Summertime Shag Lake Sojourn

Lilies of the Lake

I generally make two trips a year to Chicago and Big Shag Lake - a spring opening and fall closing. This year Roy & Roxanne's wedding on August 17 meant moving the fall trip up into a an a summer sojourn.

Holding our nose as we drive through Green Bay

Flew into Chicago late on Thursday the 8th (really early Friday the 9th), got some sleep, packed and hit the road with Dad and Bowser. Cousins Ken and Donna followed us up a few hours later. Unfortunately their boys could not make it this trip.

This is Ken and Donna's third trip to Camp Shag, and we had a breakthrough - they made it all the way to the Lake House on a night approach without a last mile escort. They were only here for the weekend so, as per usual, were intent on cramming as much in as possible, including:

Hiking Sugarloaf Mountain...

 Fishing...

... including a notable accomplishment...


Bonfire...

... and a Fish Fry...

Ken and Donna packed a lot into 48 hours, but we'll let them speak for themselves...

"We became 3-timers to Shag Lake and the third time is a charm. Donna caught a Perch, a Pike, many Bluegills and a Bass. Sid joined us for a massive bonfire. Mike made the very best garlic and onion infused burgers this side of the Toledo War. The weather was perfect as the Noah flood lake waters receded. Thanks for a fantastic time and good luck to the next Shag guests - the Honeymooners Roy and Roxanne! - Donna & Ken 

A Song of Fire and Water

With this blog backpost reboot, I will be starting with our Spring Shag Lake trip, moving forward and backward in time, and forego the usual chronological journal format. Instead we'll favor subject focused posts summarizing related events over the course of the trip. Anyway, that's the theory.

The number one Shag Lake subject of the 2019 spring trip is the record high water. Harlan was here in February to document the record snow, and with continuing rain, the high water continues to rise. How high is it?  A few short years ago, after an extended multi-year drought, we were wondering whether we would even have a lakefront property as our bay appeared to be drying up.

That was then. This is now:

Front Yard - Fall 2010

Front Yard - Fall 2012

Front Yard - Spring 2019

Note the fire pit and birch tree have not moved. In less than ten years, the volume of water in the lake more than doubled. Yes, I just made that statistic up. Prove me wrong.

The first challenge presented by the wild swing in water levels, is what to do with the dock. After decades of mounting the dock in exactly the same place, in recent years we've relocated the dock at least half a dozen times, added sections, removed sections, built rock paths through and boardwalk bridges over the mud. Most of which was underwater and useless this spring. This year it was my turn to undo and redo some of the work that had gone before and with some senior guidance from the deck, figure out what dock configuration works in this spring of 2019. Robyn documented my efforts from ShagCam.

I got it started, but needed reinforcements to finish. Later in the week Harlan and Jonah were pressed into duty over Memorial Day weekend.

With  their assistance we added a third section to the main dock, fine tuned the 2019 configuration, and relocated the mud bridge boardwalk to the south side of the property.

Who wore it better?

The second, and arguably greater, challenge presented by the high water, is how to build the traditional bonfire, when the fire pit is underwater. Harlan took on the challenge:

I'm still not exactly sure how he did it... but facts are facts.

The following weekend, after Harlan & Jonah departed, on our last night at Shag - Robyn, Jeff and cousins Judi, Hanna wanted a sendoff bonfire, so we needed to try again.

Fortunately, we had help. The flood water brought a section of someones dock floating on our shore.

After an appropriate time attempting to locate the owners and permit them time to find and reclaim it, we invoked the law of the sea and it was consigned to the bonfire.

It just happened to be the exact length needed to bridge the water gap and built another fire on the drowned fire pit.

It worked. That's 2 for 2...

Now that we know that a bonfire can be built on a drowned firepit, the precedent for the year is established. We will not be building any new fire pits this year. Anyone wanting to build a bonfire at Camp this year must build it on the drowned fire pit. Deal with it. 

First Fire

The weather was a bit unsettled for our first-time visitors to the lake. In fact, it was srlsy cold.

Cold, rainy, cold, windy, cold, snowy and more cold. But, we were determined to do some fishing (more on that later), and caught a few, but not enough for a fry. With no fish, we needed to work on other dinner plans.

Ken & Donna insisted on buying us dinner, so we took then to the finest in local cuisine, the Up North Lodge.

A bonfire is a necessary part of the Shag Lake experience. On the drive home, I pointed our guests to felled trees to fuel the fire. They did a nice job of collection.

I also provided expert guidance on my "Make a Giant Pile of Wood and Burn it All at Once" bonfire construction technique.

It almost seems a shame to burn a work of art like this...

... but we did.

David successfully ignited the bonfire with a single match.

Some chose to enjoy the fire from the comfort of the house. 

Others succumbed to the temptation of campfire s'mores, as seen in this disturbing series of images.

All in all, a world class conflagration.