September 7, 2023

The Day of our Start on the Boundary Waters

At the time I am typing this, we have returned to Ely a day early that story is coming. I could not blog while in the wilderness, but I journaled daily using paper and pencil. So now I’m typing my entries one at a time. I’m hoping that the only suspense lost is that the wilderness did not take our lives.

It is 4:00 PM as I write this. Terry is asleep in the tent. The water on Nina Moose Lake is dead calm. A strip of glass is traveling through the middle of the water. In front of me a Norway pine tree branch dips over the water. They look as though they are part of long grass standing tall in the water and rimming the ledgerock that dominates the shoreline.

I only hear an occasional fly. No hum of anything mechanical. No low murmurs of distant words, laughter or music. Periodically a blue jay squawks.

The glass strip in the lake is bigger. If I paddle out to it now, it would feel like floating on a mirror not knowing if the clouds are above or below. And then that strip in the lake is broken by the slightest of ripple caused by the slightest of breeze.

Terry’s snoring is lost and now his sleeping is silence.

We dove into my half baked plan without the trepidation it desired. It seems everyone who does these canoe trips in the Boundary Waters carries a huge blue barrel and a large dry bag. They all seem fine or maybe resigned to carry this heavy, awkward gear over one portage several times. I figured we could do each portage one and a half times, we’d use our backpacks. Just put them in the big black garbage bags for waterproofing.

Because we didn’t have time to rehearse this, I didn’t consider that I could barely lift my pack, and my hands are loaded up with life jackets, paddles, shoes, and tackle box. But I never did more than one trip. And things really don’t need to be dry.

We left our garage at 7:00 am and started off at 8:30 with a 160 rod portage to the Moose River. A few paddles away was another short portage followed by a few strokes was yet another short portage.

The river was narrow and quite dry owing to the drought. But it’s nestled between rich green grasses and tall forests just beyond. It was peaceful and lovely and relaxing except for the 20 beaver dams we had to stop wade knee deep in the water to pull our canoe over the piles of branches.

Nina Moose lake was a welcome sight. The water feels warm when you wade through the dams,but by mid afternoon we were wet and cold. Our campsite was so welcoming.