• Thursday-What'sUP June 23 - 03:13 am

These two "bigger than life" figures are of course, Babe and Paul Bunyan, the little guy in front of them is Bear, at least that's what his Dad, Jeff Kalember listed his name as. The family was on their way to the U.P. and stopped just north of St. Ignace to check these guys out. After the rest and photo op, they headed further north to Grand Marais and the Grand Sable Dunes. That's Andrew, Anna and Bear in the second photo, with a background resembling that of another planet! The dunes are actually referred to as a "perched dune system", which means that they sit on a plateau high above the shore, consist of sand and other loose material and that changing lake levels helped to create them. How'd I do with today's geology lesson, Capt. Paul? :->

July 1 is Pasty Fest, with a parade in downtown Calumet at 10 am and pasty-eating starting in Agassiz Park at 11. The first 500 guests receive a free pasty.

And, don't forget, the voting is still open for the 2007 Pasty Cam Calendar. Just navigate to your favorite photo from the last eight years, copy and paste the URL in an email and send it to 2007Calendar@pasty.com.

--Dean Woodbeck, Pasty.NET

Those dunes look like the ones on the pasty cam a few years ago when someone mentioned they expected the Clantonen gang or somesuch to ride over the crest any time. I mentioned that they probably wore Smithala and Wessonen side arms and Rowdy was born!

Hi!
Now start midsummer and summer is beautiful..album from JEFF KALEMBER is so magnificent!!!

They look just like the figures that used to be in Brainerd, MN., about 90 miles from here. They had a cute little Paul Bunyan park for the kids and a fun mini golf course. But it's closed down now so thought maybe that they were the same ones.

Wow! When you see how big Paul Bunyan really is, you can understand why the cook's helpers in the logging camp had to strap half a hog to the bottom of their snowshoes and skate around the griddle just to keep it greased for making Paul's pancakes...

I'll make a casual geologist out of you yet Mary ;-)

The Grand Sable Dunes are a very interesting dune system. They are one of the best examples of a perched dune in the world and are significant in the fact that those small dunes can tell us about global climate change and shifts, such as ice ages. How they got "perched" is a direct result of rising and falling lake levels during our last glacial event. There is a great page the NPS has put out on the Grand Sable Dunes:

http://www.nps.gov/piro/GrandSablRNA04.pdf

It is a .pdf file so if your computer is unable to read them, my apologies.....

Well Mary, his real name is Harrison but it has evolved into the nickname Bear. And, yes, the Grand Marais area is beautiful. Dunes, superior, quaint village, and the Dunes Saloon ! Also, it is the former summer home of Jim Harrison - the author - if anyone out there is a fan. You might notice the name matches my sons... We'll be going through the central Minnesota town of Brainerd soon on our way out to the Black Hills, so i'm hoping i can snap a shot of the other Babe and Paul Bunyan out there too.

The Grand Sable dunes are a wonderful place to go and explore. What a view of the lake! We were there with the kids years ago, and they had such fun walking across the dunes. They still talk about it now, after nearly 10 years.

I went to those dunes a few years back. Its fun to run down and cool off in the lake, but its quite the hike back up:) I heard that they used it in the old days as a "log slide", that they would slide logs down it to float on lake superior to a different location, but maybe someone was telling me a made up story.

I can hardly wait to get there to have a pasty on Saturday, July 1. Pasties are sadly lacking here in Utah. All of the Kitchen clan will be in the Copper Country for Dodie Kitchen's memorial service on Monday, July 3, at the Mission in Copper Harbor. We are all looking forward to the Copper Harbor festivities on July 4. That was one of Mom's favorite holidays.

We have never been to these dunes, but hope to when we visit the UP again.
We have climbed the Sleeping Bear Dunes many times. That is my favorite place in lower Michigan.

Nice!

That's true Julia!! In the late 19th century the loggers of the area built an enormous wooden trough to slide the logs down to the shoreline for schooners to pick up. Rumor has it that by the time the logs made to the bottom, the friction would generate enough heat to catch the logs on fire. That must have been a sight to see a speeding, flaming log coming at you!!!

Regarding the logslide I've also read that the big wooden trough would catch on fire as well and whoever owned the trough had to hire workers to stand by the trough and throw sand on the fires to put them out.

When I was at Michigan Tech, I took a group of students over to Pictured Rocks and the dunes. Of course, my field notebook with all my geologic information about the area is at the house and I am at work and I can't recall all the fascinating details about the dunes. The thing that I do remember about that trip was the buried forest. It's an area where trees were buried under the sand long ago but you can still see some of the tree trunks sticking out of the sand. I thought that was really neat.

Capt. Paul and Nate, Thanks for the info about the logslide, it sure would have been a neat sight to see.

Thanks for the great pic! I remember visiting Paul and Babe many times as a child. I don't think there was a fence back then. (1970's-early 80's). It is making me homesick!!

WOW these are beautiful kids! They also happen to be caring, intelligent, and loving. Their parents are seeing the results of excellent parenting skills.
We love you all -- Papa & Grammy

Was/is there a Paul Bunyan in Menominee/Marinette
a long time ago early 70's?

JeffKal,

Neat that you named your son after our
Michigan author. Any idea why he left the UP
for Montana? Was he unwell? Wanting to be
near his daughter and her family?

Haven't seen any novels since "True North."
Wish he'd write another.

I'm at the house now and found my field notebook. There are two paleosols (ancient soils/former land surfaces) that are identified in the dunes. The older paleosol is ~8000 years old. No trees have been found in it, only charcoal. The buried forest grew in the younger paleosol about 4000 years ago.
You can walk on a trail to the ancient forest. I think you have to look for a location called the "ghost forest." As you walk amongst the remains of those old trees, you are walking through a few thousand years of Michigan's glacial history, a time when the last giant beavers and wooly mammoths were seen in North America.

I love the dunes...the ones in the UP and also the ones near Traverse City. I wonder how many secrets are still hidden in them!