(Jess speaking indistinctly) - Let's go.

There have been two constants in my life.

Running and writing.

And I've always had it in my head that that's just my mentality is long distance running so I've just stuck at it.

It's something I do just about every day in my whole life.

I've always not necessarily wanted to be a writer but books have been a big part of my life throughout since I was a boy.

We are on the Grand Portage Ojibwe Reservation, Gitchi Onigaming.

My name is Jess Koski and it's the middle of winter.

(Jess chuckles) You know, thinking through some of the stories that I've heard my entire life of my relatives up here, they always intrigued me.

The story I heard from my mother, that two boys I believe they were twins and there would have been cousins of mine, went sliding and fell through the ice.

And both of them drowned.

That's all I know happened as for fact.

And so the rest of it just had to come out of imagination.

Onaabani-giizis.

Hard Crust on the Snow Moon.

Peggy, March, 1950.

It was happening so slowly It seemed to me like fate or karma or whatever was saying, "Look, there's still plenty of time for you to get down from that tree and run out there across the ice and catch them.

So what are you waiting for?"

But I was as still as an owl perched in my spruce tree watching as my cousins, spun across the known universe toward open water.

All my troubles stem from that March evening.

Karma had me born in the middle of nowhere at the edge of this damn frozen Lake between shore and land between the U.S. and Canada, between white and not white.

The stillbirths, the loveless marriage, the siren call of anything in a brown bottle, were all of them because I let those boys die, a lifetime ago.

No, my grandmother, Peggy, wasn't really there sitting in a spruce tree and she did have alcohol problems, but she was probably the most intriguing person I've ever met.

She was just a true character, did a lot of real life, crazy things.

So a lot of stories survived about her.

And so I just thought she would be a good central character to wind through the stories that I'm writing.

These are the people that I enjoy thinking about and writing about.

My great grandmother, who lived to be 93.

My grandmother Peggy, the infamous Peggy.

Great uncle Benny.

I have a story going about him and my uncle Gin of course who gave me this place.

So many people, want to write, but have no idea where to start.

They have no idea where to start and they don't have a reader that can offer a critical help, suggestions.

So I thought recently of now that I'm a retired English teacher offering my talents, whatever they might be to other people who are trying to write on whatever level.

(speaking indistinctly) It's a way of giving back to the community.

If the community wants that kind of help.

I've written a lot of stories that I've forgotten by the end of the run, but it's a great way to come up with ideas, especially when you're running alone.

(footsteps approaching) I think the most special thing about living up here is the close relationship we have with the Lake.

It's always there.

You can hear it in your sleep.

My uncle who gave me this place is now in assisted living.

I think about him having lived here for 40 years, right where I'm sitting and hearing that Lake.

He was a fisherman.

And the fact that now he can't hear that anymore.

He can't hear the constant waves.

So I feel sad for him, but I feel also so thankful to him for this gift.

(soothing music) - [Narrator] Funding for intersections is brought to you by, The Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.