The leaves are beginning to change. I drove to McFarland Lake on the Arrowhead Trail on Tuesday (Sept 12), and I noticed many individual trees already with color. The road that I took, Shoe Lake Road, is a narrow forest road that goes north of Greenwood lake but just South of the BWCA. It’s barely a lane wide so when I met 4 gravel trucks, they won the road and I took the shoulder. The gravel is loose and it was dusty so I kept my speed low as I went to Entry Point 68 to recover a canoe that a guest rented. The conservation officer, Mary, was very nice and I continued down the Arrowhead Trail to Highway 61 and some fuel at Grand Marais.

White Pines on Arrowhead Trail – Noncommercial
by BRIAN ZINNEL

There were several Plein Air painters on the arrowhead, where a nice tall stand of White Pines crowd the road.
The Plein Air competition runs from September 9th through the 15th, and artists are competing in several categories, read more at http://grandmaraisartcolony.org/event.cfm?eid=2.
One of the artists in the competition is staying in our cabins, and is painting our outfitting building. I’m very excited to see the end result, I surprised by her stamina, painting day and night, always standing!