John Schneider

Maritime graveyard

My fishing grounds - Hammond Bay, in northern Lake Huron - is known as “Shipwreck Alley." It's part or the 4,300-square-mile Thunder Bay Marine Sanctuary, created to protect 200 shipwrecks from looters.

This summer I’ve seen charter dive boats heading out from from the launch, carrying customers eager to explore the wrecks. It occurred to me that, with the collapse of the salmon fishery, wreck-diving may become a new tourist attraction.

Treacherous shoals, shifting sands, dramatic variations in water depths and collisions doomed many a ship in the early days of maritime navigation. The oldest wrecks - largely preserved by Huron’s cold water - date back to the mid-19th century.

Like the old days

After catching nothing but lake trout in recent years, I knew immediately that the fish that took my spoon Tuesday evening was something different.

It stayed deep in the water. It peeled line off my reel, creating that joyful whine - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz - I hadn't heard in years. The fish refused to give an inch, continuing to fight even after it was in the net. Just like the old days.

My initial conclusion, once the fish was in my cooler, was that it was an Atlantic salmon but the more I examined it, the more I saw Chinook characteristics; black gums, for example.

Puddling party

This is the time of the year butterflies - eastern yellow swallowtails, I believe - gather in clusters on our Lake Huron beach.

They don’t come for the the sun, or the surf; they come for the sand - specifically for the salt and other minerals therein.

According to the Internet, the behavior is called “puddling.” The moist sand along the Great Lakes is the ideal puddling-party venue.

MAGA boat

You can't escape it - not even when all you want to do is launch your boat for a peaceful, non-political evening of fishing and pleasant free-floating contemplation.

Instead, I was forced to spend too much time on the water puzzling over that infernal question: How can people continue to support Trump and the MAGA movement after all they've seen ... ?

All in

There comes a time in every summer when Lake Huron finally extend a begrudging invitation.

After remaining aloof through May and June, the lake generally begins to warm up in the early days of July - just enough to make full immersion possible.

On Independence Day it called to us. Taking courage from each other, we waded in, completing our transition into summer and the life aquatic.

Bees and butterflies

I went bee-hunting the other day (I’m still trying to get a photo accepted for the New York Times’ daily Spelling Bee game).

The bees wouldn’t hold still but this butterfly offered a different kind of photo op. The photo speaks for itself, but I’ll state the obvious again: The beauty in nature is sometimes hard to believe.

As for Spelling Bee, the game is accompanied by a different bee photo every day. Readers are invited to submit pictures for this purpose. Not for pay, but simply for the buzz of it.

I’ve sent in two so far; I don’t know if they’re in the NYT queue, or if they’ve already been rejected.

Toward a better future ...

Some say the only honorable way to celebrate America’s 250th birthday today is to downplay it, or ignore it entirely, lest we be associated with Trump’s royal gala currently unfolding - or, should I say unraveling? - in D.C.

I appreciate the sentiment. I truly do. Throughout our history, no Independence Day picnic has been without its ants. But on on this Fourth of July, we’re further away than ever before from the ideals laid out in the Constitution.

So, I understand the impulse to sit this one out and save our patriotism for better days. But I think standing back and letting Trump Inc. hijack Independence Day is the wrong approach.

Some beautiful chemistry

“Wah-wah-taysee, little fire-fly, Little, flitting, white-fire insect, Little, dancing, white-fire creature, Light me with your little candle …”

From “The Song of Hiawatha” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Like lightning itself, lightning bugs (the term my mother used) are tough to photograph. But that’s OK; it’s reward enough simply to watch them do their enchanting magic.

A firefly’s glow is a chemical reaction caused by an organic compound – luciferin – in their abdomens. As air rushes into a firefly’s abdomen, it reacts with the luciferin, causing the chemical reaction that gives off light.

As you may have suspected, the light show is not strictly for the delight of us humans; fireflies shine their little lights to notify predators of their bitter taste and to attract mates.

The night shift

Like all the Lake Huron freighters that glide past our cottage, this one is a working vessel, hauling various raw materials from one harbor to another.

But the lights of a ship passing in the night always give it festive quality. I can almost hear band music drifting over the water.

La belle fleur sauvage

It’s wildflower season in Michigan and I found this pair of beauties growing in the wooded area between our cottage and our Lake Huron beach.

I’m awed, all over again, by the grace and elegance of nature’s artistry.

This perennial, native to North America, goes by many names: wood lily, flame lily, Philadelphia lily, tiger lily, prairie lily, or western red lily.

Strawberry moon rising

When I first heard that the “strawberry moon” was coming, I expected to look up into the sky Monday night and see a moon of a different color.

Then I learned that the strawberry moon, like its more famous cousin, the blue moon, only comes in yellow. Its name arises not from its color, but from the fact that June’s full moon aligns with the wild strawberry harvest season.

Baby boom

When my parents lived Up North my mother used to say - and maybe even believe - that in early summer proud does would parade their newborn fawns past her kitchen window specifically to show them off: one mother, to another.

Anthropomorphism at its finest, but if Ma chose to believe she was in communion with whitetail deer, whom did it hurt …?

It’s that time of year again and I’ve been anticipating my first glimpse of spots. A few days ago Sharon, returning from a shopping trip, said she saw a pair wobbly-legged twins on our driveway. I was envious.

A new standard of corruption

JD Vance declared a few days ago that if the Nixon/Watergate scandal occurred today, it would be nothing more than a minor story.

If the VP were a little more nimble as an abstract thinker, he might have realized the implications of that statement: namely, that Nixon’s crimes and the political upheaval they caused were small potatoes when compared to the corruption of the current administration.

That’s bold talk considering that the Watergate affair resulted in the imprisonment of dozens of officials and, of course, the resignation of a disgraced U.S. president.

Happy birthday, Jess

Our daughter Jessica, who drowned in 2002, would have turned 49 today

I can hear her voice just as clearly as if she were standing next to me: "Can you believe it ...? Forty-nine!"

I often think of how much she would have enjoyed some of the things she missed - the weddings of her siblings, the birth of her nephews, Lord Huron (surely she would have been the most enthusiastic World Ender of all) ...

A chaotic catch

It took five trips out on the big lake, but the skunk, as they say, is finally out of the box.

After four fishless attempts, I was beginning to wonder - as one does at these moments - if I would ever pull another fish from Lake Huron.

This lake trout struck at about 7 a.m. I was all alone, trolling into a moderate breeze, so when I abandoned the steering wheel to fight the fish, the John B's bow began to turn away from the wind. This caused my three lines - the one with the fish and the other two - to cross and tangle.

The world in his pocket

Momentous times for my oldest grandson …

He turns 14 today. He’ll start high school in the fall. And - perhaps best of all, from his point of view - he now owns a cell phone, a birthday gift from his parents.

He might tell you that he’s the last 14-year-old in the universe to have his own phone, which is probably an exaggeration.

I applaud his parents for holding out for so long against some intense lobbying. They’ve decided that, given the boy’s growing independence, the balance tipped in favor of communication.

Incomparable

We humans can't seem to help ourselves - we're compelled, for some reason, to compare things to other things.

For example, Lord Huron was still wet behind the ears when music critics started scrambling to identify the band's musical soulmates - Fleet Foxes, the Lumineers, Bon Iver ...?

Finally, the folks at the music blog UpToHear have acknowledged that such comparisons add up to an exercise in futility. It's not that the Bubs are more, or less, talented than other bands. Let's just say LH is unique and let it go at that. Here's part of what the UpToHear blogger wrote:

"Finding artists similar to Lord Huron is one of the hardest things we’ve ever tried to do. The usual Google searches tend to recycle the same handful of names: Gregory Alan Isakov, Fleet Foxes, The Decemberists… And we love these artists, but we prefer to venture beyond the algorithm.

"Most 'artists like' articles assume every musician has a dozen obvious peers waiting in the wings. Lord Huron is different. We will not even attempt to corral them into a specific genre; it’s a vibe. It’s cinematic storytelling at its very finest. It’s a fascination with the natural world translated into album form. The obvious truth: nobody truly sounds like them ..."