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From the Inside Out

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I have a scar on my thumb and one on my hand where glass chards from a kitchen door window slashed through my skin. As a kid running home after getting off the bus to see who’s first in the house, it wasn’t the blood that was most unsettling—it was who was going to be in trouble when Mom and Dad found out about it. I have a few other ‘story’ scars—when a rock hit my shin when I was mowing and ended that chore for the day and one wide, repeated scar from three c-sections, all with their own ‘war story’ but with three beautiful children as the result.

I have been thinking about wounds and scars and healing since that is what we’ve been dealing with in our household the last couple of weeks after Chris had surgery. A simple wound, one without extensive tissue damage or infection, takes four to six weeks to heal, with scar tissue formation taking much longer. Our bodies are amazing healing organisms! First step, stop the bleeding and keep the germs out! (Of course with this surgery, the medical professionals inflict the wound and begin the healing process by stitching, stapling, or gluing the wound shut with all safety protocols in place.) Second step, immune cells begin to clean up the damage, waste, and any harmful bacteria from the wound. Third step, create new tissue—skin, blood vessels, new collagen frameworks, etc. to repair and mend the damage. And more long term, the fourth step, remodel the temporary tissue formed at the outset with stronger skin tissue and scar formation. Whew! Our bodies do a lot of work to heal—work that takes extra energy and building blocks (amino acids, minerals, cholesterol, etc.) beyond the process of normal, daily metabolism and renewal of cells. And one of the most important aspects of healing is rest. Our autonomic nervous system with its two branches—the sympathetic fight, flight, or freeze and the parasympathetic rest and digest—determine what is happening in our bodies on a cellular basis. The parasympathetic system is also called the rest and repair system—in order to digest our food properly and repair our bodies, we need to be in rest mode. It allows our bodies to do the ‘work’ of repair.

All of that makes me think of Autumn—the prelude to Winter. Autumn is a time when the trees and plants slip into rest mode. No more energy-intensive photosynthesis, no busy, nutrient-grabbing flower and fruit production, and no new growth that requires abundant energy and nutrients just for that. The leaves stop their work and fall to the ground. The already-formed seeds disperse on wind or water or via an animal, who nourishes its body with the fruit or seed and discards potential new seedlings. It is a time to purge in the best of ways, to gather what nourishes for future needs, and move into rest and repair.

All healing happens from the inside out with the help of outside influences—an excellent surgeon and medical team, antibiotic drugs to prevent infection, pain management to allow for comfort and rest, wholesome, nutritious food for needed building blocks for repair, walking for blood circulation and strength, and sleep and rest when our cells can kick into high gear to repair and restore. Healing—the process of making or becoming sound, whole, or healthy again. I want to reiterate the profound amazingness of our bodies’ ability to heal—how responsive the healing mechanism is, how many systems work together to initiate and carry out ‘the work’ of healing, and how the goal of the systems and spirit of our bodies is to return to homeostasis, to balance. As amazing as the physiological repair process is in our bodies, a similar process takes place in our minds, hearts, and spirits to repair wounds of trauma and grief. The language is the same for both—wound, repair, pain, trauma, health, wholeness, wellness, and healing. Healing our hearts, minds, and spirits happens from the inside out also, with the help of outside influences—animals, Nature, therapists, friends, partners, community support, sometimes medication, and once again rest. So welcome Autumn. Welcome the quiet dormancy that Winter brings. Welcome rest…and restoration.

A Walk in the Woods

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Let’s take our hearts for a walk in the woods and listen to the magic whispers of old trees. –author unknown

This is one of the most wonderful, uplifting times of the year to go walking in the woods. Each tree seems to be more beautifully colored than the one before, and some spectacular specimens produce an absolute feeling of awe as you stop and stare up at their fall finery.

It is a time for purging, getting rid of the old. It is a ritual as old as Mother Nature herself—it has purpose and timing, procedure and method. No human interaction necessary…

…until the discards pile up in a thick, crunchy carpet on your yard! But in the forest, the leaves are doing precisely what is needed—they are protecting the roots and crowns of all the plants that hibernate for the winter. In the northern climes, the blanket of leaves waits for a blanket of snow that adds another layer of protection from the cold temperatures.

So Autumn is about purging and decay—just like the trees that die, are used by insects, woodpeckers, and animals of all sizes, and return to the earth. Like the leaves, the wood from the trees is broken down to return nutrients and humus and bacteria to the soil. The wonderful sustaining circle of life.

Walking in the woods at this time of year is a noisy affair—no sneaking up on animals or persons when each step swishes and crunches and crackles. It’s the music of Autumn that somehow infuses a feeling of childlike joy to the wanderer.

Wild and magical mushrooms that push their way up through the soil and leaf litter or grow from the side of a tree always amaze me. They are tough, yet delicate, striking or camouflaged, and have an artful flair.

Autumn is about hiding—the plants and later some animals will hide away under the old, purged leaves, in the old, decaying tree stumps, under the plant material that sinks to the bottom of the lakes and streams.

Two Sandhill Cranes are hiding from us, bathing in the shallow water, and eating their fill of gleanings from corn and soybean fields before they migrate south.

Autumn is a time of reflection. What do I need to purge from my life? What do I want to let go of? What do I need to protect myself? What brings me childlike joy?

What brings artful flair to my life? What inspires me?

And the leaves fall down right before my eyes…

Aqua Terra Part II + Aeris

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I think we all have a natural affinity to the earth or water, either through our long lines of ancestral DNA or the environment or most likely, both. We are the products of nature and nurture. Water is beautiful to me and intriguing. I love the aqua reflections and ripples, cascades and still pools. I’m also not very comfortable in bodies of water like those deep lakes in the BWCA—I carry some fear and an extra dose of caution. But the land…that’s a different story. I feel at home on the land. It is my home.

We camped at Blue Mounds State Park with my Mom. Both her and my Dad came from farm families in eastern South Dakota. The land was their home, their livelihood, and the entity they interacted with on a daily basis. My parents farmed for a living for a short period of their married lives, but the connection to the land continued and was passed down from their parents through them to their children.

We awoke when the lake behind us was waking up—the Great Blue Heron was fishing for his breakfast, stalking the wetland and darting his long bill into the water, then stretching his neck to let the fish slide down his lengthy gullet. The sun popped up over the horizon, coloring the dawn sky with the same hues as the quartzite rock that lay in the ground around us. A pair of geese landed on the water, their ripples separate, then merged. And the mega-chorus of blackbirds lifted from the cattails into the aeris.

We cooked breakfast and readied ourselves for hiking. We planned to go on Mound Trail, described as one long, gradual hill—1.5 miles one way. It followed the fence line that enclosed the bison, so we were hoping to see them again. The mowed grass trail was easy to walk on, and as described, the slope was gentle. The tallgrass prairie had gone to seed—the grasses, most of the flowers, and the weeds. Whenever we turned around, we marveled at how far we could see, and then realized we weren’t even close to the top of the Mound.

At some point up the trail we encountered a small group of Bison mamas and babies just basking in the sunlight. Sprays of purple Asters and an occasional Sunflower bloomed in the prairie grasses. Prickly Pear Cacti were scattered throughout the Mound prairie, most often by the boulders that protruded from the ground where the soil was thin and heat from the rocks provided them a desert-like environment. At this time of year, the red fruits of the cacti contrasted from the green paddles and the long, white, needle-like spines.

At the top of the Mound by a landmark boulder called Eagle Rock, we had a full 360 degree view of the surrounding terra. Adventurer, lawyer, and painter George Catlin, on his journey to the nearby Pipestone quarry in 1836 wrote:

“There is not a tree or bush to be seen. The eye may range east and west to a boundless extent over a surface covered with grass. The grass is green at one’s feet but changes to blue in the distance like the blue and vastness of the ocean. Man feels here, the thrilling sensation of unlimited freedom.”

From Eagle Rock, it was a short hike down to the former home of Frederick Manfred, author of many books, including Lord Grizzly (made into the movie ‘The Revenant.’) The home and surrounding land was purchased in 1972 by Minnesota State Parks and transformed into the interpretive center (now closed due to structural problems) and Blue Mounds State Park.

The rock used on Manfred’s home was salvaged from the first school built in 1897 in Luverne that had been originally quarried from this historic red rock quarry. The old quarry site is available to climbers, one of whom we talked to who had just free-climbed the steep wall. Meanwhile, my knees got weak as I inched towards the edge and looked down at the beautiful red rock.

We had 1.5 miles to return to the trailhead on the Upper Cliffline trail loop that passed by the quarry. And here I want to give kudos to my Mom, whose almost-mid-80’s birthday we were celebrating. It was a warm, sunny day for this substantial and interesting hike, and she kept up with us ‘young-uns.’ Young and old are such relative terms—weeks ago we were the ‘old ones’ with our kids in the BWCA, and now we were the young ones. My Mom is an inspiration—I hope I’m still hiking and exploring when I’m her age.

Back at our campsite, we rested, built a fire, and assembled our ‘hobo dinners’ of ground beef raised on my Mom’s pasture land, potatoes and onions dug from her garden, and carrots I bought and cut up–lol. We wrapped it all in foil and threw them on the red hot coals. A delicious dinner in fifty minutes along with a tomato and cucumber salad from her garden! She is still a woman of the land—my terra-mother.

At evening sunset time, the resident heron was standing in a golden pool of water—aqua gold—stealthily placing one foot in front of the other for some late-day fishing. The blackbirds were once again noisily settling into their cattail shelters. And as darkness fell, the moon reflected its golden light on the midnight blue water.

The next day, we added ‘aeris’ to our aqua and terra—the air or atmosphere. We hiked at nearby ‘Touch the Sky Prairie’, a joint venture between the Brandenburg Prairie Foundation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Photographer Jim Brandenburg splits his time and love between the Northwoods forests around Ely and the southwestern prairies where he grew up. We had followed his path between these two places. I understand his divided love—the prairie never leaves you, and new places can take up residence in your heart.

While I appreciate the water, I love the land, the earth, and I most specifically love the prairie. It is in my DNA and from my terra-nurturing Mom. The prairie allows a person to ‘see.’ Nothing gets in the way. The prairie holds the water, allows it to flow, and meets the aeris with humbleness. It showcases the large bodies of animals, colorful wildflowers, boulders of geological wonder, and a magnificent sky. The tallgrass prairie has diminished to a small percentage of the land since George Catlin wrote about its ocean-like qualities—fields and trees have replaced the waving grasses. Visiting these historic prairie vistas, with bison and purple asters, reminds me of the ripples generated by one person’s life and choices and how those ripples merge, interact, and combine into one entity. The terra-earth is all of our homes, the aqua-water sustains each one of us, and the aeris-air gives us life. It’s a thrilling sensation.

Aqua Terra Part I

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When we emerged from the wilderness of the Boundary Waters in August, I bought myself a bracelet made from Aqua Terra Jasper to remind me of my amazing week. Water and land. Life-sustaining water and body-grounding earth. The colors of blue-green, sand, and reddish-brown swirled and intermingled on the beads, every one a distinct work of art that together embodied the look and feel of Nature’s offering to us in the Boundary Waters. The stone of peace.

Four weeks after leaving the peace of the Boundary Waters with our kids in far northeastern Minnesota, Chris and I traveled to the southwestern corner of the state to camp for the weekend with my Mom. We met at Blue Mounds State Park, just north of Luverne, in the county named Rock, which we quickly saw was merely an accurate description of the land. As we settled into our campsite—my Mom with her self-renovated retro camper and us in our little tent—we soon discovered that Aqua Terra would also be the most compelling environments of this prairie place.

Right behind our campsite was a short path through a few trees to a cliff of red rocks that overlooked a narrow, dammed lake of Mound Creek. It was the inhabitants of this aqua environment that captured my attention each dawn and dusk and serenaded us each night. With our late afternoon arrival and my mini-exploration, one creature stood in the shallow water in front of a field of waving cattails—a Great Blue Heron. He was statue-still, a little bent-over looking, shoulders drooping as his wings hung down in rest or resignation.

He had some unruly chest plumes, but also a tuft of down feathers at the back of his head—a young one, perhaps? His eyes closed and opened in his stillness.

Down the lake a ways, there stood another aqua-creature, again as still and quiet as a statue, and they seemed to be watching one another. A Canadian Goose stood rather awkwardly, one foot behind the other, with a bent head and neck looking in the direction of the heron. Beside her on the water were little piles of down feathers—at first I thought she had been preening herself, but that usually happens when the bird is relaxed, and she was not relaxed. Perhaps there had been a scuffle of territory between the two? They both stayed in the same position for all the minutes I watched them.

There were some waterfowl who seemed not to have a care in the world—a few immature Blue-Winged Teal (most likely.) Happy ducks swimming through duckweed.

After our quick, light supper, we drove to the Bison viewing platform where the rocky, rolling prairie terra sustains a herd of over 100 bison, including the spring-born calves.

There were many outcrops of Sioux Quartzite rocks and boulders, pink to purple in color from the presence of iron oxide and millions of years of formation. Some of the boulders were as big as a buffalo or is the buffalo as big as a boulder?

The boulders are used as ‘scratching posts’ for the bison and have been for many thousands of years. They rub their wooly heads and necks against the corner of the rocks, and in doing so, smooth the boulders to a shiny pink texture while relieving the itch of shedding their thick winter coats.

Another way bison scratch is using a buffalo wallow in the dirt. They may rub their heads or actually roll in the dirt to help with shedding, to get relief from biting insects, or to cool down in the heat.

Officially, these animals are American Bison—Bison bison as genus and species. But many of us call them buffalo. When the French fur trappers came here in the 1600s, they called them “boeuf” because they looked like the buffalos of Asia and Africa (Water and Cape Buffalos). I tried to call them bison for the weekend, to get my brain and mouth re-trained, but my default is still ‘buffalo.’

Gestation for a bison is 283 days—9.5 months—and the calves are 25-40 pounds at birth with a reddish-brown coat that darkens with age. So even by September, they have coats like their parents, and only size helps to identify them from far away. They are also growing horns already—both males and females.

As we watched, the bison peacefully grazed across the pasture and up the hill, disappearing over the horizon. They graze for nine to eleven hours each day, year round, using their massive heads to move snow aside, if need be.

The earth supported their huge half-ton to ton bodies. Bluestem grass, along with other prairie grasses and wildflowers, is the staple for nourishment to sustain their large frames.

As the sun sank in the western sky and the bison grazed away from us, a flock of blackbirds swooped across the sky, and a pheasant rooster squawked and ran through the grass. Deer leapt across the prairie, their coats burnished by the setting sun. And the nearly-full moon revealed itself as the sky darkened.

Back at our campsite, we heard where the blackbirds were settling for the night—that ‘field’ of cattails by the lake behind us. The chorus of their chattering continued long into the darkness. More geese flew in to Upper Mound Lake, their ‘Aquabnb’ for the night. We heard some rattling calls from the heron who may not have been so happy to share ‘his lake’ with all the others.

In the dusky light, the red rock cliff had a pink and purple glow about it—the firm terra at the edge of the fluid aqua.

The environments themselves—terra and aqua—are incredibly diverse—the number of different species of grasses and perennial wildflowers in a native prairie is in the hundreds, if not thousands. The lakes and streams support the same diversity of aqua species. But the showstoppers of our weekend at Blue Mounds were the birds of the lake and the bison of the land. Both were enchanting. When was the last time you were enchanted? And what was the source of that enchantment? Was it a temporary ‘high’ or a deeply satisfying ‘knowing’ that you were experiencing a bit of magic? The aqua-creatures and the terra-creatures were captivating, especially the heron and the bison. The source of that enchantment was Mother Nature—the creator of all that sustains us, all that supports us, and all that flows within us. Peace.

That’s the Thing About Expectations

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I think me and my expectations need to break up. I have valiantly carried them with me for decades and decades—expectations for myself, my family, my friends, the teachers of my life, the service people in daily life, the political power-brokers, and just about everyone. And by expectations, I mean high ones, but most of the time, I would settle for decent. And still, I get disappointed.

This past weekend, I had high expectations for Mother Nature, too. We had signs of Fall here and there, but the majority of trees were still green, so I figured if we headed north, we would see some Autumn glory. Yes! We went up to Crow Wing State Park in the Brainerd area, and I fully expected to see a forest of beautifully-colored trees and plants. Umm, not okay. It didn’t look any different from those here at home. And sure enough, I felt disappointed.

The only thing I was even half way happy about when we arrived was that the Mississippi River water level was higher than the last time we were there. The last time, rocks poked up through the slow-moving water and the shoreline was sandy-muddy wide—I was so disheartened that I would not even take a picture of it. The drought had taken the ‘mighty’ out of the Mississippi.

Crow Wing River was a narrow channel of water where it flows around Crow Wing Island to meet the Mississippi. The tributary was doing its best to contribute, but the lack of rain up-river starved it of its normal current. Some recent rains had tempered the extreme drought conditions, but we were far from ‘back to normal.’ And that also partly explains the story of the trees—they had had a stressful summer. Their priority had been staying alive—and oftentimes, the endeavor is not pretty. Many leaves had dried up and turned brown from lack of moisture. We crunched through them on the trail. But the green of the trees did hold a slight golden hue, so perhaps it was also my entitled expectation that just got the time-line or the place wrong.

I complained for awhile (forgive me, Mother Nature), even as I noticed the more subtle signs of Fall. The perennial plants and grasses were different shades of Autumn—rust, burgundy, and orange—and they had all produced their varied and valuable seeds! The harvest abundance of Autumn seeds had formed and matured despite the constricting conditions of drought. The will to reproduce is strong.

As we walked and I noticed the pinking of Virginia Creeper on its way to brilliant crimson and the late-flowering spike of Mullein against a tall Oak, I realized that I had been wrong in my expectations. I had been arrogant to think that the forest of Crow Wing should be what I wanted it to be when I wanted it. I expressed my realization out loud to Chris, giving credence and appreciation to the ‘process’ of Autumn. We can’t just be present for the ‘glory.’

And soon, I began to see signs of the ‘glory!’ The sky had cleared to a brilliant azure blue with puffy balls of white clouds. An Ash tree stood like a tower of golden finery. A Red Oak had begun the transformation to its namesake color.

And a little Ironwood tree stood on the edge of a Pine forest like a princess among the royal elders, its skirt held out in a curtsy with dried seedheads for a crown.

Chris’ good snake-eye saw a slim little Red-bellied snake camouflaged among the rusty red Pine needles. That’s a treasure!

A Maple tree, in just the right sunny spot, displayed the colors of Fall—yellow, orange, and red—in the ‘process’ of winding down its chlorophyll production, of letting the summer leaves fall away, and of preparing for the season of Winter. It was doing what it needed to do.

The sun light and the shadows of the things that stand in its way, tell stories that flash into our brains and rest there until we are ready to take them out, hear them, see them, examine them. Expectations are part of those stories.

Disappointment can be the very real outcome of high expectations. It feels like a slap to the face or unexpectantly taking a hard fall. It stings, it’s surprising to our self-centered way of thinking, and it is a betrayal of sorts. That’s the thing about expectations. But just as I’m ready to throw in the towel on expectations so as not to experience disappointment, I become a referee between those high expectations and the results of letting go of them. There are reasons for rules, standards, protocol, doing things right, living up to our better angels, and wanting the best for others. It’s how the game of life is played. It’s how we mitigate chaos, produce results, ensure safety, and live with joy that comes from goodness. Last weekend I wanted the glory of Autumn on my timeline. What I got was a soul-smacking dose of disappointment and a subtle take-me-by-the-hand walk to humbleness. A lesson to temper my expectations? We carry the light and the shadows of our stories, and when we examine those stories, the old things fall away, including some expectations and disappointments. We embrace the process. We celebrate progress, even if that means stepping into winter. The light in our eyes and in our lives gets brighter.

Flow

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Night slipped away as the dawn quietly and confidently displayed its pastel colors in sky and water. Chris and I crept through camp to the high boulder overlooking the track-filled wetland, hoping to catch a glimpse of a morning moose or bear. But nothing caught our attention beyond the dawn sky.

The kids were beginning to stir when we got back to camp. Breakfast and packing up on the last morning of our trip felt easier because of practice and a bit sad because of the flow I was starting to feel. I felt like I could do this for another five days, now that I had overcome some of the challenges.

With the sun to our backs, we glided away from our campsite. Chris and I were the first ones out, with Emily’s directive to find the short portage at the west end of the lake. We had only paddled a few hundred yards, which by the way, was going extremely smoothly compared to every other morning—hooray!—when I was looking over at a large beaver lodge on the shore. I noticed two pointy ears sticking up behind the lodge. I got super excited, stopped paddling, fumbled to get my camera out of my life jacket, whispered ‘Wolf!’ to Chris who I don’t think heard me, and started taking pictures.

But I didn’t have to hurry—he was not afraid of us. He watched us watching him, then turned and looked at the kids farther back, then turned back to us. A beautiful black wolf! He was fairly thin with a sleek summer coat, and I wondered if he was hoping to catch a beaver this fine morning. I was so happy to see him! What an amazing creature! He stayed there long enough for the kids to paddle close enough to see him, then turned and walked into the forest.

We passed by a campsite right before the portage where two men were preparing their breakfast—one was slight, old, and bent over at the shoulders. He greeted us enthusiastically with information I didn’t really understand. He said half the people were portaging through the five-rod portage and the other half were pulling through. I smiled, nodded, and thanked him, not having a clue about the ‘pulling through’ thing. When Aaron caught up to us, he explained that sometimes, depending on the water level of the creek/river that connects the two lakes, you can get out and walk the creek and pull the packed canoe through to the next lake. I wanted to try that! It was fun, and it worked! Easy! The river channel into Splash Lake was calm and beautiful.

It was not far to our next and last portage, a thirty-rod portage that would return us to Newfound and Moose Lakes where we began our trek. When we got close to the portage, we could see it was the busiest of all the portages we had been through. We let a group of guys pass by us but could also see a group (or two?) coming into Splash Lake from the other way. It was kind of a mess. Emily had warned us earlier that she had little patience for such portage messiness—there is portage protocol, courtesy, and responsibility, and when people breeched that in obtuse ways, she moves into ‘take charge’ mode. A group of people with excessive piles of gear—folding camp chairs, Coleman camp stoves, tents, bags, canoes, etc.—were standing around. Were they waiting for more things? We disembarked and swiftly got packed up and canoed up with Emily and Zoe in the lead. Aaron was the last one out with a pack and canoe and took an alternate route through low branches because the other group had started to move into the lake—bad form on their part. Our last portage was still smooth in the midst of messiness, and I was proud of our strong, experienced kids.

At the other side of the portage sat a man in a motorboat who had ‘towed’ in the last group and their gear. He had even portaged things through for them. He was waiting for another group that was coming out that would ride back to their landing instead of paddling back. He said he had plenty of time for a nap, however.

We paddled on through the wide channel into Newfound Lake. I was startled when an eagle flew from a nearby tree, out above us, to a tree in front of us. When we ‘caught up’ to him, he flew ahead to another tree. We and he were at the end of a point, the end of the channel, and when we caught up to him again, he flew into the forest. It was like he was guiding us to Newfound Lake, to Horseshoe Island, back to where we had started five days before.

As we paddled through Newfound Lake, we saw a group of four canoes leave a campsite as we passed by. It was a group of all men, and it soon became evident that there was one canoe that could not keep up with the others. (Sounds and feels very familiar.) The ‘lead’ canoe had a boisterous bearded man in the back who was drinking coffee, singing, and at various times, playing the ukulele! They would paddle ahead, then stop and wait for the slow canoe to catch up. We were on par with the slow canoe, so we saw and heard the exuberant troubadour many times. His singing drifted back to us as we got to the windy, wavy Moose Lake. Emily reminded me that I would have to dig in and keep paddling as we headed into the wind—and I did. I was in the flow—I knew what to do, my muscles were strong, my mind was grateful, and the troubadour sang us on. “Toes in the water…not a worry in the world…life is good today.” **

Three hours and six and a half miles after seeing the wolf, we were pulling into the Moose Lake landing. I couldn’t believe it was over! But it wasn’t quite over. We unpacked, repacked, returned gear to KWK, took our unbathed bodies into the coffee shop in Ely (a common sight/smell in Ely), and took off for Duluth and the shining Lake Superior where we would shower, get a burger and beer, and sleep in a bed.

As we re-entered ‘normal’ life from the wilderness, the processing of the trip began. But even as small a town as Ely is, it was rather shocking to me and my body with all the people, cell phones and towers, cars, stores, etc. It was ‘too much’ at the beginning—I wanted to be back in the quiet trees and water. The week had been a mini-lifetime, when you start out as a young novice full of anticipation and excitement, then trials and tribulations pull you down and threaten your will to go on, when challenges of all sorts throw roadblocks to mind and body, then accomplishments and triumphs build confidence, and finally, transcendence and flow ‘miraculously’ appear. It was a hero’s journey for me, when time is of a different realm and the universe has lessons to teach.

As the week had progressed, it became evident that our bodies are meant to move and that we can be sustained on much less food, even with that exertion, than we typically ingest in our ‘normal’ life. I felt better, stronger, more able, and happier as the week went on—it was like my DNA recognized this way of being, and my body responded.

I also realized how often we ‘give away’ our precious time to external standards and pastimes that actually have little meaning or benefit to our lives. Just the idea of running every aspect of our life by the clock is challenged when you live without one. It was disorienting at first, to be sure, but as the week progressed, a natural rhythm ensued that seemed to benefit us all (even when we determined we should get an ‘early start’ the next day.) And then there’s the internet and social media….for those of us who have lived a substantial period of our lives without it, we can ‘remember’ how we had perfectly wonderful lives before its invention and access…but how many have forgotten that? Life is fully lived in the wilderness without computers and cell phones, and there was a heart-filling freedom to experiencing that with our adult children.

That leads me to the third take-away from the week—how we can’t do this thing called life alone. We need one another. From the beginning stages of our planning for the BWCA trip, I needed and appreciated the advice and knowledge from our kids who had planned and led so many previous trips. Experience and expertise matters. It matters not for individual glory and adulation but for how it can help people. From day one of our journey (and for forty years before that), I am grateful to have my partner Chris beside me (or behind me in the canoe) giving me encouragement and support—through every doubt, freakout, breakdown, triumph, excitement, and discovery. He brings humor, steadfastness, love, and movement to my life. I am grateful for the leadership, clarity, and purpose that Emily brought to all of us, and for her ability to articulate difficult things in loving ways. I am grateful for Shawn’s quiet tenacity, his amazing storehouse of knowledge, and his ability to rise to every difficult situation. I so appreciate Aaron’s quiet skills and patience, his caring heart, his humor, and his resolve. I’m grateful for Zoe’s strength and competence, her ability to relax at any given time, her consideration, and her quick wit. And so much more—from all of them. We all brought our strengths and weaknesses, our idiosyncrasies and foibles, our wounds and powers. We had an advantage being a family group that we were familiar with the dynamics beforehand and more free to share our vulnerabilities and the words of our hearts. For every difficult time when we needed everyone’s skills and participation, there were countless times of ease and joy of being together. And so it is with life, wherever we are. So keep paddling, for life is good today.

This is the fifth post in a series of five that chronicles my experience of five days in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA). It is best to read the whole series from the beginning (Anticipation) in order to understand certain things I refer to in my other posts.

**from ‘Toes’ by Zac Brown Band

Ascending

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Sometime in the night the air cooled, became less muggy, less smokey. The sky was darker, the stars more brilliant. On my nighttime trip outside of the tent, I had to use my headlamp to see my steps, and the shock of it scared a foraging deer close by—at least I think it was a deer? We had gone to bed when the sun set and rose before its rising. I had slept better than the previous nights, thank goodness.

This would be our shortest day of paddling—only about four miles—as we moved into the next large lake that would get us close for our exit day on Friday. The challenge was to find a campsite in a lake where many were ‘staying put.’ We were all up early and ate cupfuls of granola with powdered milk, and the coffee drinkers drank instant cold-brew coffee so as not to take time to heat water.

photo by Chris

We fueled ourselves for the second 180-rod portage of our trip—we only had a short paddle from the campsite to the portage entrance. I was confident I could carry our pack like I did for the other portages—until I saw the steep, rocky incline of the trail—whooaa! Most of the others had already gone before me with their gear, so I used the paddles for climbing poles (not the best idea for paddles, but definitely useful) and slowly made my way up the rocks. The ascent continued. The trail peaked as we walked on huge boulders with crimson-colored wild blueberry bushes lining our path. A small clearing in the trees allowed Emily and I to see that we were at the highest elevation of our whole trip! We had climbed the ‘mountains’ that I had not wanted to portage up the day before! As we got closer to Ensign Lake, and the descent became steeper, Aaron came back to help after dropping his gear. I handed the pack off to him for the last leg.

photo by Chris

After our ‘hooray, we did it!’ moment, we paddled on around the huge island-like peninsula of Ensign Lake. We saw campsites with large tents and colorful shade cloths, unlike anything we had seen thus far. The kids fished as we paddled, and I noticed how Autumn had suddenly appeared in the northlands.

We found a campsite on a point across from an island that was close to the west side of Ensign—a perfect spot for our last night in the BWCA.

We unloaded, set up a shade tarp and hammock, and the activities began. Aaron and Shawn went fishing, Emily and Zoe went swimming, and I went exploring. There was a nice little cove made by the point and the island with lots of rocky shore to climb along. The rocks were amazing! Most of the point was a dark purplish-colored rock that looked almost like some kind of lava rock. When I got to a place where some had chipped away, I saw that it was Ely Greenstone, which is a metamorphic rock that began as basalt lava flows that gushed onto a cold sea floor 2.7 billion years ago. The green color is from a number of different green minerals that grew in the rock. Ancient Earth history under my feet.

Harebell

I moved away from the shore to climb boulders that buttressed the whole point of land, and from my vantage point, I saw where the cove met the land behind our campsite. That looks like a perfect place for moose, I thought, then saw the many tracks imprinted in the mud. But I could not tell what kind of animal made them.

The rocky trail wound back to the campsite through dried ferns and the unusual wildflower called Fireweed. The intricate lavender flowers produce elongated seed pods that burst open to fluffy white down that carry the seed on the wind. The plant is so named as it is one of the first plants to grow after a wildfire.

Emily had brought a little travel pack of watercolor paints to reignite her artistic talents that, like so many things in all our lives, had been put on the back burner of her daily life. She set up her painter’s table on a flat rock close to the water’s edge, and the two of us painted. While we were painting, we heard and saw fish jumping at the rock point so alerted Chris to that. Not long afterwards, Chris caught a nice Walleye that, along with a Northern Pike Aaron caught, became our supper.

photo by Emily
photo by Emily

Our constant companions in camp were a trio of Ruffed Grouse—they scurried around on the trails and through the brush, not seeming to mind at all that we were there. They flew up four or five feet to ‘pick’ the red rose hips, a fruit packed with vitamin C.

I was still very curious about the tracks in the cove, so had Aaron take me there in the canoe, but I still couldn’t get close enough to see what made the tracks. So I trekked along the shore rocks again to the land side of the cove. The ground was squishy, but I walked on the sedge grass that grew between the mud and the forest. Then I was close enough to see…the moose tracks…

…and the bear tracks…and the wolf tracks! The big three of the Northwoods had pushed pathways through the shrubs and sedge grass to get to the water’s edge. Here was evidence of the reason we protect our food in bear barrels hung in trees.

When I returned to the campsite, Chris was talking to a man and a woman who had pulled their canoe up to the shore. They explained they had dropped their water filter in a lake and needed water. As they talked, the woman filtered lake water into their Nalgenes from one of our filter bags. Filtering water is a necessary and sometime tedious job that someone has to do multiple times a day, especially in the heat that we experienced in our week there. The small bags can be filled, the filter screwed on, then squeezed to filter the water directly into Nalgene bottles. The big bag (with filter) can be hung from a branch or rope to let gravity slowly do the work. The experienced Canadian travelers were grateful for the water, and talked about their troubles of finding campsites on their trip also.

Aaron and Chris filleted the fish, and Aaron cooked it over the small camp stove—it was so good! As evening arrived, we set up tents, hung the bear barrels, and I took one last hike to the boulder look-out to see if any of the big three had come to the water. I saw lichen-covered rocks and Aaron and Zoe fishing, but that was it.

Shawn was fishing from the shore as the sun set and the moon ascended above the trees and reflected its reflected light onto the water. Another peaceful evening.

photo by Emily

Day #4 was a wonderful day! My paddle-down-head-down moments were minimal as we left Vera Lake. I had made such progress since my Tuesday morning breakdown. The portage was surprising to me—coming up to it, I couldn’t see that it would be such a steep climb. But once again, our choice wasn’t even a choice—we just did it. I’m not even sure why I was so scared of portaging ‘the mountain’ the day before, but I guess it was my lack of confidence in myself. So the blueberry-bush-lined portage was another big deal for me—I ascended the ‘mountain’ and rose in confidence. I loved our downtime at the campsite with painting, scaling boulders, eating fish, being with grouse, and, of course, seeing the tracks of the big three of the North (if only I could have seen the animals from my boulder lookout!) I was already getting kind of sad that the next day would be our last—just when I was really getting the hang of all of this! But each day, each breakdown, each resolve, each portage, and each challenge lifted me to a better place.

This is the fourth post in a series of five that chronicles my experience of five days in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA). It is best to read the whole series from the beginning (Anticipation) in order to understand certain things I refer to in my other posts.

Challenge

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The quiet, still mornings in the Boundary Waters are the epitome of peacefulness. We don’t realize how noisy our normal world is until we experience the wilderness. Despite another night of not sleeping well (I found myself rolling downhill off my sleeping pad), the dawn light and smooth water soothed my morning fatigue and rejuvenated my spirit. After our difficult day #2 that had little time for fishing, Aaron rose with the sun and launched the canoe to glide on the glassy water of Dix Lake and entice some fish. The mirror reflection of the shore trees and rocks is a little disorienting—the ‘real’ world doubles in illusion.

Aaron had a couple of bites, and he discovered some other early morning adventurers. He saw a mama otter swimming with her two young ones. Otters are such excellent swimmers—graceful, playful, and skilled. When Aaron got too close to them in the water, they popped up onto shore, and mama hissed at him to stay away from her babies. They then disappeared into the woods but reappeared in the water farther down the shore.

After the previous challenging day of finding a campsite and lacking any desire to stay in the cramped site that saved us the night before, we got an early start. We ate a quick oatmeal breakfast, then packed up and pushed off. I wish I could say my reckoning from the day before had eliminated my morning paddling struggles, but I had my fair share of paddle-down-head-down moments. But it was better than the previous two days, so progress is good in my book. We had a short 30-rod portage into Skoota Lake, then prepared our heads (okay, I did) for our longest-yet portage of 180 rods (a little over half a mile). It was a challenge I was ready to accept! I carried my pack and paddles up and down the rocky terrain—another milestone for me to check off. After our portage, we were rewarded by one of the most beautiful lakes we paddled through—Missionary Lake. The pictures don’t do it justice!

Another short portage brought us to Trader Lake, a smaller lake with no campsites. We paddled around a large peninsula looking for the next portage. All I could see were steep hills, and I commented I didn’t want to portage up those ‘mountains!’ The trail makers had chosen wisely though, in a place that went between the steepest elevation with only a rocky descent into Vera Lake. Our smooth portages continued with us getting all our gear in one trip and with the kids carrying packs and canoes.

photo by Chris

It was a hot, hazy day, but with our early start we progressed through five lakes and four portages and found the last campsite on Vera was open! And it was only mid-morning! We were going to have a much more relaxing day than the day before! Our campsite was large; our tents were scattered out so that no snoring, talking in our sleep (a-hmm, like the previous night), or zzzipping the tents open and closed would disturb the others. The animals of our campsite were lots of chipmunks who bravely skittered around in the hopes of food crumbs (and climbed over Emily’s shoulders), Ruffed Grouse who made funny little ‘talking’ sounds, and of course, the Loon of the Lake who crooned us to sleep at night.

Paddling, portaging, and sleeping were not my only challenges of the week. I like to have things…clean. While I absolutely love being outside and embrace being ‘in the dirt’ in the garden and flower beds, food preparation is another story. The first time we stopped for lunch (and every meal since) when I saw all the bags of food being put down in the dirt around the bear barrels, I had a physical reaction. I wanted to pick them up and put them on….something. By the second night I was heralding the presence of a large, flat rock beside the fire grate—“We have a table!” But once again, the kids were the pros at this, despite working in the dirt. I never bit into a ‘gritty’ piece of food, I never had to brush dirt off anything I was eating, and really, I just had to ‘get over it’ a bit, because ‘when in the Boundary Waters…!’ Washing the dishes was another area where I needed to ‘loosen up.’ We didn’t have the time (at times) or the energy (at times) to heat water and wash them in hot water with camp suds. So I turned a blind eye towards that after a while (and survived.)

Another aspect of BWCA wilderness life is the latrine. From the campsite, there is a path that wanders into the woods until you reach the latrine. It is an open-air bathroom, the most primitive of outhouses. So the system of the latrine is a ‘toilet’ bag with rolls of paper to get everyone through the week and some hand sanitizer that is placed at the beginning of the latrine trail. If the bag is there, nobody is at the latrine, so pick up the bag and take it with you. If no bag, wait until the person comes back. Simple.

So much of the ‘land’ in northern Minnesota is actually just rock, and many of the campsites are positioned on large outcroppings that jut into the lakes. This huge boulder was unusual with its lines of white quartz, like ancient artwork preserved for our modern eyes.

photo by Emily

In the heat of the day, I waded into the cool, refreshing water to where I could still stand and ungracefully dog-paddled to and fro (unlike the otters)—it was my first ‘swimming’ adventure in nearly three decades. The fishermen fished, some napped, some read, and we watched canoers pass by looking for an open campsite. We knew their frustration, even as we breathed a sigh of relief that on this day, we were settled for the afternoon and night. We had a delicious supper of chicken tacos. With our limited, measured food, we anticipated our meals with excitement, enjoyed them with gusto, and appreciated them for fueling our bodies. At dusk, Emily went swimming again while Aaron and Zoe fished. The peacefulness of our early morning settled over us again with the smokey sunset. And with that, it was time to get ready for bed.

photo by Shawn
photo by Shawn

Life is simplified in the wilderness. The sun and stars are the clocks (though I don’t know how to ‘read’ the stars yet, I was aware of their movement through the night), food is life-giving and limited, water is abundant, the ‘work’ of paddling and portaging literally gets us to a new place, and art and beauty surround us. Challenges are simplified also. As Emily said the day before as we sat in the middle of a lake with no campsite in sight—what other choice do we have but to keep paddling? In the modern world, with copious choices for nearly everything, challenges and even day-to-day events can be confusing—too many choices do not give a person clarity. Being in the wilderness allows your mind and soul to rest and rejuvenate, and even challenges can bring peace.

This is the third post in a series of five that chronicles my experience of five days in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA). It is best to read the whole series from the beginning (Anticipation) in order to understand certain things I refer to in my other posts.

Reckoning

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What keeps us from the restorative bliss of sleep? Who are the gatekeepers that decide whether we have restful sleep or fitful stirrings and wide-eyed starings into the dark? My first night in the Boundary Waters was the later. I was tired enough, and no caffeine gatekeeper propped my eyes open. It was not the fear gatekeeper, as I was on solid ground, and I was not afraid of any potential bears bumbling into our campsite. (I have an intimate past with the fear gatekeeper who has kept me awake far too many nights of my life.) Pain is a common gatekeeper—physical pain or emotional pain, it makes no difference—there is no restful sleep for the pained, a relief though it is. I think I was under the influence of the busy-mind gatekeeper—I had so much to think about and process from the unusual, out-of-my-comfort-zone day. Drinking too much water towards the end of the day didn’t help any. Zzzzipping out of the tent and zzzzipping back in seemed to make enough noise to wake all the critters of the forest. It was also too warm, too muggy, and too smokey, so I guess the discomfort gatekeeper was standing guard. The fitful sleep and star-staring was the background to the most difficult day of our trip…and to my most important one.

When I opened my eyes and saw the red ball of sun rising over the water, I zzzzipped out of bed and found Chris already throwing in a line. It’s good his day started peaceful.

We had a ‘big’ breakfast—hashbrowns, scrambled eggs (thanks to Egg Beaters) with bacon bits, and hot tea and coffee. Water for coffee, cooking, or washing dishes is dipped from the lake and boiled for a couple minutes.

After breakfast, we cleaned up, packed up, and got ready to travel into Knife Lake. We talked about portaging, as we had five portages to get from Birch Lake to Knife Lake. Portages are the ‘hiking’ portion of a BWCA trip, how we get from one lake to another or around a rocky rapids area of a river that connects two lakes. Ideally, you do it all in one trip with everyone carrying something. Something meaning packs, canoes, paddles, and fishing poles. I was excited for my first portages!

But first, a breakdown…and I don’t mean an analysis of the game of portaging. I mean me, once I was in the canoe again…trying to paddle. It’s like my arms weren’t working right. I felt weak. The kids were already a ways ahead of us. I would put the paddle down, hang my head down, and try to talk myself back to it. It wasn’t working very well—my paddle and head were down for longer than I was moving forward. I started to cry. I was so frustrated with myself. Unfortunately for Chris, I took a bunch of that frustration out on him. As the ‘back’ person in the canoe, he was responsible for steering us, and I was the forward motion ‘power.’ Since I wasn’t bringing the ‘power,’ it felt like we weren’t going anywhere—and if we were, it felt like the wrong direction. I was chippy with him, asking those no-answer questions like, “Why are we going in that direction?” and “Where are you going?” He probably didn’t hear half of them. I don’t remember how long before the kids stopped and waited for us. I felt, once again, like I couldn’t do this. Emily was a little exasperated with me, ” Mom, you can’t keep doing this!” More tears, more frustration with myself. Finally, Aaron told us when campers were having a hard time, everybody would just take a break. Put the paddles down. Sit still. Breathe. So we did that. I don’t know how long…but it worked. I was able to paddle again.

We glided through the long, narrow, beautiful Birch Lake until we got to our first portage—a 40 rod portage. (One rod is equal to 16.5 feet, which is the length of an average canoe.) I heard him before I saw him. He greeted us with some chattering calls. I quickly pulled my camera from my life jacket pocket, thinking he would fly away. But he didn’t. He was the portage gatekeeper. He watched us disembark from the canoes, get the packs and canoes hoisted onto our shoulders, and walk into the woods! I heard him make the same calls when a canoe behind us came to the portage!

Young Eagle
First portage

On the other side of the portage, we stopped to celebrate our first one! I now knew I could carry a personal pack, which Aaron estimated to be between thirty-five and forty pounds. But it was the kids who really impressed me—how they easily carried a pack and a canoe!

We had portaged around a rocky creek, and I didn’t realize until looking at the map just now that the creek belonged to Canada. We were walking the line and canoeing the line between two countries.

Female Common Merganser

We lunched in Carp Lake. We portaged into Melon Lake, a small, shallow lake with the clearest water—it was like a natural swimming pool. We portaged again and again up the Knife River. Our portages were smooth—everyone knew what they were carrying and who was helping who with lifting packs or clipping water bottles. After our longest portage of the day, 92 rods, we opened up into Knife Lake. The water was ‘bigger’ than we had traveled all day, more open, windier, and wavier. Our first priority was to find a campsite.

Common Loon
Beaver lodge

Every campsite, marked with a red dot on the maps, was occupied. What was strange is we had only seen two groups traveling all day. We felt like the lone canoers on Knife. We paddled on. The air got smokier, and the sun got hotter. It was somewhere on Knife Lake where I had a reckoning with the water and waves. The kids were scouting each campsite, so often they were headed in different directions, and Chris and I tried to just move towards them or between them. We didn’t really know where we were going—we were just going and knowing they were not waving us in to a campsite. In the reckoning, I gave in to the waves. In the reckoning, I rode on the deep waters. I was paddling strong and steady, and at times, it felt like we were skimming from wave top to wave top as light as a feather. While some of the others were voicing their discouragement, I finally felt like I could do this!

photo by Emily

We passed about fifteen campsites before we changed course to portage into some smaller lakes to see if the few campsites on them were open. It also turned the loop on our traveling so we were heading back towards our entry/exit point instead of going farther north and east. The campsites on the first two lakes we portaged into were taken. As the sun got lower in the sky, Aaron was formulating his plan of what to do if no campsites were available by dark (we found out later.) We portaged out of Spoon Lake through a mucky, swampy, muddy portage. The muck was so deep we couldn’t get out of the canoes, but the water was so shallow and littered with logs that we got hung up. Aaron helped ‘lift’ our canoe over the logs from his canoe and by balancing on the slippery logs until we got to solid ground. As we began our eighth portage of the day, we hoped and prayed the next lake would offer us a campsite. We didn’t paddle long before Aaron scoped out a place that barely even looked like a campsite—but it was, and it was unoccupied! We had made it!

photo by Emily
photo by Emily

We unloaded, pulled the canoes out of the water, and got down to the business of filtering water and preparing supper. We had pizza! The pre-baked pizza crusts had been quartered in order to fit in the bear barrels. We topped each with pizza sauce, green peppers, onion, pepperoni, and cheese and ‘baked’ them in a frying pan over the backpacking stove. They tasted so good! We cleaned up quickly, set our tents up in the very small, bumpy area around the fire grate, stuck the bear barrels under the canoes for this one night, and soon the mosquitoes chased us into our tents. What a big, big day!

A reckoning is an appraisal or judgement of a situation. It is often used in a financial way of settling accounts. In a spiritual way, it is wrestling with our inner thoughts and emotions about any given thing, usually when our backs are up against the wall or in my case, when in the middle of a lake in a canoe for hours with no campsite in sight. Not only did I have to reckon with my feelings of fear about the deep water and the waves, I also had to reckon with my feelings of inadequacy. That part actually played out over the five days, but I made a huge step forward in my self-confidence. Later, after we were off trail, Emily asked me why I thought I needed to keep up with the ones who were so much younger and more experienced. Hmmm, that’s a good question.

Our quiet timekeeper (who had a watch) told us we had been on the water for eight hours that day. I had no concept it had been that long. We traveled through eight lakes, big and small, and had hiked eight portages. That was the accounting, the summing up, the reckoning of our day #2 in logistic terms.

The reckoning inside myself probably wouldn’t have happened without the challenge of all those eights, and for that reason, I am grateful for the day. I wondered how my sleep deprivation had played into it all—had it opened me up to the reckoning? I know I’m not proud of my snipping at Chris all day long or of how raw and vulnerable I felt in the morning, but it led me to a triumph I didn’t think possible. So respect to the gatekeepers, whoever they are.

This is the second post in a series of five that chronicles my experience of five days in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA). It is best to read the whole series from the beginning (Anticipation) in order to understand certain things I refer to in my other posts.

Anticipation

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The pandemic birthed the idea. We were having weekly Zoom meetings with some of our kids in the winter of the Winter. Our extroverted daughter Emily was struggling with the isolation and the unknown, undetermined future. She wondered how I could seem so happy in the midst of it all. (Introvert advantage.) She reminded us again and again, ‘We-all aren’t getting any younger.” Her desire for movement, planning, connection, action, and excitement was palpable. I knew how important it was for her to have something to look forward to, and her ‘not getting any younger’ statement hit home with me…so I said, “Why don’t we plan a summer trip to the Boundary Waters?” And the anticipation began.

Anticipation includes preparation, expectation, eagerness, planning, and excitement about something that is going to happen. For me, anticipating this trip into the Boundary Waters also included apprehension, doubts, and a good dose of the big, boogeyman F-word—Fear. While Emily and Aaron had both been guides for many summers preparing for and taking people into the Boundary Waters, this trip would be my first time…. And I don’t swim. And I’m kind of scared of deep water. And I’m afraid of tipping the canoe…and losing my glasses…and not keeping up…and, well, the list goes on. But plans were made, equipment acquired, plane tickets from Texas reserved, BWCA (Boundary Waters Canoe Area) permit obtained, menu planned, food bought, etc., etc. On August 14th, we headed north.

We stayed two nights at KoWaKan, the camp the kids worked at during their college years. We did our last minute shopping (and eating) in Ely and spent time relaxing in the sun and beauty of the northwoods.

Beaver family

We talked about our goals (fishing was high on the list) and concerns. My concern was waves and how to navigate them, so Aaron hopped into a canoe with me on that very windy day, and we practiced.

By evening, the last minute packing was underway, and the non-essentials were stashed in the vehicles for our return. The anticipation was building.

There’s a fine line between excitement and nervousness. As the packs and canoes were loaded on the cars the next morning, I crossed that line. My stomach began to feel ill. I took a few trips to the outhouse. Tears welled up in my eyes. My steps slowed. Now that we were ready to go, I was not at all sure I could do this.

Chris, Emily, and the others gave reassurance that they would help me and take good care of me. I trusted their experience and their words. Deep breaths. We drove to Moose Lake entry point, unloaded the three canoes, five packs, and fishing poles, and we were off on our BWCA adventure!

photo by Emily

Fishing began right away—for the humans and the eagles that chattered from the trees alongside the lake.

In the months prior to our trip, I had a BWCA map laid out on a bed, and I looked at it every morning. I had no idea at first how far we would go, so I concentrated on Moose Lake where our entry point was and hoped we could get to Horseshoe Island in Newfound Lake, the lake after Moose.

Little did I know at the time that we would be eating our lunch on the first day on Horseshoe Island! It’s strange not knowing the time at any given time of the day. We looked to the sun and our stomachs for clues, but as the days went by, it mattered less and less what the actual time was since it had no bearing on our day. But it was hard to let that time-structure go.

Food preparation was planned and executed by Emily who had done the same process for numerous groups over three summers. She made a menu, we bought the food, she measured it out, bagged it up, and labeled everything. All the food has to be carried in and contained in ‘bear barrels’—plastic barrels with metal closures that protect the food from bears. Since it was a drought year, and wildlife were hungrier than usual, the bear barrels also were required to be hung in trees at night and during the day when mealtime was over.

She had different stuff sacks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner to help organize the barrels. As plastic food bags emptied, they were used for trash, as it is required to carry out all trash. (Which has to go back into the barrels, so it doesn’t attract bears.) Lunches were bagels or pitas, summer sausage, cheese, or peanut butter and jelly. We had one apple each for the week so could choose which day we wanted it. Carrots were our ‘fresh’ vegetables. A handful of trail mix or a homemade granola bar were for dessert or a needed snack.

After lunch we paddled through Sucker Lake until we reached…Canada! We turned to Birch Lake where the low-horsepower motor boats were no longer allowed as they were on Moose, Newfound, and Sucker Lakes.

We paddled with Canada on our left and the United States on our right until we found a campsite on a peninsula that was hanging by a five-rod portage to the mainland. The almost-island campsite was our home for the night.

We unloaded the canoes, set up tents and hammocks, and hung the bear barrels. The fishermen got serious about fishing. The nappers got serious about napping.

The hazy sky of afternoon turned smokier—we could smell it, and the smoke seemed to settle on the water. Because of the drought and Canadian wildfires, there has been a fire ban in the BWCA and most of northern Minnesota. So no campfires for us or anyone. We cooked over a small white gas backpacking stove—our first supper was macaroni and cheese with polish sausages. So good! The largest fish of the trip was caught by our son-in-law Shawn just as evening settled around us. The feisty 30-inch Northern was the one who got away before a picture could be taken—but the excitement of the ones who saw him will stay with us.

We traveled for about eight miles this first day with no portages (as we determined by the map and key after we returned from our trip.) I was getting used to the water and waves. The process was intriguing, the landscape incredibly beautiful, and the companionship of our family comforting.

Because of the drought, there were not many wildflowers blooming, but down by the water in a little boggy area beside our tent, the showy Jewelweed brightened up the dry and dusty landscape. It’s a native plant of the Impatiens genus whose sap from the watery stems has been used by Native Americans to relieve pain and itching from hives, poison ivy, and insect bites. A jewel to look at and a jewel for relief.

Jewelweed

My anticipation of our Boundary Waters trip was like the Jewelweed—part jewel and part weed. I loved the excitement and planning of it over months of otherwise difficult times of pandemic and political unrest and uncertainty. It is a priceless gemstone to engage with adult children in a common love and endeavor. But there were definitely weedy things about it—even though my decision to suggest the trip in the first place took much thought and can-do self-encouragement, I still struggled with my fears when the time actually came. If only our fears could be plucked out like weeds and tossed into the compost pile. But they reside with us until they are respectfully encountered and challenged. As I stared up at the stars in our unflyed tent, listening to the calming, flute-like calls of Loons and hoping for a breeze on the stuffy, smokey night, I decided that it had been a pretty great first day.

This is the first post in a series of five that chronicles my experience of five days in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA). It is best to read the whole series from the beginning (Anticipation) in order to understand certain things I refer to in my other posts.