Day 2 of Boundary Waters paddle
We wake at the crack of dawn, the early pull of the curtain allowing a ribbon of light to portend the next day at sometime after 6:00 am. The chilly night had both of us up four times to pee. We are close enough to the neighboring campsite (about half mile across the water) that in the dead of night they might hear us unzip our bags and declare we don’t want to get up again. We’re trying hard to be cognizant of every word and bodily noise. Maybe I took the rules too seriously. But I do agree that if you’re visiting a wilderness site you don’t want to think you may be sharing it with other humans.
Quiet spaces are as rare as dark skies. Several years ago I read a book called one square inch of silence in which the author traveled the USA looking for just one square inch of quietude. I do not want to break the silence, but sometimes its like being at the Met trying to quell a cough during everyone’s favorite aria. You can’t. Soon from a row of different hands arrives a cough drop in a wrapper that has its separate consequences.
At 7:00 am, we see the silhouette of a canoe passing close to the opposite shore. It sat low in the water and between the two paddlers loomed a pile of stuff. So much and so heavy that freeboard was almost nonexistent. Think the Beverly Hillbillies arriving by canoe.
It appeared the person in front had a portly stature. Maybe he was wearing a coat with some beaver fur on the lapel. Perhaps he was Russian. He was paddling, but he needn’t. You could tell the guy in back was serving him at the pleasure of some Russian oligarch. With all this gear, they were clearly headed for the Arctic.
Terry and I speculated about them while packing to leave Nina Moose Lake for the larger Lake Agnes, the one that just yesterday experienced a bear stealing a backpack from a camp. So we were off to snag that same campsite.
We didn’t reach the Nina Moose River, some would call it a ditch, until 10:30. There at the first portage were two guys making several passes back and forth owing to an abundance of gear. These Russians had totally transformed into two American guys. The larger one was wearing shorts and T-shirt and only speaking when he had to which was seldom because the other guy said it was portly dude’s birthday and he was being treated , hence all the luggage. Oh, excuse me, gear. The other guy, tall and slim, seemed ordinary enough even with the hint of an accent until he returned looking like he was nude and covered in tattoos from the waist down. He was wearing camo tights. He dropped a bunch of MN references. Naming towns and cities and some landmarks. But we know spies when we see them.
At Agnes,the camp of the bear, was a super site, large with many good spots and even a granite slab and granite seats under a tree. We found no trace of a bear, no diggings, prints or scat.
We had time to fish. Terry fishes and I paddle following his every directions. Paddling slowly under the shadow of the trees, close to shore. It wasn’t long before he caught a Walleye. The one fish we really wanted because he had never caught one before. This would augment his dinner. He ate with glee even though he found it rather bland, especially with no seasoning of any kind. We took a celebratory swig of Fireball.
Mountain Peace 