Way back in high school, a good friend convinced me to join her and a group Kansas church youth to go canoeing in Minnesota. I had never been in a canoe... nor on a lake that you could actually see the bottom... nor ever traveled north of Iowa. What the heck, we were young so why not?
I think there were 27 high schoolers and leaders, who I remember being like old scout leaders. My female group leader slept with those prickly plastic curlers set under a kerchief each night. We drove in station wagons, slept in church basements along the way, and basically had no idea what we were getting into.
We had a pretty simple packing list and took no high tech gear, clothing or gadgets like campers do today. I took a cheap, plastic, blow-up swimming float to sleep on. I do remember that girls were told we had to wear 2-piece bathing suits (bikinis) under our canoeing clothes, which I thought was funny and odd for a church group to require. We later understood as we used the porta-potty boxes in the wide open forest! Even though I promised my brother that I would not lose his pocket knife, it slipped out of a hoody sweatshirt pocket and went straight to the bottom of a lake, never to be seen again.
Finally arriving in Ely, we were outfitted with aluminum canoes, paddles, life jackets, tents, huge canvas Duluth packs, and dehydrated meals for our week's outing. I still have my 1980s map that traced our route. We entered the Boundary Waters Canoe Area at entry point #25 which was on Moose Lake. Then followed a route to the east through Splash, Ensign, Jordan, Ima and Thomas lakes. Next, we headed north going across Fraser, Wasini, Strup, Kekekabi, Pickle, Spoon and Bonnie lakes. At long and huge Knife Lake, we paddled to the other side to step foot in Canada. At the west end of Knife Lake, we came to an a small island to make a much anticipated stop to visit Dorothy the Root Beer Lady (see another blog posting for that whole story). We finished the trip heading back south through Vera, Ensign and finally Moose Lake again.
For a bunch of Kansas kids, it was a great time of camping, swimming and almost skinny dipping, cliff diving, splashing, singing, and hanging together. We saw one moose, saw more lakes, trees, stars, and swatted more mosquitos than we thought could exist. However, Minnesota fish were quite elusive as there were lines in the water all week but the whole group only caught a couple of fish in total. In the end, I rougly calculated that we canoed over 45 miles and portaged for 1,041 rods -- which equals about 5.25 km or 3.25 miles!
Leaving Minnesota, I remember thinking this state could be checked off my list of places I had visited... of course not ever imaging I would live most of my adult life here. It's been great to continue the adventure. And it was fun to find some photos to share from that first trip to the North Shore of Minnesota!
Me at 15ish.. first visit to Lake Superior.
(Although I incorrectly labeled it Lake Michigan on the back of the photo).
Organizing our stuff before heading into the Boundary Waters.
Notice the 1970s era autos in the parking lot.
A strong girl carrying the canoe on a portage.
Part of our group, my hometown friend is the one in the middle of the canoe.
A beautiful sunset from one of our pristine campsites in the BWCA.
2 comments:
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Ha Ha HA!! I cannot believe you still have the map! And pictures!! (I'd forgotten I'd worn that dorky pig hat so much!)
I was so reluctant to go on that trip at first that the only reason I did was because my mom got your mom to get you to go, and I just couldn't NOT go once you'd signed on. But that turned out to be one of the two experiences that turned me into someone who prefers the outdoors over the in. I still like to tell people how we just dipped the water out of the lake into our cups and drank it. I don't remember it tasting so bad Polly! Ah, the days before guardia had infested all the waterways in the continent!
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