Of wolves, walruses and the Porcupines

Part of the bailiwick of my mystery hero Steve Martinez makes a big splash in the New York Times today.

A story in the Escapes section tells of a family's winter camping in the snowy Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park in Michigan's western Upper Peninsula. (In the novels, the area is called the Wolverine Mountains, so that I can take liberties with locale when the plot requires it.)

Samples from the Times article:

"The only thing missing was the tent, which on this trip would be replaced by the 20-by-22-foot log cabin with eight bunks and a wood stove — shelter and warmth being two crucial elements for keeping families happy in a place where winter storms are common and annual snowfall ranges from 150 to 300 inches."

And:

" . . . All four of us snowshoed out to the shore of Lake Superior, where mounds of frozen waves created an Arctic-looking landscape of snow dunes. Wolf tracks perforated the snow atop some of the dunes’ summits; two wolf packs live within the park. Farther out on the lake, an ice pack of frozen chunks heaved with the undercurrents of Superior below. [Five-year-old] Anders agreed that the scene looked more Hudson Bay than Michigan. 'Are there walruses out there?' he asked.

I've got to spend some time up there in the winter for the novels.