A Walk East

I set out for a small town to the east this morning—Ranier on Rainy Lake. But first I settled into the ShoreLunch Café for another lesson in northland demeanor. Since there was no counter, I found a table close to a cadre of old men, hoping to overhear. Bright sun pours in the window on another day they call “perfect” or “fine as fall gets” or the pessimistic say, “Cold weather will come—another week.” Here is another small café, another group of mostly old men, and me, the only stranger. Conversation stopped when I walked in, as if they expected a certain person and were let down. These men don’t quite know how to handle me, so they steal glances and carry on with their talk, while I take off my backpack, coat, and gloves. Even the waitress joins in quiet scrutiny, saying only, “Want ketchup?” when she brings my order. Then she goes back to her phone call, “You can talk to my parents if you want to. I don’t care.” Then she smiles and jokes with the men. She’s no Katrina. Two men walk in wearing bright orange. They say Hi to the others and add, “We don’t have a gun.” One of them is breathing oxygen through a tube. I overhear a man say, “. . .back when people used to respect each other around here, like it was fifty or sixty years ago.”

I left the café in thirty-five degree air and headed east. The picture at the top of this page is a look north from 16th St. at East First Ave. I hope to show you how it looks as winter progresses.



I passed the staging area for Boise Cascade’s paper mill—where trucks bring logs, and loaders pile them high. These are the logs I write on, but they need a little work first.




Skinny, knotty logs, too poor for lumber, come here from forests and leave as blank pages of books, magazines, and the marriage license I never had. Each log waits in these mountainous piles for its turn in the chipper, where its identity as part of a tree fades into its future as a piece of paper, and wishes perhaps, if trees do, to remain a tree at least in part.




These piles of chips rise along Third Avenue East like sand dunes.








On the left is the Boise Cascade Paper Mill, in the middle is Rainy River, and on the right is Canada with its own paper mill.




A bicycle path goes between International Falls and Ranier, and if winter proceeds as it has so far, I should have left the skis and snow shoes at home and brought the bike instead.









So quiet is this stretch of coastline where Rainy River is about to widen and become Rainy Lake, that across the river I hear laughing in Canada.








If you are coming here from Canada by small boat, you must, of course, pass through US Customs and Immigration. You are required to tie your boat at this dock and go to the office. The office is locked and nobody is here, so our Homeland Security protectors have written this message on the door: “Push in here while turning knob. Lock is unpredictable. Close the door when finished. Push here. Push and turn knob at same time. Use last three numbers of VHF emergency frequency for access to this building.”








Some of the inlets from the lake, those which are always shaded from the sun, have already formed a thin layer of ice. The shiny area is liquid and the frosty area is ice. Of course it is too thin for anyone heavier than a robin.







A railroad crosses the border here in Ranier on this bridge. Cars and trucks cross back in International Falls.









I will eventually learn what kind of birds these are. Maybe one of you will tell me.










Grandma’s Pantry is the only eating place in Ranier, so I stopped for lunch. Three men at the next table were discussing a gay wedding about to be held in Des Moines, Iowa. “I don’t see any point in going all that way just for a gay wedding,” one said. “He just came out a few months ago.” Soon they complained that the stock market is down 150 today. Then it was on to the walleye he caught this summer just offshore from his home in Ranier.





I didn't try swimming here, but it looks very Southern
California.