TRAIL TO THE FINN HOLE
INDICATORS OF AN ADVANCING FRONT
SITE OF THE OLD FINN SETTLEMENTTuesday, 8:30 AM. 9.5 degrees, wind WNW, very light. The sky is clear except for some very high, wispy white clouds, indicators of an advancing weather front, and the usual lake fog out beyond Madeline Island. The barometer predicts snow. I think the ferry has stopped running.
Joan, Lucky and I drove back to the Big Rock on the Sioux yesterday afternoon, but there were no eagles, only two big ravens feeding on the deer carcass. We also saw a deer and a coyote. The Finn Settlement sign is on the corner of Friendly Valley Road and Big Rock Road. Over a century ago there was a community of six hundred Finnish immigrants here. About a mile south of the sign on Big Rock Road there is a DNR access trail that leads perhaps a half mile through the woods to a deep pool on a bend in the river known as the Finn Hole, where the settlers used to fish. I understand they waded the Big Rock rapids to walk to Washburn, about five or six miles away. Today there is little visible evidence of the Settlement other than the commemorative sign. Nature soon reclaims its own.
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