The location of the Keep

        Using a map of Minnesota you will need to locate the Northern half of the state. Find the middle of this section of the state and place your finger there. That is close enough to the geographical location of the Keep.
        The weather is what makes living at the Keep interesting. I vaguely remember a summer day or two when the temperature was 100 degrees with 99% humidity. I do remember weeks in the winter when the temperature hovers around –55 to –60 degrees below zero at night. This is air temperature not wind-chill. At –60 degrees spit will freeze before it hits the ground. At –60 degrees steel tools become brittle. At –60 degrees you have to literally light a fire under a tank of number 2 fuel oil in order to get it to flow.
        I grew up a short distance east of the Keep in the tornado zone just inland from Lake Superior. Before I got out of my teens I remember seeing about 10 tornadoes. The about 10 comes from the fact that tornadoes sometimes come in clusters. I have never been sure if I saw all three tornadoes in a cluster or just one of the three at three different times.
        Another interesting feature of where the Keep is that it is close to a three-way continental divide. A few miles west of here the waters go to the Red River valley and north to Hudson Bay and the Arctic Ocean. A few miles east the water drains into the Great Lakes and through the St. Lawrence River into the Atlantic Ocean. Finally the lakes and rivers right here flow south though the Mississippi into the Caribbean.
        Minnesota is a state filled with lakes over 15,000 of them. The Northern part of the state adds bogs and swamps to the lakes and rivers. The swamps are more important them most people think. They hold more water in reserve than all the lakes combined making them the main source of water for the head of the Great Lakes, Mississippi, and the Red River. They also fill the sky with insects.
        The region has been covered with glaciers many times in the past. This tames the landscape but it also exposes the roots of ancient mountain ranges and scatters drifts, drumlins, and water over the land. This gives the land the unique ability to expose 350 million-year-old granite a few miles from a 1,000-year-old lake, the very old next to the very new.

Email can be sent to:

gordonsirvio (at) hotmail.com

Standard mail can be sent to:

Gordon Sirvio        
42302 Chase Lake Road
Deer River, MN 56636

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