Monthly Archives: August 2024

While driving from the West into the mid-West, we heard the stunning news that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was picked by Kamala Harris to be her running mate for the upcoming election. It was especially interesting as we were driving through the upper mid-West when we heard the story. We also listened to a great interview of him on the Ezra Klein podcast and came away very impressed with his character and strong grasp of the issues. Being a white guy from a small mid-Western rural town also provided a nice balance to Kamala’s San Francisco urban background. The last month has been one of the most consequential in recent American political history and the election is just beginning.

One of the great advantages of driving across the country is being able to binge on news stories and podcasts. On this drive we have been glued to the radio listening to the transformation of our country during this time of great stress. None of us could have imagined what has happened this past month but we are relieved that the Democrats now seem to have a great team campaigning against Trump. We hope that Harris and Walz can run on competence and joy against MAGAs snarling snarkiness. I think the nation is ready for a change from Trump World. I know I am!

We arrived late in the evening on the shores of Lake Superior in the city of Duluth, MN. It is the western most point of the Great Lakes and is the world’s farthest inland port accessible to oceangoing ships. Promoters of the city have called it the “San Francisco of the mid-West” because of its steep hills with beautiful old buildings next to an enormous body of water. But as we looked out over the post-industrial landscape, we saw what had once been a rich city struggling to emerge from economic hard times and bad urban planning. Like the 1980s in San Francisco, we saw the seeds of renewal in the young people revitalizing the downtown with coffee shops, cafes, and bike shops. We hope someday they will make Duluth great again!

The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore is Wisconsin’s beautiful gift to the world. On a hike on the mainland lakeshore, we walked on a long, crazy wooden walkway to the Sea Cave Overlook and were surprised to see kayakers paddling beneath us! We also took a ferry to rain swept Madeline Island where we hiked to a unique bog dune ecosystem with an enclosed lagoon. I knew little about this Lake Superior ecology and what we saw was fascinating.

We headed into the Porcupine Mountains along the shore of Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We had never been here and were surprised by the incredible beauty. This area is home to one of the largest stands of old growth northern hardwood forests in North America.

The Keweenaw Peninsula sticks out of Michigan like a finger pointing at Canada. The area was home to the first major copper mining boom in the United States from the 1840s to the 1960s. It contains the only place on Earth where large-scale economically recoverable 97 % pure native copper is found. It is the only place in the US with evidence of prehistoric aboriginal mining of copper. As well as the natural beauty, the effects of mining and logging could be seen throughout the area. We headed along the north shore to the appropriately named community of Copper Harbor. We enjoyed a long hike through a crazy mixed ecology of sand, forest, tree roots, rock, and the infinite horizon of Lake Superior. The next morning, on our way to coffee in the town of Houghton, we discovered that their beautiful, old library and become a beautiful, old tavern called The Library.

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore was another wildly beautiful spot on the shore of Lake Superior. It was designated the first National Lakeshore in 1966. Our hike along Twelvemile Beach through a white birch forest was like what I imagined the coast of Scandinavia must be like. It is known for its crazy, sculpted lakeshore cliffs and caves. If the immensity of Lake Superior wasn’t enough, a sign reminded visitors that it contains 10% of the Earth’s fresh water. Another reminded hikers that the biting flies here are brutal and even bug spray won’t work.

As we checked in to our motel in Sault Ste. Marie, MI we were surprised to see an enormous red flame coming from a refinery in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario just across the border in Canada. Up to now, much of our trip had been spent in relatively pristine places of natural beauty. This view was a vision of something else.

The next morning, we visited the Soo Locks built and run by the Army Corps of Engineers. It is one of the busiest lock systems in the world and makes it possible for ocean going ships to travel over 2,000 miles from Lake Superior through locks and rivers all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. We arrived just as a 1,000-foot ship was entering the locks and we stood spell bound watching this huge object slowly and silently glide by on its way to the sea. It was weirdly fascinating. The surrounding tourists witnessing this expression of power and technology all stood silently transfixed as well. It reminded me of visiting the massive Grand Coulee dam years ago in Washington. Our 19^th and 20^th century obsession for controlling nature did a lot of terrible damage but occasionally, like here, created something literally bigger than ourselves that approached the sublime.

In the tumultuous late 1960s, I went to the University of California in Santa Cruz. Later, I helped found a commune and lived an alternative life in the area. This was when I began my passion for photography that gave a focus and meaning to much of the rest of my life. One my friends who shared my interest in photography was Viki and we have stayed in touch over the years. In the 1970s, she had inherited a rustic lodge deep in the woods on the Canadian Shield of Ontario. I had always wanted to visit her and her husband Allan, so we now headed east from Sault Ste. Marie on Canadian highways and dirt roads and more dirt roads until we arrived at their little bit of paradise on a lake in the forest.  

It was fascinating to see someone after 50 years and to think of the choices and circumstances that got us to where we are today. Viki and Allan’s life is very different from ours. We wound up using photography to follow our passion to explore our country and the world. We have also lived a very urban life in San Francisco. They turned their life into running a lodge that was so remote that visitors could only cross-country ski into it in the winter or take a boat to the lodge in the summer. Their love and understanding of the place came from a lifetime looking at the details and witnessing the passage of time in a timeless place. They were both inspiring and I felt so grateful to be able to renew an old friendship.

While we savored the solitude of the Canadian backwoods, our son Walker sent a photo of himself covering a news event with Gavin Newsome and Nancy Pelosi in California. It is hard to leave that world behind for very long.

After almost two weeks on the road, we spent our last night in the wonderful city of Montreal in Quebec. Last May, Walker had taken me to an amazing French-Canadian restaurant in Montreal called Au Pied de Cochon. Food critic Anthony Bourdain described it as one of his favorite restaurants in the world. It deserves that reputation, but it is heavily meat-centric, and Ellen is a vegetarian. Fortunately, the very friendly staff put together a wonderful salad with a side of French fries. Add some great French wine and Ellen was a happy camper.

Since the Library of Congress recently purchased the last part of our Global Library project, we are supposed to done with this work. But, of course, one is never done until you are really done. One of the libraries I wanted to photograph last May in Montreal was the Westmont Public Library. It was built in 1897 to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in a very English-centric neighborhood in the French province of Quebec. Its design was inspired by New England public libraries and is a beautiful and unusual place with a vaulted entrance, gabled roof, and a tower and turrets on the outside; and coffered ceilings, decorative moldings, strong arches, and faux marble columns on the inside.

We finished our cross-country road trip buying our groceries from a community co-op in the quaint little college town of South Royalton, VT. It was a relief to be done with the drive and we were so happy to be back in New England. To be continued…

I realize that we live in a bubble in San Francisco. In many ways, including our politics, our city is just a little different than much of the rest of America. One of those differences is our weather. This summer, while most of the country has been sweltering in a brutal, climate-change heat wave, we have been shrouded by our old friend the fog. Calling summer our June gloom, gray sky July, and of course, Fogust is our way of overcoming our chilly summer weather. We did have a mini-heat wave beginning in July when the temperatures got up into the 70s and people were almost passing out in the streets. But on the 4^th, just as the fireworks were exploding above the city, our natural air-conditioner kicked in and Karl the Fog came rolling back through the Golden Gate. Most years we never see the 4^th of July fireworks because of the fog but this year people were cheering as we watched the fog roll in and the temperature plummet.

Politics has always been a part of our lives, and this strange year is no exception. On the national level, the Democrats seemed to be doing a slow march over a cliff. So, it felt like a good time to get involved in local politics. The political environment in San Francisco is often described as a knife fight in the phone booth. But whomever emerges is often very savvy and tough and some go on to national leadership such as Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom, and Kamala Harris. We attended an evening with the candidates for Mayor with a very smart, respectful, and engaged audience. We went to some neighborhood talks by some of the candidates.

We finally decided to support an old acquaintance of ours, Aaron Peskin. Our way of getting involved was to host a house party for Aaron, invite our neighbors and friends, and engage in a discussion with our community. It turned out to be a remarkable event that generated a lot of donations for the Peskin campaign and allowed us all to participate in an important way with democracy.  

Another remarkable event was when Walker’s girlfriend Rosa received an Emmy for her PBS science program called Deep Look. We cheered her on with her sister Ana as we watched the awards ceremony. Rosa came over after the ceremony and showed us the statue. Impressive!

Two years ago in Nova Scotia, I shared by first case of Covid my darling wife Ellen. Now, she returned the favor. We share everything. It’s true love!

The big push of this summer was producing the last installment for the Library of Congress of our American and Global Library projects. This was all the work we have been doing starting in 2019 of libraries throughout Canada, the US, and Mexico. The North American Global Library work will be added to the work the Library of Congress already has of our European Global Library work that they purchased in 2022 and the American Public Library work that they collected in 2015. Printing and cataloguing the new work took up most of the summer. We are utterly exhausted but totally happy to have finished this mammoth effort. And we are proud to have all this work now permanently archived at the Library of Congress.

We were very excited about seeing the Presidential Debate at the end of June. But it turned out to be like watching a horrible bully beating an old, defenseless man to the ground. And this shocking event was only the beginning of a month unlike any other in American politics. Next, Trump barely escaped assassination from an insane gunman. Then, the Republicans staged a hyper macho-man, Las Vegas-like convention to nominate Trump. After that, President Biden (with a little help from his friends) decided he would not continue his campaign for President and threw his support behind his Vice President Kamala Harris. At that point, I happily put in my order for my Kamala for President t-shirt! This was a historic, mind-boggling series of events that we all lived through and are still trying to understand. Can’t wait to see what the Democratic convention will be like in August.

While this was going on, Walker got an assignment to cover the election in the troubled country of Venezuela. This was a particularly difficult one because our government has no diplomatic relationship with Venezuela. After the election, the US accused Venezuelan President Maduro of stealing the election and we recognized his opponent as the winner. To call the situation tense would be an understatement. And Walker and his CBS crew had real concerns that they wouldn’t be allowed to return to the US. There was even a photo published in the New York Times of Walker working on the edge of massive crowd. Violence was beginning to erupt throughout the country. But like a miracle, Walker and his news team finally made it out at the last minute to Columbia. We all breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Just as Walker was making his return, we made our exit from the fog of Fogust to the heat of the heartland. Driving across country is always a challenge but it always includes unexpected rewards. Elko, NV turns out to be the largest gold mining area in the world right now. We had a wonderful conversation with some mining engineers sitting next to us at a table that looked like the Last Supper. But we said we said our goodbyes when one of them started talking about defeating that “Kamala” so she wouldn’t regulate their environmentally damaging gold boom. Ah, America!   

For most of the drive, the famous sparkling blue big sky of the West had been replaced by an oppressive gray caused by massive forest fires. This was only made worse by temperatures that hovered over 100 degrees every day. However, we did come upon two beautiful highlights. One was an area in the Rockies called West Yellowstone. It is an area just west of the National Park that is classic mountain West with high valleys, rugged peaks, and lots of open spaces. This was a thrilling reminder on why I love this part of the country. Unfortunately, as we got closer to Bozeman, MT, the unplanned ugly urban sprawl made me wonder about the title of Montana as the Last Best Place.

The other spectacular place we enjoyed was Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota. Over a hundred years ago, this was the home of Teddy Roosevelt where he sought solace in its open spaces.  Today it is home on the range for lots of buffalo, antelope, and prairie dogs. And, as it turned out, lots of tourists. Twelve years ago, Walker and I marveled at how empty this National Park was compared to most. But it was easy now to leave the crowds behind and we spent a blissful afternoon enjoying the big sky, the buffalo and a beer by a slowly meandering river. It was worth the whole trip just to be here.