The Clue in the Trees: An Enchantment Lake Mystery
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Jay also mentions that many endangered animals are illegally killed for their supposed medicinal value: rhinoceroses are slaughtered for their horns and tigers for their bones. Ninety-seven percent of the world’s tiger population has been exterminated, and rhinos are fast disappearing. Sun bears and Asiatic black bears are killed for their paws and bile. Seahorse populations are rapidly declining because they are used in traditional medicines. And pangolins, small ant-eating, scale-covered mammals, are at the top of the most endangered mammal groups in the world.
Gold and Other Mining in Minnesota
Northern Minnesota was the scene of two minor gold rushes in 1865–66 and 1893. The small amount of gold found was more expensive to extract than it was worth, and the two rushes were short-lived. The Little American Mine on Little American Island in Rainy Lake was the only productive gold mine in Minnesota. Abandoned mine shafts are still apparent on the island. The rush helped develop the settlement of International Falls as well as other communities in northern Minnesota. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has recently reported “significant gold findings” along the historic Vermilion Iron Range. Dozens of test mine shafts have been drilled and leases have been offered to prospectors and companies that might be interested in extracting it.
Iron was discovered on the Iron Range in 1866 and proved a better bet and far more lucrative than gold. Although iron mining in Minnesota has slowed since its heyday, it still continues today, although with a lower grade of ore being extracted.
Now copper-nickel mining is being proposed in northern Minnesota. Those who support it hope it will bring back jobs that were lost as iron mining waned. Those who oppose it point out that copper-nickel mining is too environmentally dangerous, much more so than iron mining, especially in northern Minnesota where these mines will be situated near so many waterways. The waste from this kind of mining creates sulfuric acid that can (as it often has elsewhere) contaminate lakes, streams, and wetlands and create long-term damage to ecosystems.
Bootlegging
Northern Minnesota, especially near the Canadian border, was the scene of liquor smuggling, or “bootlegging,” when alcohol was illegal in the United States during Prohibition (1920–33). You can read more about bootlegging on Rainy Lake in northern Minnesota in Mary Casanova’s suspenseful novel Ice-Out.
Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve and Heist
Nearly 80 percent of the world’s maple syrup supply comes from the province of Quebec in Canada. In 2012, six million pounds of maple syrup worth eighteen million dollars went missing from Quebec’s Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve. (Yes, that is a real thing.) Canada’s excess maple syrup was being stored in a warehouse in Quebec. In an inside job, the thieves rented part of the warehouse as a way to get to the syrup and managed to make off with sixteen thousand barrels of syrup by emptying barrels into other barrels and leaving the empties—or sometimes refilling the emptied containers with water. Most of the syrup went to New Brunswick and was eventually recovered, but quite a bit was smuggled into the United States, where it may have ended up on your pancakes.
Oil Pipelines
Minnesota, like many places in the United States, struggles with how to transport oil. Crude oil is transported either by rail or by pipeline from its source (in the case of this story, the Bakken Fields in North Dakota, where oil is extracted by fracking). Some people believe that pipelines are a safer way to transport oil than by rail, but others think the environmental risk of pipelines are too great, especially in Minnesota where pipelines travel through so many environmentally sensitive areas. The Sandpiper Pipeline (currently on hold) would have passed through twenty-eight rivers, including the headwaters of the Mississippi; many of these areas are remote and unpopulated, so a leak could go undetected for a long time. Spilled oil can quickly pollute waterways, contaminate drinking water, kill fish, and damage entire ecosystems.
Because of these issues, protests have occurred in many places where oil pipelines have been proposed. In addition to protests against the proposed Sandpiper Pipeline, a very large protest took place near Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, where the Dakota Access Pipeline was supposed to pass under Lake Oahe (part of the Missouri River), the main source of drinking water for nearby populations. Though the protests delayed it, construction is moving ahead at the time of this writing.
In the story, Raven stood up for what she believed in and educated others (including Francie), who consequently became interested and got involved. You can make a difference, too. Find your issue! Get involved!
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to the knowledgeable people who read this book as I was writing and who offered sage advice or helpful life experience, including Wendy Savage, Kathy Bogen, Carolyn Olson, Mary Preus, Catherine Preus, Ann Treacy, and Corrine Roy. I’m also grateful to Anders Hanson for the clue-filled cover art and to all the fine folks at the University of Minnesota Press, especially Erik Anderson.
Margi Preus is the award-winning author of several books for young readers, including Enchantment Lake (Minnesota, 2015), West of the Moon, Shadow on the Mountain, The Bamboo Sword, and the Newbery Honor book Heart of a Samurai. The Enchantment Lake mysteries were written on the screen porch of her cabin, which overlooks a lake remarkably like the one in the stories.