Savage Words: ‘I haven’t caught a thing in years’

I went up to the North Shore in Minnesota last week. It’s one of my favorite spots on the planet.

Duluth, then north to Two Harbors, and all the way up to Grand Marais. Not sure what my fascination is for the area. I’d never even been there before when I got married in 1991, but that’s where we chose to go on our honeymoon.

People thought I was nuts.

“Duluth?” they asked with an inquisitive look.

“Why Duluth?”

At the time, I’d never been to Maine or Seattle, either. Both of those places intrigued me as well, and in my mind, the North Shore looked like Maine and Seattle.

And I was correct. I still think that, even now after having visited Maine, and lived in Seattle.

With Duluth being only six hours away or so, we both decided back in 1991 that a trek “Up North” would be a perfect honeymoon spot.

It was.

And it still is. We try to go back every year. The area just totally captivates me.

It’s so beautiful, and with the weather starting to turn this time of year, it’s always an adventure when deciding what to wear in the morning.

It was no different last week. The temps were in the lower 80s the three days I was there – perfect shorts and t-shirt/sweatshirt weather. But once you got close to the shores of the largest of the Great Lakes, it cooled off dramatically. A sweatshirt was needed during those times, for sure. Jeans were also essential on this last trip, especially up in Grand Marais, which is about 60 miles from the Canadian border. The wind whipped up the Lake Superior waves in Grand Marais. Again, so beautiful, so majestic, so memorable.

But one of my favorite stops each trip up to the North Shore is Two Harbors. It’s a tiny little mining and shipping town of about 3,500 people, 20 miles north of Duluth. And just north of Two Harbors is Splitrock Lighthouse, a former working lighthouse that warned massive ships of land approaching.

Splitrock’s biggest claim to fame – or anonymity – is that it was the last point of communication between the shore and the ill-fated Edmond Fitzgerald, the cargo ship that went down in Lake Superior in November of 1975. The sinking was made famous by Gordon Lightfoot’s The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald.

But prior to heading up to the lighthouse last week, I spent some time in Two Harbors, a gritty, blue-collar community nestled next to Lake Superior. As beautiful as the natural surroundings that engulf the town, Two Harbors itself is a bit rough, full of greasy-spoon cafes, and rough and tumble, hard-working men and women that for decades have relied on the iron ore mining and shipping industry to make a living.

But not all of them.

There’s also a tiny lighthouse in Two Harbors, located at the entrance to Agate Bay on Lake Superior. It helps define the harbor and guides vessels into the port. You can walk out to the lighthouse on a break that juts out into water, about a two-minute jaunt to the end.

Last week, I made that jaunt, like I do every time.

At the end of the break where the lighthouse is located, I noticed an older gent, probably in his mid-70s or so, sitting on a lawn chair with a fishing pole in-hand, and a bobber on the water.

I’d seen people fishing in the massive lake before, but not one really so relaxed, so I dunno – casual in his approach as he slouched in his lawn chair.

I sat on the big concrete slabs at the end of the break, asked him his name.

He just grinned. Didn’t even look at me.

“I’m just an old fisherman,” he said.

I asked him what he was fishing for, or at the very least, what people caught in the lake situated so close to the massive iron ore docks.

“Lake Trout,” he said, finally looking at me as he lowered his sunglasses from the bridge of his nose down the tip, so he could see me over the glare of the sun dancing off of the water. 

“Catch anything,” I asked him, now feeling like I was indeed bothering ‘old fisherman.’

He grinned, pushed his sunglasses back up to their appropriate position on his face, looked back over the sunlight dancing on the Lake Superior waves.

“I haven’t caught a thing in years,” he said, again grinning.

It was then that I realized that in the game of life where we all get twisted and anxious over the stupidest things, that the ‘old fisherman’ wins.