Rose Hart's OutSide
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Snow, Ice and Lotsa Loppet |
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The City of Lakes Loppet is a series of ski races and events held the first weekend of February. Traditional cross country ski racers will find their comfort level at the The Hoigaard's Classic. This race starts at Wirth and finishes in Uptown, but
avoids some of the toughest terrain. The Caribou Coffee Luminary Loppet event is designed for spectacle. This non-competitive "Tour of Light" is a popular event for all levels and ages of skiers and snowshoers. The event starts and ends in Uptown at the Loppet Finish Area located on the Mall behind the Walker Library. At 6:30 p.m. participants will glide down the Mall and onto the canal leading into Lake of the Isles. The lake will be illuminated with 800 candles placed in ice luminaries. As you tour the lake you will see a 9 ft. ice pyramid, be awed by the "Ice-Cropolis "and discover a hidden woodland section. There will be festivities along the way, including bon fires, Caribou coffee and hot cider, ski and snowshoe demos, and more. You can take your time enjoying the spectacle and visiting with other skiers as you warm-up by the bon fires. Saturday, February 2, 2008 To register and for more information: |
Hibernation
Solo, the one-eared Black Bear and her two cubs made news early last month when it was reported by the Duluth News Tribune they were hibernating in the crawlspace of a seasonal cabin owned by a woman of Waite Park, MN. Advocates for the bears petitioned Governor Tim Pawlenty just before Christmas to commute the death sentence imposed on the three "too-friendly" bears by the Minnesota DNR. As the story developed, on January 11, it was discovered by DNR Conservation Officers that the three bears were awake, outside the cabin, and evidence clearly showed they had been pepper sprayed in the crawl space. Then on Monday, January 14, Minnesota DNR officials, assisted by staff of the Forest Lake-based Wildlife Science Center, captured the bears and took them by truck 500 miles to Oswald's Bear Ranch in the Michigan Upper Peninsula.
Although the Black Bear is most renown hibernating mammal in Minnesota, there are lesser known hibernators; snakes, ground squirrels, bats, shrews, woodchucks, chipmunks, raccoons skunks and hamsters. Not surprisingly, Minnesota Universities are at the forefront of current studies on the mechanics of hibernation and how those mechanics might benefit human medical treatments: recovery from strokes, travel to Mars, free-radical repair, metabolism, fat digestion enzymes, muscle proteins, preserving organs for transplant, and studies in contrasted longevity.
The most extreme longevity example is the Brown Bat; although it is similar in size and closely resembles a field mouse, the bat hibernates for six months, sleeps daily in a torpor and may live over twenty years. The mouse's comparatively brief life span is two years, it is also more susceptible to cancer; contrasted with the longest living hibernating rodent, the naked mole-rat, that is virtually immune to cancers.
Humans lack the necessary hibernation "switches", although we may believe ourselves in a torpor this time of year. But local research on real hibernators may bring genuine, beneficial human medical advances.
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Copyright, Rose Hart, 2007