The changing face….
Our local newspaper has a column, "Back through the Time". It’s a local history of small articles which graced the paper in ten to five year span’s going back to the 1890’s.
The paper's name is the Lakeland Times so back through the Times has a double meaning. Anyway, there are some early photographs of the northwards or lack of them due to Mr. Yawkee and Mr. Weyerhaeuser and their armies of Slavic human chain saws. There are numerous photos of lakeshores and resorts without a tree anywhere in sight. Many of the photos look like an A-BOMB TEST site., not that our modern loggers aren’t much better.

Now comes the problem for the author of Birch Bark Tales. The problem is tree pollen. Call it rose fever, springtime hay fever but for two week each year it’s running nose and sniffling eyes or is the other way round. We are in the middle of our white poplar tree pollen and green jack pine rain.

After the last big harvest of hard wood maple, oaks and even white pine the poplar and jack pine took off greening the place up for the last 80 years. I love seeing our wooded shores compared to the old striped land photo’s of the early 1900’s but for 10 days or 2 weeks and the poplar pollen, could you pass me the Kleenex? Bless you.