Trio Finishes 1,300-Mile Run Around Lake Superior

Three friends finished a 1,352-mile run around Lake Superior in Ashland this week. The trio has been circling Lake Superior to collect people’s stories and water samples for microplastics research.

Northland College grads Evan Flom, Andy Butter and Allissa Stutte spent 86 days running about 20 miles a day around Lake Superior with some rest days scattered in between. Butter said one of the most memorable legs of the trip occurred in Ontario, Canada. There, the trio met Chuck Hutterli and his wife, Danielle, who have been cleaning up plastic beads left behind from a train derailment years ago.

“This couple who’s been living on the lake for a long time has this very real problem with plastic literally washing up on their beach every day,” Butter said.

During the run, the three blogged about their experiences and collected nine water samples to be tested for microplastics by Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation, a Montana-based nonprofit. According to the nonprofit’s website, three of the nine samples have already been analyzed for plastics on the North Shore of Lake Superior. A sample from Duluth, Minnesota, contained microplastics, but samples near Hovland, Minnesota, and Thunder Bay, Canada, did not.

The United States recently passed a law banning the use of plastic microbeadsin personal care products, such as facial scrubs, soaps and toothpastes, which takes effect in July 2017. Researchers are concerned about their impacts on fish and wildlife because they don’t degrade over time.

The trio used a baby buggy to push along their belongings while running. Before they set out, they stashed boxes of food with families and businesses around the lake.

The journey around the lake was a challenging, yet rewarding, experience, Flom said.

“The three of us are really a solid team,” Flom said. “I’m really grateful to Andy and Allissa … Two of us might be really exhausted at certain moments, but then we’d have another one of us that would be feeling great and pick the energy back up again or keep us going for another mile.”

Butter agreed that some days were more difficult than others.

“In the morning, too, it’s just getting out bed and realizing you’re going to have to run a ton and you just ran a ton,” he said. “There’s not much pulling you to get out of bed except a steaming bowl of cream of wheat — again.”