't form well.  To this chocolate, add sugar, vanilla, sea salt and only 3/4 cup of flour, and finally 2 more oz. of chipped chocolate. The texture is still quite soft at this point, but a second secret is to harden the batter by cooling it in the refrigerator for up to 3 hours or, as I did, put it in the freezer for 30 minutes.  Pull out the hardened batter and, with the help of a handled cookie scoop, pull out a full portion and drop it and roll into a small bowl of powdered sugar, the second main secret to the success of these cookies.  As the cookie bakes, it is the powdered sugar that forms a sort of sweet crust on the cookie, protecting it somehow from overcooking within.  After cooling for only around five minutes, these cookies are quite crisp on the outside, but nearly unfinished brownie in the center, the chocolate pieces still holding some texture, gooey, sweet, hard but soft.  A great test of this kind of perfect texture is two days later.  Does it harden throughout as it dries, or is the cookie still soft and moist?  Two days later here, and only two survive.  They must have passed all the tests.

What's in Bayfield?

Standing at the second floor lookout from Bayfield Inn, winter or summer, it's the geography that has

so obviously shaped the history of this place.  An abundant and spiritual center for Native Americans, these protected bays by the Apostle Islands have served as great trade routes by the French and English, as well as for shipping. Along with these great movements in history comes the culture of maritime history, fur trading structures, and the many historical lighthouses that dot the craggy edges

of islands and cliffs around La Pointe County.  For this, Bayfield is an easy entry into the past, and about as rugged yet beautiful landscape as there is on any American shoreline, maybe not quite as

high or complex as the Northern Californian highway one route, but dotted by more islands and surrounded by an essential body of water.  Inland, low-lying mountains, such as Mt. Ashwabay, offer the great variety of sightseeing and recreation simultaneously, as you might downhill or cross country ski or, if prepared, fat tire back through seven miles of winter-long groomed trails.

Sailing in summer, ice-caving in winter, Apple Fest in Summer, dog-sledding in winter, Bayfield is as close a version of Colorado that the midwesterner is going to find within a fair-range drive.  Off in the distance, Stockton Island, one of the small Apostles, which makes the unusual claim to harbor more bears per square foot than any other place on earth.  That strange mystery to think that the paddler in summer might pass by the bobbing head of a brown bear swirls in among the same images as hovering over the seventy foot hull of a sunken schooner, so close you could learn over and touch a topmast pole.