May 20, 1926 Weather from the Hill, Olaf Thorvaldsen | Cook County News Herald

The coming week appears likely to bring clouds, light rain, and temperatures nearer to what is usual for the season, with daytime highs mostly in the 50s. Though the rainfall is not expected to amount to much, the cooler air, moist conditions, and the greening spreading through the trees and roadsides should lessen the recent fire danger. Even so, by month’s end May will have brought scarcely two-thirds of its normal rainfall. That dryness helps explain why the recent fire this side of Cascade spread with such speed, destroying Creech's camps along with the fish houses of Herman Helmerson, Olaf Olson, Peter Olson, Nels Wick, Hilmer Aabick, Peter Fredrickson, and Chris Johnson. Dry woods have a way of settling arguments in favor of the fire.

I am learning that springtime in Grand Marais bears little resemblance to winter. During January, a fellow may account for nearly all the week’s happenings while finishing his coffee. In May, matters move faster. People come and go, roads fill with automobiles, and each day seems to arrive carrying three additional items for the newspaper. The town and county appear to wake all at once after the long season of snow and quiet. I sometimes struggle to decide what properly belongs in these columns and what may be left for conversation at the post office or the docks. Should I report on Miss Fjell and my attendance at the recent play concerning a single man and woman stranded together by circumstance, or on the automobile caravan that stopped in town for lunch, or on the news that the United States Coast Guard will send the Cutter Cook to Lake Superior to assist and protect fishermen working from Grand Marais and along the North Shore? A newspaper can contain only so much before it becomes difficult to fold.

It occurs to me that the work of a weatherman is not simply telling people what conditions are coming but also learning what they wish to know about the place where they live. Sarah Orne Jewett, who wrote so well about small coastal communities, once observed that “Tact is after all a kind of mind-reading.” I do not claim to read minds with any accuracy. The weather itself is of sufficient difficulty.