Yaaaaaaawn! It is nearly 11 am, but I am still recovering from a very eventful Earth Day. Last night, after a full day of working around the farm, we ran into a couple friends in town who enticed us to come smelting with them.

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Smelting…the practice of waiting until dark, pulling on waders, strapping on a headlamp, walking out into the dark water of Lake Superior right after the ice lets out, and dragging a huge net in to the shore in hopes that thousands of tiny fish called Smelt will get trapped in it. It’s a group activity because the nets that are commonly used are so long that they require at least two people to drag them in.

Smelt only run in the shallow waters of the big lake for a few days each spring, so when we arrived at the shore, about a dozen trucks and campers belonging to avid smelters were already parked in a row, marking the ideal {sandy, shallow} smelting spots. Most of them had been camped out and smelting for two days already.

“They’re runnin’ good oh boy!” A bearded man with a Bud Light sloshed past us in camouflage waders. We hurriedly pulled on our gear and headed to the water.

There is something very counter-intuitive about walking out into a frigid, black, never-ending lake at night. You have to force your legs to take you further as your feet fox-walk along the bottom, careful not to trip on rocks, and all the while sensitive to the slow and steady descent you’re making…your thighs are under, now your hips…now your stomach.

It was raining last night- a freezing cold April rain that was somewhere between rain and snow. It pelted our cheeks as we edged deeper and deeper, the net stretched between us, our breath hanging in the air like ghosts.

“Here’s good.” We turned, dropped the net into the water and started towards shore. It’s a slow walk back; The net is heavy and the waves roll up around your body and drag on you. Headlamps and campfires struggling in the rain dotted the shoreline ahead. Cheery banter carried out across the water…”Hey! I smelt somethin’ fishy! Har har har…”

Finally we were back to shore and it took all four of us to scoop the net up in a way that would not to let any Smelt escape. Sure enough, it was sagging with the weight of about a hundred tiny fish.

“Good load!” Passing fisherman congratulated us on our success. We did about eight more runs and filled up a large cooler. A nearby group of smelters caught a large fish in their net. I went over and asked what kind it was.

“Oh he’s a big sucker,” the man replied.

“Yes, he is, but what kind is he?”

“I told you…a Sucker.”

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Slosh, slosh, slosh…we were wet and chilly as we loaded up our gear. “Want to come over and fry some of them up?” our friends asked. It was 11 PM, but why the heck not. We retreated to their warm home, chopped garlic, heated oil, and cleaned our fish. They’re so small that you just cut their heads off, squeeze out their organs, fry em up, and pop them in your mouth whole. They’re crunchy, tender, and tasty.

I wish I had some photos of this adventure to share, but the combination of sleety rain and pitch-black-darkness made photography pretty difficult. Plus our hands were full as it was. But please enjoy these vintage images from the prime smelting days in Duluth, MN- just an hour to the West of us. The spring tradition of netting Smelt has been going on for generations. I’m excited to have been exposed to it. Like ice fishing, it seems to be a “must” for anyone who lives on the shores of Lake Superior.

Earth Day 2011 was marked by hard work that resulted in a delicious, local and seasonal meal. We stepped out into one of Mother Earth’s greatest features: Lake Superior. We felt her breathing and we saw the twinkle in her eye. We were let in on her secret: that everything we need, she provides. We just need to learn how to be a part of the giving and the taking.