Stay Away From the Edge

     Whenever I’m out hiking and encounter a steep cliff I urge my kids to stay away from the edge.  They look at me with their "whatever" eyes and stay rooted in their spot.  I proceed to tell them the danger of part of the cliff tumbling away while they are standing there but again I get the "whatever" eyes.  Sometimes they will even say, "Like the cliff is going to give way right now after being here for thousands of years?" 

     The odds are probably similar to being struck by lightning but the cliff crumbling away could happen, even when someone is standing there.  I was thinking about this last month as I walked the path to Shovel Point at Tettegouche State Park. I saw the arch above Lake Superior from the beach and thought how cool it would be to swim or paddle beneath it.  I wondered what it looked like years ago and if it was ever something more than just an arch.

     We once visited Silver Islet in Sleeping Giant Provincial Park in Ontario.  We hiked out to see the Sea Lion and I couldn’t figure out why it was called that.  It didn’t look anything like a Sea Lion to me but later found out it was a "lion" turned to stone in the "sea".  This lion’s head was no longer a part of the rock structure as erosion had caused it to drop into Lake Superior.

     Just as the Sea Lion no longer resembles a lion the arch at Tettegouche is no longer an arch.  After a section fell to the Lake sometime last week it is now a lone column of rock next to the shore in Lake Superior.  No one was there to see it, no one fell from the edge as the rock gave way, but it did fall and someone could have been standing there. Don’t give me those "whatever" eyes either!