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| Mikinaak Creek |
For over 20 years I worked an evening shift, typically 3 pm-11 pm, in a local 'toy factory. During all this time, I missed the hours of sundown when the countryside of northwestern Minnesota quieted down and the through-traffic ceased; the ravens gave their last 'croak,' and with their noisy cousins, the crows, would fly off to bed, leaving the Mikinaak Creek basin to the owls, deer, and other animals that preferred night to day.
So it is, this evening, March 18th, 2022 as the sun slowly descends toward the horizon, I stand outdoors along the creek and listen to the hoo-hoots of owls and the quieter 'uh-uh' response they make, somewhere back in the spruce and popple woods. I think fondly of my late Uncle Martin Davidson and what he would say of this scene he helped provide me since 1971, when he was 71, my age now. I think he would be pleased at the growth of the 1500 white spruce seedlings he watched my friend Jeff Barker and I take across the creek by canoe, and plant by hand there in 1974.
On the morning of March 24th, 2022, we awoke to this similar appearance of the Mikinaak as back in 1974, minus the present snow and the then-present hordes of mosquitoes.
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More interesting background about 71 here.