Reacquainting Myself with Old Snowshoes
By Glen Wunderlich
The traditional style, wood-framed Canadian snowshoes hung on a hook in the garage, since a 1997 predator hunt in the Cedarville area of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. However, a hankering to reacquaint myself with some favorite hunting grounds and the wildlife within had gotten the best of me.
Bear Paw Snowshoes
I’ve always considered the contraptions to be items of necessity and never donned them unless all other modes of mobility had become useless. The time had come.
The first thing I noticed on the same hook were the new rubber bindings that my brother in-law had given me a few years ago. I recalled how he claimed that the improved bindings were superior to the leather models, which were problematic to buckle up and to keep adjusted properly – especially after they got wet. Read more
The exceptionally cold winter weather of the past few weeks has caused the bays and waters of the Great Lakes to freeze much further into the center than in recent years. Rather than move far into the deep waters of the lakes, some waterfowl – including horned and red-necked grebes; common, hooded and red-breasted mergansers; and long-tailed ducks – are moving from the larger, freezing waters of the Great Lakes and are looking for open water bodies inland. In foggy, snowy, low-visibility conditions, these birds are mistaking icy roadways and driveways for inland water bodies and are becoming stranded on land. 
Department of Natural Resources (DNR) officials announced the 2014 Black Lake sturgeon harvest season ended after less than 90 minutes on Saturday, Feb. 1, with six fish being harvested. The fishing season, which included spearing or hook-and-line fishing, was scheduled to run Feb. 1-5, or until the harvest quota had been reached.
