MISQUAH — The smoke came down Sunday evening on a north wind, the way company arrives from that direction generally: unannounced, all at once, and planning to stay a few days. By Monday morning the far shore of Big Pelican was a rumor, the sun rose the color of a canning tomato, and the state pollution people had posted an air-quality advisory for the north country through Wednesday morning — orange for everyone, red for stretches, with the standard advice to take it easy, stay indoors where possible, and move what can be moved.

Misquah has spent the week moving what can be moved. Band camp has gone into the gym (story elsewhere in this edition). Monday’s Legion game was called after seven (likewise). The library propped its door shut instead of open, which the building found confusing. And Harold Aas, 81, was relocated from his bench at the fish-cleaning station to the Daybreak’s window table by a coalition of parties he described as “organized against me.” He is taking it under protest and cream, and reports that the fish being cleaned without his supervision are “smaller, probably.”

The fires themselves are a long way off — up in the border country and beyond it — and this newspaper wants to be plain that Misquah’s inconvenience is the smallest possible share of them. Fire chief Gary Sundberg, asked what the department was doing, said “watching the wind, same as everybody,” and noted that two of his crew have people up north they are calling every night. A county burn ban is in effect and printed in the Public Notices, where it is worded more formally than Sundberg’s version, which is: “don’t.”

The advisory’s practical guidance has been absorbed unevenly. The Daybreak’s windows are closed for the first time in anyone’s July memory, which Pat Reinholt says has “concentrated the conversation.” Box fans are sold out at Sorensen Hardware, where Walt, asked whether a fan helps with smoke, said “not especially,” and sold another one.

And then there are the sunsets, which the smoke has made frankly magnificent — long, red, operatic productions that nobody wants to be caught enjoying. A crowd has gathered at the public landing both evenings anyway, standing in the haze it was advised to avoid, watching the sun go down like a stove burner through a floured window. “It doesn’t seem right, liking it,” said one attendee, who liked it. The advisory lifts, in theory, Wednesday. The wind, as usual, has declined to confirm.