The Hoito

Here is a recent picture that I made of The Hoito Restaurant in Thunder Bay, Ontario.  According to Wikipedia, The Hoito has operated continuously on 314 Bay Street for 91 years and is perhaps the oldest co-operatively owned and operated restaurant in Canada.  The Hoito is a very popular place with locals in Thunder Bay and is well known for its Finnish pancakes and variety of other traditional Finnish foods.  Just before Christmas we were in Thunder Bay for the evening doing some Christmas shopping along the same street as The Hoito.  It was early evening and snow was falling.  The beautiful architecture of The Hoito really caught my eye in the early evening light.  I pulled out my little Sony RX100 III camera and made this hand-held exposure of the restaurant.  I don't normally share photos like this, but I really liked this one and felt it was worthy of inclusion on my blog :-)

Minnesota Welcomes You!

I don't really have much of a story behind this photo, it's just something that caught my eye the other evening as I was leaving work.  I work at a Minnesota State Park and Travel Information Center and Highway 61 runs right by our visitor center.  This is the first mile of highway as you enter Minnesota from Canada.  It is a four-lane highway along this mile and in the median is a giant Welcome to Minnesota sign that is illuminated at night.  The lights illuminating the sign and the silhouetted trees in the background along with the last faint bit of daylight in the sky are what caught my eye. 

Northern Hawk Owl on a blustery December day

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas!  I'm back online after being gone for a couple of days spending time with family.  What a strange Christmas for northern Minnesota.  We've been experiencing some unusually warm weather for this time of year and what little snow we had along the Lake Superior shoreline has long since melted.  If you go inland you can find a winter wonderland but here along the shore everything is just brown.  The weather was so mild on Christmas day that I didn't even need long sleeves… I was walking around with a short sleeve shirt and a fleece vest.  This same time last year we had temperatures well below zero.  

Anyway, enough talk about the weather!  Here is a recent image of a Northern Hawk Owl that has been hanging around near the Grand Portage Trading Post the past few weeks.  I've seen this little owl on several occasions but because of the rainy weather and gray cloudy days that we've had for most of the month I've yet to see this beautiful bird in any kind of decent lighting conditions.  Even though this was taken on a less than ideal day, I still like the shot and think it turned out pretty well considering the flat light.  

Melting Waterfall

With the unseasonably warm (and rainy!) weather we've had lately, the ice on High Falls of the Pigeon River has been receding.  This photo was made yesterday afternoon and shows the bottom 1/4 of the waterfall.  Personally, I really like what the warm weather has done to the falls.  It has made for a lot more interesting photography as the appearance of the ice on the waterfall changes daily. Looks like the weather is going to stay warm for a few more days, so come on up and check it out for yourself!  

Aurora Funnel Cloud

There is a lot of talk today of the strong possibility of aurora activity this weekend.  Unfortunately, here in northeast Minnesota, we are buried under heavy cloud cover for what looks like most of the coming week.  Since I probably won't be able to see the northern lights that are likely to occur tonight, I went back and found an unshared image from the aurora storm the night of October 2, 2013. I remember that night as being one of the best nights of aurora that I've ever witnessed.  

I made several hundred images that night, mostly in an attempt to create a short time-lapse video of the lights.  This photo was chosen from the middle of one sequence of images that I shot.  For at least half an hour I was focused on this particular line of trees with this "funnel" of aurora coming up from between the trees and spreading throughout the sky.  The lights were showing subtle changes from one exposure to the next, but I chose this particular image because it shows the funnel when it was at is brightest.  I sure wish we had clear skies in our forecast for tonight!  Hopefully, others out there will have better conditions and there will be photos to enjoy tomorrow from the possible event tonight.

Sunset at The Rock

The other night I went out to photograph the sunset, which was looking pretty promising.  Only problem was, I didn't really know where I was going to go.  I haven't done much sunrise or sunset shooting lately so I was feeling a little out of sorts as far as what I should do.  I ended up not far from  Reservation River in Grand Portage and found this nice rock to photograph.  There was a little bit of snow along the shoreline but really no ice to speak of.  Judging from the look of this picture you would never guess it was taken in December.  At any rate, the color in the sky was really nice and the waves were just barely big enough to be splashing over the rock.  It was a beautiful moment to be standing along the shores of Lake Superior!

December Thaw at High Falls

With the above average temperatures we've had over the past week or so, the ice at High Falls in Grand Portage State Park has diminished considerably.  The face of the waterfall had been almost entirely frozen due to colder than average temperatures in November, but now there is a prominent open channel of running water right in the middle of the waterfall. It makes for a fascinating view!  Last night the temperature got down to around zero degrees so we should maybe see ice forming back up again. I say maybe because the forecast for the coming days is calling for highs in the 30's and lows in the 20's, so the reformation of ice could very well be a slow process.