Living Fossils in Lake Superior
These final summer days feel like the sun’s last stand — a brief blaze of warmth before winter pulls up, parks itself for eight months. I wasted a few of these golden days at work—something I feel should be a prosecutable offense—but managed to redeem myself with two solid days of diving.
On Monday, Heather and I headed for the Tioga Pit in Cohasset, one of my favorite oddities in the world of flooded mines. There are plenty of pits in northern Minnesota, but Tioga is the crown jewel—clearer than gin and deeper than any sensible person would ever need. What it doesn’t have much of, however, are weeds. And where weeds are scarce, so are fish. Both are things I’ve come to enjoy—fish for obvious reasons, and weeds because they add texture and interest to underwater photographs. Tioga, magnificent as it is, can sometimes feel a little too tidy, like a showroom floor with nothing shiny to bring it to life. It is also—because the Iron Range has a long history of digging industriously and then abruptly stopping—a kind of underwater monument to human impatience. The pit drops off from shore almost politely at first, down to 50 or 60 feet, before shrugging its shoulders and plunging vertically into the abyss, where a narrow ledge at 130 feet feels like the last balcony seat before you’re staring into infinite blackness.
As ever, the local divers had been busy leaving oddities behind. We discovered yet another plastic skeleton perched cheerfully at depth—our fourth so far in Tioga, if you can believe it. Two lie draped theatrically along the ledge, another pair sit companionably on lawn chairs (complete with a skeletal dog at their side, as if waiting for a bony walk). Divers in northern Minnesota, it turns out, will go to impressive lengths to stave off boredom.
On Tuesday I had a full free day (no aquarium dive). I began it above water, photographing backyard songbirds at my feeders — a low-stakes creative warmup. With some foreground blur and off-camera flash experiments, I got a keeper I’m happy to share. Then I turned to underwater matters: Heather and I advanced the “Trim Check” station. The concept: a large mirror suspended a few feet off the bottom so divers can swim up and inspect their trim, gear alignment, and dangling hazards. It’s not vanity — good trim is safety. Most divers never see themselves in the water, and when they do, it’s often a revelation.
Ordinary bird, ordinary yard—yet somehow the colors conspired to make it look like art.
We had slated Thursday to install the mirror in Lake Ore-Be-Gone, but the weather offered an alternative: gentle west winds, sun, near 70°F. The big lake beckoned, and it was foolish to refuse.
So we drove to Gooseberry Falls, kitted up, and dropped in where the rocky shore gives way to the gravel flats at 50 feet. We thought maybe—just maybe—we’d see another sturgeon. I’d seen one on my last two dives, and that already felt like absurd good luck. Most divers go their entire lives without catching so much as a shadow. But this time we saw four.
They appeared like living ghosts, each one massive and armored, moving with a calm indifference that makes you feel oddly temporary. Sturgeon are, after all, survivors from a much older world. Some live a century. Some grow longer than a man is tall. In their presence you understand the phrase “living fossil,” and you feel, quite suddenly, like the newcomer.
Photoshop lent a hand here—stretching the gravel foreground to better show the simple stage where this ancient fish finds its living.
I snapped a few photos, nothing spectacular—sturgeon don’t pose—but enough to prove it wasn’t a dream. Later, against my better judgment, I posted one on a dive group’s page. I hoped to inspire, maybe nudge a few people to slip beneath the surface and see what’s there. Some comments were kind, others less so: my unicorn analogy was apparently poor (mermaids preferred), and I was reminded to file a report with the DNR, as though I were derelict in sturgeon paperwork.
So I deleted the post, deleted the app, and retreated back to my quiet website. Alongthebifrost.com may be nearly invisible, but at least it doesn’t argue about metaphors. There, skeletons stay seated in their chairs, and sturgeon remain what they are: armored, ancient, and utterly magical.
