We continue our quest to review the past nineteen years in the archives, with a scenic look at spring UP North. We start in the Keweenaw back in the year 2002, on top of Mt. Lookout (also known as Mt. Baldy). That's Lake Bailey on the left, still frozen in white and over to the right is Brockway Mountain. Quite the vista from that height.

Skip ahead a few years to 2006 and Steve Haagen takes us to a riverbank where the warm spring weather has taken its toll on the ice and has the river running freely even though the riverbanks are still covered in white. It won't take long for the bright spring sunshine to melt that away, too.

Meanwhile, here in 2017, Donna MacIntosh snapped a photo of Keweenaw Bay with just a thin layer of ice near the shore and out further, open water. It warms up enough in the afternoon hours to melt the ice away, but then the frigid night temps freeze a thin layer again…thaw, then freeze, then thaw, then…you get the picture.

Speaking of thawing and flowing. The video clip today is pretty amazing, showing the Ontonagon River at the point about a mile from where it flows into Lake Superior, with the muddy looking ice breaking up and beginning to make its way to the Big Lake. One giant ice flow in motion.

Love the pictures, and the video was mesmerizing!

Yee-haw! Ain't that a sweet sight? Makes me want to jump in at the shoreline and I'd be..."Drifting along with the tumbling blocks of ice"
(Sons of the Pioneers, almost)

I like the second picture best today. Seeing the flowing water of a stream or river that hss been ensconced in snow and ice for months puts more spring in my step.

Does the Ontonagon area ever suffer from ice jam
flooding?

The transition from Winter 2 Spring.