Compared to the dark depths of the ocean or the frigid ends of the earth, Lake Huron hardly seems like an extreme environment. But sinkholes discovered at the lake’s bottom have conditions just as harsh-and harbor life forms just as unusual-as those of deep-sea hydrothermal vents or Antarctica’s permanently frozen lakes.

And like their marine and polar cousins, the sinkholes’ peculiar occupants-mostly microbes-are providing scientists a glimpse of what early life on Earth might have looked like.

When you drive along Park Point, Duluth, about three blocks after the stop sign, you will pass a house with a big lake freighter wheel in the front yard.

The owner, Tom Mackay, is a retired captain from the Vista Fleet, who bought the wheel at an auction. If you ask him what ship it comes from, he will reply, “What ship do you want it to come from?”
Capt. Tom Mackay, a retired captain from the Vista Fleet, stands with a big lake freighter wheel in the front yard of his home on Park Point. Photo by Jenae Peterson.

Capt. Tom Mackay, a retired captain from the Vista Fleet, stands with a big lake freighter wheel in the front yard of his home on Park Point. Photo by Jenae Peterson.

Mackay loves boats. He owns several, including a kayak, a flat-bottom boat, a 14-foot aluminum boat, a 22-foot boat and an iceboat. Some sit in his back yard, facing Superior Bay. Others are in storage.

An upcoming forum aims to create more dialogue about declining water levels in Lake Huron and Georgian Bay.

Challenges of a Changing Lake is the topic of the fifth annual Sources of Knowledge Forum to be held in Tobermory from May 3 to 5.

The event includes speakers from Canada and U.S. who will provide insights on the Great Lakes and the challenges faced by those who live on or near them, said Bill Graham, chairman of the forum.

"What we want to do is be able to let people have enough knowledge that they make an intelligent choice of how they want to handle this," Graham said Monday.

RED WING, Minn. -- Cabela’s inaugural National Walleye Tour Fishing Tournament will launch Friday at Bay Point Park in Red Wing.

This is the first tournament that the NWT has sponsored, but Bart Chad, the general manager for NWT, said he and his staff have years of experience to support this tour.

“We’ve all participated, managed or run other tours,” he said. “The basic building blocks are all there — just this wildlife tour is new to our team.”

Conservationists urged Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Monday to join thousands of citizens who have shown their support for a new Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River management plan over the past several months.
In a joint letter to Gov. Cuomo, four conservation groups — Save the River, Clayton; the Nature Conservancy; Audubon New York, and Citizens Campaign for the Environment — asked the governor to support Plan Bv7, a water regulation proposal by the International Joint Commission that could replace the existing half-century-old management plan