Time to warm up

It’s time to reverse our directions to return to Ely. I rose to the “rosy fingers of dawn” and once again recited the adage, red skies at morn sailors take warn. Instead of the rosy cheeks of morning we left behind, we were shrouded in ominous clouds.

Terry proclaimed it was hard to beat Minnesota for her clouds. So much comfort in those words. If needed the clouds could be the highlight of the day. The reflection of these dark clouds in the water made the lakes more angry than the clouds. And the clouds came in many shapes and arch-chromatic shades.

We head back to Agnes Lake. We were lucky to find the obscure entrance to the portage. Our plan was to camp on Agnes. But we slipped by camps that were taken. Soon we were at the opening to Nina Moose river. Nina Moose lake was calling us. Putting us home a day early is welcome when you have been bloody cold for days.

I started to envision getting into Terry’s car and blasting the heat. We found a campsite with a lawn. It was a if they rolled out sod. There was even a dandelion. Crazy. As soon as we finished Mushroom Stroganoff it was getting dark and wouldn’t you know it? Red skies at night sailor’s delight.

Swim coach, Jim Booth’s moto is a ‘little progress everyday’.

I know he was referring to swimming and I am referring to building a house, but whatever it is for me if there’s growth it’s slow. Speaking of slow, has anyone been in a race and you’re so far back that there’s a cop car behind you with their lights flashing. AKA last place. It’s hard to concentrate on the house project when I’m staring down LP this Saturday in the Ely marathon.

It was a beautiful day in Ely MN. I was sorry to be inside this morning. I had to complete the application for our St. Louis County Land Use Permit. They don’t require anything too fancy. Nevertheless it was time consuming. I had to complete it on my phone because we have no internet. I’m not complaining because I completed it with the help of my good friend Skyler in Duluth who works in the planning and development department for the county. I had to call her for help this morning. It was the first item on my To Do List. Luckily, she has a lot of patience and kindness. Picture a youngish women with a MN accent saying, “Sure, I understand why you would see it that way.”

We were on the phone together for some time, and it was mighty successful. The computer accepted our application. You may think this is kind of late in the game to, after several months of knowing we’re going to build a house, to just now be applying for a building permit. Well I’ve had several calls into the number for Ely’s inspector, he left a message to let me know I was calling the wrong person. I told him it was his name and number online.

“Well, that may be, but it’s wrong.” He said.

He asked me some questions and determined that we are not in the city of Ely and we were under the jurisdiction of the county.

Terry and I have adopted the role of newcomer bumpkins.

Next step, agreeing on our building site. We have progressed on that too. With the sheds gone we learned our site was a bit small. I poke around the ledge rock stymied by too many rocks and trees. I’ve been clearing and poking now that the bugs have abated. When Terry came home today I had moved the building site stakes to extend the property to meet our needs. This will take hauling in more roadbed gravel, building up, grading. Time to get the man with his heavy equipment back. And I want all the trees in front of our property gone. Right now we have no view. And Terry agreed on all of that. Progress.

An ominous date and morning sky

I rise at 7:10 to an early morning without a visible sun and check the camp to make sure things are secure. At tentside I capture a bit more heat from Terry. A glance eastward, surprises me with a ribbon of pink below a cloud. As I ready my phone to take a photo, the pink is gone. The last evidence of sun for this day. In early afternoon we decide to cross the open choppy water. The breeze turns stiff as we brave the headwind. We make it to the high cliffs in Canada. We paddle slowly, hugging the cliff in the lee of the wind. We are looking for pictographs on these walls. Terry spots the first one and I the other two.

Our friend Diana provided us with this information (from someone-else’s blog) answering a number of our questions about the pictographs.

With the majority of painting done at the water level and the Ojibwe being skilled canoe makers, it makes sense that painters were likely in canoes when creating the pictographs. That makes sense for most of what we saw. But, it doesn’t satisfy all the imagery we encountered. A few paintings were high above the waterline in areas that seemed impossible to climb. While one could logically come to the conclusion that climbing, some sort of scaffolding, or rappelling was involved in making the pictographs, the truth is that no one really knows. Whether the paintings were made a couple or several hundred years ago, it’s incredible how well preserved they are. Considering the relentless conditions they are under—sun, waves, rain, wind, snow, water freezing to ice and later thawing—it’s impressive they’ve survived centuries. The paint the Ojibwe used is the key. The exact ingredients aren’t known, but enough is known to explain the paint’s durability. The paint was a mixture of red ochre and a binder of sturgeon oil, bear fat, or both. The result was a paint that has bonded with the rock face it was painted upon at a molecular level that draws modern backpackers, campers and other visitors from around the world.

We were thankful we braved the waters which turned out to be fun not dangerous. The adage “you can’t be too careful” doesn’t fit me at all.

We reached our campsite as the wind and rain drove us into action. We felt quarantined and incarcerated in our less that small closet-space for at least 15 hours. Terry said that he enjoyed the howling wind and driving rain. And he was proud of our little tent.

I’ve been singing this all morning, to the tune of “Just Call Me Angel of the Morning.”

🎶 Loon and trumpeters of the morning, baby. They touch my heart before we leave them.🎶 it’s become an ear worm.

Our previous campsite had a huge sloping granite rock, most do, it was out in the open and perfect for drying and staging our gear. Now again, our gear is hanging Halloweenish from tree branches, or strung on the line to flap like flags of camping. As the sun slowly creeps through the trees, we turn our gear, flipping it quickly as flapping a jack.

Oh, did I mention we have sunshine. Nevertheless, we are still tied to the little chores and little successes until 11. When all was loaded and I was standing in the water, lifting my leg, high to board the vessel. Then the captain said, “Where is the map, Skipper?”

“ The map that’s in the bottom of my backpack? You’re asking for it now?”

“I’ll help you get it.” He says sheepishly. As he sits in the stern.

“Never mind. I’ll get it.” I wade in the water. I grab the pack, which is in a big 55 gallon black garbage bag. This is our alternative to the big blue barrel that we have not needed to lug over the portages. I don’t have good leverage, and I twist this weight at an angle that is still talking to me a day later in the form of a back injury. I am in misery.

But with the map out, we successfully leads us through to Portage Lakes. Then we are in the big lake, Lac la Croix. We share this lake with our fun-loving neighbors to the north, the Canadians.

The line separating the two countries wends its way right down the middle of the lake for several miles. The features of the lake are boulders and islands. We don’t see one other canoe. The calm, blue water of the smaller lakes is replaced by a black chop. We don’t see any other paddlers in the near or the far distance.

The sun was shining and seem to be holding tight. Exact location via map and compass wasn’t true to what we were seeing. I used Gaia to get a position. After 3 miles just passed, never failed me, we felt a time for setting up camp. We passed a smaller island with a white marker. Last year we discovered that the white marker meant we were in Canada. Nevertheless, we paddled to the island where our campsite was located. I got out and looked at the grate for cooking, and it said US forest service. This was one of the nicest campsites we’ve ever stayed at. It had the grate with surrounding rocks for cooking, and it actually had a table and chairs made from granite. We were surrounded by water on three sides as this spit of land jutted out. We were in luck just waiting for red skies at night that never show themselves.

And the rains came

It started to drizzle about 2 AM. The temperature had risen, and all seemed good in our safe little tent. But it turned to rain and we had to climb in and out of the tent to pee. Soon wetness was inside too, along with mud. The sun rose before seven, maybe. We didn’t see it, but noticed it was lighter and we were growing stiff. It was back to an occasional drizzle. I made coffee and hot granola actually it was crapola, a local favorite, then I sat under a couple branches of a small cedar tree on the rock and journaled. Terry joined me for a while, but it was chilly, damp, clammy, and uncomfortable. If we were hiking, we’d roll up everything wet and leave. Once you’re backpack is on and you’re moving, it’s warm. But paddling takes a lot of gear. We’re doing paddling light. We are carrying freeze dried dinner and lunch and breakfast granola. We have a jet boil stove and one cup, a collapsible bowl, and three spoons. But add to this to this our life jacket, paddles, fishing rod, tackle box—well you get it. It’s a long day sitting under a branch.

Then the trumpeter swans came to life and stretched their impossible necks and greeted us headlong, bugling overhead. It brought us to the shore to sit on large granite ledgerock and observe. The small birds in no way noticed us. They walk near and around us close, pecking, pecking and then up to a tree branch warbling or calling chick a dee, dee, dee sometimes those little birds wearing blackcaps repeated the dees 23 times determined to make their point. Aren’t we all?

Around 2:00 pm, it seemed the rain had finished. Still no sun, but a good time to dry out everything.We strung rope I had rescued from my many days on trails. They were just discard pieces of detritus left without a second thought, now strung together their life was extended to hold more items and help them dry. Functionality. Important stuff. By sunset everything was put back together. Albeit a little damp, all was functional.

We paddled around Lake Agnes in the waning light. We went across the river to where the ten trumpeters lived. It gave us a lot of pleasure to be so close to them. To hear the Whoomp Whoomp of the wings so heavy, just beating on the water to take off. To hear the echoes of the trumpeters bugling so loud it stirred everything in your musical soul. Another night maybe closer to our resident bear. Maybe sniffing the breeze to catch our sent. Terry says bears don’t want our vegetarian food but it seems they want berries and peanut butter.

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.

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.

Last day

August is spent. Everyone loves September. I remember moving to New Orlean September 1969. I was in a hardware store and they were playing the song that went: Try to remember the kind of September when life was slow and oh, so mellow. I guess some find these lyrics trite. But on that day, at age 19, I realized my childhood was gone. My father had been diagnosed with heat disease some years earlier and he then 55. This didn’t invoke the terror I had during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it was a reckoning.

The winds are blowing. It’s night and dark. I vision the dry leaves blowing. Although we don’t really have dry leaves. Terry and I have settled into our predictable patterns. He’s reading quietly turning the pages like a bible in church. The same amount of concentration on his face as a scholar. It’s a Laurie King mystery from a little free library.

I had to get a new phone. Along with the flu, I had to work though remembering all my passwords that I don’t usually need to use. To get into this app, Word Press, took me two hours. And now the wind has stopped and all is quiet and still. And a little sad.

Waiting for the Blue Moon

The Minnesota writer and long time Ely resident, Sigurd Olson, wrote in his book The Singing Wilderness that loons sing madly all night during the full moon. We arrived here on the full moon of August 1st. I was’t accustomed to hearing the loon’s plaintive longing, a fragile yearning as clear as a bell. But there it was all night. The last day of August arriving on Wednesday, again is a full moon, hence it’s a blue moon waiting for the loon celebrants.

The weekend was filled with fun adventures in Grand Rapids. After the half marathon, of which I’m still suffering from, we ducked into a brewery because the music was wafting our way. It was the famous Steve’s Over-Populated One-Man Band. Smashing fun!

When we drove by Remer MN, my brother reminded me that one Christmas break we farm-sat. I was 5 or 6 years old, little and skinny, and I had an accordion. It had been sent home with me to practice. The only lesson taught to me was to pull the accordion out. I didn’t know it was supposed to go in so I severely sprained my arms. I had to quit. I think this was after I told my mom I would practice and not give up. Gee, I would have been a totally different person if I had two lessons.

I know I should be talking about the building of our cabin. We were very anxious to get home and stake out our house. Everyone who’d been here had said that we have a large building site. We felt the same. But staking it out showed us the truth. IT’S TOO SMALL. So we printed out our plans and worked on modifying them. We decided to extend our site. It’s hard because we’re in the Canadian Shield on the Laurentian Divide. And you know what that means.

Plan II is to get our guy and one of his friends to take out more trees and rocks and flatten a bigger area. This can’t progress too much because I’m training for the Ely Marathon. And it takes a ton of time. Also we’re going to the BWCA September 5th to the 14th. And my son Andy, Reyla and friends and Brenda and Greg are coming.

Maybe we’ll have some progress tomorrow. We had a huge deluge today. Tomorrow may be different.

A Thursday

When I worked, Thursday was my favorite day. It might still be my favorite day, but I usually don’t know what day it is. This is how this Thursday stared. On my morning run, I saw four eagles all perched on top of pine trees at the shore of Shagawa Lake. Later I found Lupine blooming. It seemed they were blooming in June, too. And they’re still blooming?

On my return I received a text from a friend and stop to make sure it wasn’t Terry. When I proceeded to cross the street a truck with two old guys rolled down their window.

The driver asked, “Hey, are you all right?”

“Wow, I look that bad.”

“Well no.” He looked sheepish. The passenger slid down in his seat.

“It might not look like it, but l’m running. I try to avoid rides when I’m running.”

“Sorry. I just thought you were limping. That’s all just limping.”

“Oh, just limping. I actually was just standing looking at my phone. But I’ll keep an eye on that limping. Thanks”

Back home I find Terry and the excavator talking. Terry comes and tells me the guy likes to talk but Terry wants him to finish today. Yet now Terry’s back out there talking again.

It’s time for me to go to town for my shower at Voyager’s Outfitters.

It will go like this. “Are you here for a shower?”

“What makes you think I’m here for a shower?”