Wednesday:
Brian drove in at 5:50. Right on time. Threw a few last minute things in the car—I almost forgot Fluffykins my teddy bear, can't sleep without the cuddly little guy—and drove off at six on the dot with hopes of not running into problems with the other DOT since road construction is in full swing. Smooth sailing. The forecast was for sun, warmth bordering on heat and light winds. Turned out Lonnie Johnson, our chauffeur to the edge of the wilderness, had no other plans than the two of us that morning and we met up a half hour early. Extra half hours are good especially when I'm on the back end of the trip. I still plan like my body's forty-five but at seventy-two humping heavy loads over portages takes longer. Longer?—that's funny—it takes lots longer! Roots, stones and mud call to my possible broken hip and whisper of weeks doing nursing home rehab. That's no way to end a wilderness canoe trip. The gear was thrown aboard, the canoe strapped at right angles to the pontoons and we were off.
The plan originally called for being dropped off at the north end of Lake Vermilion, paddling a short length of Trout Creek and portaging around the falls. We'd clear our nostrils on the shore, pitch the shit in the canoe and paddle off to adventure and rip-snortin' fishing. Real men enter the wilderness with clear eyes fixed on the horizon and packs on their backs. However, on the boat ride I asked Lonnie how much it would cost for a tow across the portage? "Thirty-five bucks." There was a time in my life when I'd never have asked that question. This time I never gave my answer a moment's thought, "Let's do it." My name is Mark and I'm a weak old man.
At the dock on the north side of Vermilion we were met by Lonnie's daughter Tina sporting long sleeves, earrings and hip boots. We loaded the canoe on her trailer, packed the boat for travel and climbed aboard for the ATV haul. Have to tell you I'd never before done a portage while sitting in a canoe. Seemed almost immoral. There are many ways of being immoral in life and a few of those call for jail time or eternal punishment if you're bent along those lines. This time it was a combination of weird, cool and a little giggly. The four minute drive done, Tina backed us onto Trout Lake, unhitched the boat and we were off in a flail of random paddling.
I hadn't been on a wilderness trip for a couple of years and it showed. Load balance can be critical in a canoe. You should ride level with the bow up just a tad and we were a little nose heavy. Makes steering more work than necessary. Up at the cabin I often canoe-fished with a partner who outweighed me by the size of a German Shepherd (the dog not Klaus Biedermeier). When I dug too deep we'd spin like a top. On Trout Lake, being out of balance and practice we zigzagged a tad at first till the rust wore off. Compound that with the distraction of the surrounding beauty and it was all I could do to head in the right direction.
Maps are good but at times I have a problem with scale. That micro dot on the map sure can't be the island over there. Hell, the real one's a hundred yards long not some lone rock. Truth is, where we were heading could've been solved by telling me the portage is in the back of the first mile-long bay on our right. Wasn't but a right-left-right course spread over two and a half miles. Three minutes with paddles in our hands and we were up to our usual four miles an hour and heading pretty much die straight. Brian and I weigh the same and that helps a lot.
Our paddles are home made. Over the years I've gone kind've nuts building them. Who needs eighteen canoe paddles? No two of them look exactly the same—I'm not big on quality control—but this batch of three shared material—old growth redwood from a garage sale, walnut from a discarded FedEx wall plaque, leftover radiata pine from a previous project, aromatic cedar and a little birch I'd chainsawed and worked into few boards years ago. Outside of the pine it all carries meaning in the form of story and a little blood. Over the years I've shed blood across a fair amount of the country and a little in Asia—none of it intentional unless I was in a doctor's office. As for the stories you could fertilize the better part of a section of farmland with my words. It's what I do and best of all it's organic.
Thirty-five minutes followed by a little back stretching and underwear peeling got us to the offload. It takes a few minutes to pull near two hundred pounds out of a canoe. Part of that has to do with easing your way into accepting what comes next. I'd read this portage wasn't a bear, just long—call it two hundred-seventy rods or a couple of hundred yards shy of a mile. Like most portages it went uphill for quite a while, rolled for a while then stumbled downhill for a hell of a lot less than it went up even though the two lakes are at the same elevation. No doubt about it, maps lie. This trail was typical for the Boundary Waters—a myriad of foot trippers, bunch berries, hazel brush, a little alder, blueberries waiting on late July for fruit, neat little green mosses that called for a man to pause and snap an artsy photo but only a fool'd stop to do some dumb-assed stunt like that, dappled sunlight broken by a canopy of pines (white, red and jack), aspen and birch. Moose maple everywhere waiting for fall to explode blaze red. Finally the last thirty rods was a mild struggle through a thicket a woody brush that grabbed our legs and tried to drag us down like we were in some kind of ancient Greek saga. I know that's an exaggeration but I was pooped, gimpy-legged and fog headed by that point. Struck me so funny I laughed aloud. Misery makes me laugh, not sure why.
Brian carried the canoe, the cooler and the biggest pack. Thank you Brian. Even with the lighter stuff it was still sixty pounds a trip—about the same as I carried in Vietnam. If I wasn't so damned cheap we could cut the load another thirty pounds. Once on the water we found the first two sites occupied. No surprise there. Next stop was on a peninsula we came to call the boot. The map told us where it was, the lake said to look elsewhere. The fourth site was the charm, a narrow rock peninsula with an excellent landing and level tent pad open to the breezes—so perfect it seemed weird no one was there. An hour later the tent was up, rain tarp strung and dinner sizzled in the pan under a hot sun.
Brian called my scrambled mess bangers and mash, probably 'cause he's half Irish and doesn't know any better. It's actually more of a fried glop that could be better called 'four of each,' potato patties, eggs and wienies (skin on). Whack it, dice it, scramble it and crisp it a little. Would've added a sprinkling of salt and pepper but I forgot them. Better that than the tent. Didn't matter how I slopped it together, we were hungry as stoners with a fresh bag of corn chips.
On the way in Lonnie Johnson said the party before us had hammered the walleyes, even kept count with a clicker. Now who the hell carries a clicker counter into the Boundary Waters? There's something wrong about that. It's much better to use my method, guess and exaggerate. My fictitious Uncle Emil would question any attempt at numbers when it comes to fishing, "You're either catching a few or you're not. It all works out right, you get enough for a meal or two." That's just my way of saying we always pack more than enough food. Anyhow, Pine Lakes a tad over eight hundred acres, has a double handful of islands and a slew of bays and points. The DNR's lake finder said we were on prime fishing water but it turned out Mother Nature said we weren't.
Lord knows I'm not a good fisherman. My skill involves doing the research and driving the miles with the hope of finding fish that are dumber than me. And it ain't easy. Us upright bipeds that wear hats think we're God's gift to the world and are smarter than anything else. We're not. I got my degree in Humanities and that sums us up as a species. We know more than any other living thing but it's spread thin. When it becomes specific, like trying to fool an individual fish, they've got us beat by a nautical mile. So you catch fifty walleyes in a day. Wow. How many simply spit on your yellow headed ball jig with a hand-tied, marabou and tinsel tail as you paddled by talking about Lord knows what gibberish that passes as canoe banter? A whole lot is the way I see it.
In short, we didn't catch a lot. Brian did snag the only bluegill I've ever seen in the Boundary Waters—on a number two spinner no less—and it was better than a hand long. Made me think about the Republican Presidential debates of 2016. Would've been fun to see that sunny fly up on stage while the discussions on manhood were spewed back and forth. But a colorful, pan-sized bluegill deserved a better fate than up there with those idiots so I'm glad it didn't happen. However, while I'm sitting here pecking away, I've got a smirk on my face.
The bugs weren't bad at all. No mosquitoes, black, deer or horse flies. Only saw a single no-see-um but it might not've been one since we saw it. Then at sunset it all changed. Made a man appreciate biomass. For sure we weren't alone anymore. We had two types of spray and a Thermacell thingy. The Thermacell have proved effective on a previous trip but not this time. Our chemical efforts were a waste of technology. The first wave of mosquitoes sucked up the spray, the second licked our skin clean and the third came in for the kill. The ladies were out for our blood so they could procreate. Like every form of life it's all about sex and survival. A cruder man would say we were totally f***ed but I won't. We had no choice but to run for the tent.
I hadn't been on a wilderness trip for a couple of years and it showed. Load balance can be critical in a canoe. You should ride level with the bow up just a tad and we were a little nose heavy. Makes steering more work than necessary. Up at the cabin I often canoe-fished with a partner who outweighed me by the size of a German Shepherd (the dog not Klaus Biedermeier). When I dug too deep we'd spin like a top. On Trout Lake, being out of balance and practice we zigzagged a tad at first till the rust wore off. Compound that with the distraction of the surrounding beauty and it was all I could do to head in the right direction.
Maps are good but at times I have a problem with scale. That micro dot on the map sure can't be the island over there. Hell, the real one's a hundred yards long not some lone rock. Truth is, where we were heading could've been solved by telling me the portage is in the back of the first mile-long bay on our right. Wasn't but a right-left-right course spread over two and a half miles. Three minutes with paddles in our hands and we were up to our usual four miles an hour and heading pretty much die straight. Brian and I weigh the same and that helps a lot.
Our paddles are home made. Over the years I've gone kind've nuts building them. Who needs eighteen canoe paddles? No two of them look exactly the same—I'm not big on quality control—but this batch of three shared material—old growth redwood from a garage sale, walnut from a discarded FedEx wall plaque, leftover radiata pine from a previous project, aromatic cedar and a little birch I'd chainsawed and worked into few boards years ago. Outside of the pine it all carries meaning in the form of story and a little blood. Over the years I've shed blood across a fair amount of the country and a little in Asia—none of it intentional unless I was in a doctor's office. As for the stories you could fertilize the better part of a section of farmland with my words. It's what I do and best of all it's organic.
Thirty-five minutes followed by a little back stretching and underwear peeling got us to the offload. It takes a few minutes to pull near two hundred pounds out of a canoe. Part of that has to do with easing your way into accepting what comes next. I'd read this portage wasn't a bear, just long—call it two hundred-seventy rods or a couple of hundred yards shy of a mile. Like most portages it went uphill for quite a while, rolled for a while then stumbled downhill for a hell of a lot less than it went up even though the two lakes are at the same elevation. No doubt about it, maps lie. This trail was typical for the Boundary Waters—a myriad of foot trippers, bunch berries, hazel brush, a little alder, blueberries waiting on late July for fruit, neat little green mosses that called for a man to pause and snap an artsy photo but only a fool'd stop to do some dumb-assed stunt like that, dappled sunlight broken by a canopy of pines (white, red and jack), aspen and birch. Moose maple everywhere waiting for fall to explode blaze red. Finally the last thirty rods was a mild struggle through a thicket a woody brush that grabbed our legs and tried to drag us down like we were in some kind of ancient Greek saga. I know that's an exaggeration but I was pooped, gimpy-legged and fog headed by that point. Struck me so funny I laughed aloud. Misery makes me laugh, not sure why.
Brian carried the canoe, the cooler and the biggest pack. Thank you Brian. Even with the lighter stuff it was still sixty pounds a trip—about the same as I carried in Vietnam. If I wasn't so damned cheap we could cut the load another thirty pounds. Once on the water we found the first two sites occupied. No surprise there. Next stop was on a peninsula we came to call the boot. The map told us where it was, the lake said to look elsewhere. The fourth site was the charm, a narrow rock peninsula with an excellent landing and level tent pad open to the breezes—so perfect it seemed weird no one was there. An hour later the tent was up, rain tarp strung and dinner sizzled in the pan under a hot sun.
Brian called my scrambled mess bangers and mash, probably 'cause he's half Irish and doesn't know any better. It's actually more of a fried glop that could be better called 'four of each,' potato patties, eggs and wienies (skin on). Whack it, dice it, scramble it and crisp it a little. Would've added a sprinkling of salt and pepper but I forgot them. Better that than the tent. Didn't matter how I slopped it together, we were hungry as stoners with a fresh bag of corn chips.
On the way in Lonnie Johnson said the party before us had hammered the walleyes, even kept count with a clicker. Now who the hell carries a clicker counter into the Boundary Waters? There's something wrong about that. It's much better to use my method, guess and exaggerate. My fictitious Uncle Emil would question any attempt at numbers when it comes to fishing, "You're either catching a few or you're not. It all works out right, you get enough for a meal or two." That's just my way of saying we always pack more than enough food. Anyhow, Pine Lakes a tad over eight hundred acres, has a double handful of islands and a slew of bays and points. The DNR's lake finder said we were on prime fishing water but it turned out Mother Nature said we weren't.
Lord knows I'm not a good fisherman. My skill involves doing the research and driving the miles with the hope of finding fish that are dumber than me. And it ain't easy. Us upright bipeds that wear hats think we're God's gift to the world and are smarter than anything else. We're not. I got my degree in Humanities and that sums us up as a species. We know more than any other living thing but it's spread thin. When it becomes specific, like trying to fool an individual fish, they've got us beat by a nautical mile. So you catch fifty walleyes in a day. Wow. How many simply spit on your yellow headed ball jig with a hand-tied, marabou and tinsel tail as you paddled by talking about Lord knows what gibberish that passes as canoe banter? A whole lot is the way I see it.
In short, we didn't catch a lot. Brian did snag the only bluegill I've ever seen in the Boundary Waters—on a number two spinner no less—and it was better than a hand long. Made me think about the Republican Presidential debates of 2016. Would've been fun to see that sunny fly up on stage while the discussions on manhood were spewed back and forth. But a colorful, pan-sized bluegill deserved a better fate than up there with those idiots so I'm glad it didn't happen. However, while I'm sitting here pecking away, I've got a smirk on my face.
The bugs weren't bad at all. No mosquitoes, black, deer or horse flies. Only saw a single no-see-um but it might not've been one since we saw it. Then at sunset it all changed. Made a man appreciate biomass. For sure we weren't alone anymore. We had two types of spray and a Thermacell thingy. The Thermacell have proved effective on a previous trip but not this time. Our chemical efforts were a waste of technology. The first wave of mosquitoes sucked up the spray, the second licked our skin clean and the third came in for the kill. The ladies were out for our blood so they could procreate. Like every form of life it's all about sex and survival. A cruder man would say we were totally f***ed but I won't. We had no choice but to run for the tent.
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