In The Market For A New Backpack

I bought this Swiss Gear back pack in 2006. This bag has been to Kenya, Seattle, San Diego, Connecticut, Sicily, Italy, Greece, Georgia, Germany, Japan, Ecuador, Michigan, Montana, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, Poland, Texas, Tasmania, New Mexico, North Dakota, Finland, Florida, Alabama, Amsterdam, Australia and Alaska. I didn't take it to Isle Royale. I bought a special backpack for Isle Royale and a strap on that new backpack broke on the second day of the trip.

But my back pack is wearing out.  You can see the fabric is starting to tear. That round hole at the top was the new thing in 2006 because you could thread your ear buds and listen to music playing inside your bag. I never did thread my ear buds through there but I could have.

I kept my cell phone in that tiny pocket on the strap! That was a cellphone where you had to press the 7 key four times to get the letter s.

The strap on the left partially melted when I rode my motorcycle to work. I must have hit the muffler with it before I got saddle bags. Sometimes that strap would whip my thighs in the wind and boy, howdy, that hurt. I am in the market for a  new backpack now. I hope the new one lasts 15 years like this one did. So long Swiss Gear back pack. Thanks for carrying all my stuff. You were real comfy.

 

Last Day in the BWCA

This was our last morning on our trip.  I woke up several times in the night. I don't wear a watch so I have always waited until I hear someone else up and moving around before I get up. I was so surprised to be awoken by a verbal "wake up call."  I came out of the tent and could not believe that the other tents were already packed up and breakfast was ready.  How did I (we) not hear all that commotion?  I guess we stayed up too late talking.  After a hearty breakfast of hot oatmeal with granola mixed in, we loaded the canoes and paddled toward our portage.  We got there in a little over a half hour of paddling.  Awww!  I didn't want the trip to be over yet.  How did it take us two hours to get to our campsite and only a half hour to get back?  I helped unload the canoes and this time, I did not fall.  I had fallen about 4 or 5 times during the course of this trip.  My last fall was a backwards one.  During the split second between when I knew I would fall and when I hit, I worried this one was going to hurt.  Lucky for me, I fell just right into a chair shaped rock.  The rock even had a backrest.   Although my underwear was wet, it was strangely comfortable for a fall.  While the canoes were tied down, I stood in the water of Brule Lake, unwilling to leave.  Two yellow swallowtail butterflies fluttered around and landed on me.  I wore them like beautiful brooches for quite a long time.  Northern butterflies are trusting.  I had a great vacation and I believe I learned enough skills to take someone else up there.  Interested?

Paddling at Echo Lake with Jorge

Jorge and I.  He's wearing an oreo beret.

Jorge as our masthead.  The feather flew out so I had to poke it deeper into his head.  He didn't complain.

Jorge roasting a marshmallow.  He wanted a s'more too.

When you're doing primitive camping, it's odd how quickly normal standards of cleanliness dissipate.  The first night, if an onion fell off the cutting board onto our rock (table), we put in in the trash.  By the third night, that piece of onion goes back into the other diced onions without a second thought.  The first night the dishwater was pumped through the filter.  By the third night, the dishwater is taken straight from the lake.  Pumping all that water is just too much work.  As our standards changed, Jorge became a more important member of the group.  His opinion was sought on decisions.  He was offered meals.  When he refused to eat, he was told he wasn't going to get anymore until what he had was gone.  People smiled at him and patted his orange head.  One night he spoke and his voice sounded a lot like Mr. Bill from Saturday Night Live.  Today the wind was calmer and the waves more manageable.  We paddled into a bay and walked a long portage into Echo Lake.  Echo Lake is a two mile long and narrow lake with steep cliffs on one side.  And sounds do echo here, we tried it.  We saw blue flag iris and pitcher plants in bloom.  I saw a garter snake twice in the same spot in the portage.  Echo Lake has no campsites so we had a snack of gorp and oreos while floating peacefully (see middle photo).  At the far end of Echo Lake, a stream empties the water.  We paddled down the stream as far as we could before a fallen log blocked our path.  This would be an excellent place to see moose and moose have been seen here before.  Yet we saw no moose.  Echo Lake had one tiny island with a rocky surface and about a dozen small trees.  We thought about having lunch there but decided against it because of the lack of privacy if someone had to use the latrine.  We had our lunch at the portage - hummus, tabbouli, oranges, summer sausage, and some cheddar cheese that had been warm for so long it was very greasy and almost liquid.  Warm cheese tastes delicious!  Our lunch was at 3 o'clock.  When we got back, we all went swimming and relaxed for a few hours.  We had spaghetti and some excellent garlic bread for supper.  The sunset was beautiful.  A skinny moon rose over Brule Lake.  Some of us stayed up late talking and listening to the loons calling.

Paddling In The Wind



We saw two painted turtles sunning themselves.  One had left when the picture was taken.

So happy to find Labrador Tea!

Light rain fell on our tents last night.  The sound was comforting and when I looked up, I could see the mosquitoes waiting for us above our tent yet below the rain flap.  We had french toast for breakfast.  We had two big packages of oreos in our supplies so we tried french oreo toast.  If this worked, we could make big bucks at the State Fair.  Yeah, not so much;  the cookies were soggy inside.  The day was very windy.  We paddled to Cone Bay which was into the wind.  As we got away from the protection of the islands and into the major open water of Brule Lake, the waves and swells got higher and higher.  I was in the bow and we were paddling like mad.  The bow of the canoe would rise with a wave and slam down in the trough between waves.  Sometimes the water broke over the top of the canoe. The water was thrilling and refreshing.  I leaned back when we were between waves so the front of the canoe did not go down so far.  Were we canoeing in the boundary waters or riding a bull at the rodeo?  Between leaning back and paddling like mad I was really getting a work out.  We had to work our buts off to make any progress.  We could not stop to get a drink of water or to take a picture or rest our arms.  We had to keep paddling as hard as we could until we could get to water that was not as rough. After 90 minutes or so, we paddled into Cone Bay where we could take a breather.  That was an exciting paddle.  From Cone Bay we paddled into South Cone Lake.  The water was high enough that we could float into Middle Cone Lake.  We did touch bottom a few times and I could see the tops of the rocks were flecked with red, silver and blue paint from other canoes.  The channel between the lakes was lovely.  We stopped for lunch on an island campsite in Middle Cone Lake. We had sandwiches and fruit and oreos.  We headed into North Cone Lake and tried to paddle through but the water wasn't deep enough.  We had to get out and walk the canoe through the passage. The water was flowing very fast against us and the rocks were slippery with moss.  I was asked to help another camper get through this.  Actually he did much better than I did as evidenced by the scrapes and bruises I now have on my right elbow and both knees.  We canoed across North Cone Lake grateful to be out of the wind and high waves on Brule Lake.  We came to the portage to Winschell Lake. Our guide found some Labrador tea. He said it can be found near stands of black spruce.  He said black spruce will have their feet in the water while white spruce will be farther back from the lake.  Later that evening he brewed some Labrador tea, something the Voyagers also did.  I tried it. I think it tastes better than green or black tea but not as good as ginger tea.  It had a slightly medicinal taste.  By now it was 3 o'clock and we had spent 5 hours getting here.  We decided to head back.  We scared a Momma canvasback duck and her five babies out of the shallows.  They looked put out with us.  Instead of trying to walk through the treacherous rocks again, we portaged across which was much easier. The walking path was so easy in comparison.  We canoed past MIddle Cone and South Cone.  Once we got out of Cone Bay the waves and swells were huge on Brule Lake.  It was awesome.  With the strong wind on our back, we were CRUISING!  We rode each wave like a surfer.  It was so fun.  The shore line went by so fast the trees were blurry.  With each stroke of the paddle, it felt like we went five times further than we had this morning.  In no time at all we were back to our little island.  From a distance, our island is shaped like a letter B flat on it's back.  Today the paddling was a challenge but when we all pulled together, we got it done.

Camping Trip Continued

This a black admiral butterfly that flew into the soapy pan I was washing.  I set it on a rock to dry.  It may look like it has two heads but the head on the right is a shadow.

Paddle Paddle Paddle!

The morning was foggy.  Clouds of fog rolled by hiding the island that is normally within view from here.

In the morning we had a breakfast of huevos rancheros.  The name of our food got Max talking in a Spanish accent that improved as the day went on.  When a lonely orange got loose in our canoe, Max said it was our mascot and named it Jorge.  He gave it a face with a magic marker and compared it to Wilson, Tom Hank's mascot when he was on an island.  Jorge became another participant on our trip. After breakfast we were visited (inspected) by two park rangers and a volunteer.  The lead ranger was in her early 20's and had a nose ring and a very official National Park Service uniform.  I thought she was strangely rule abiding but that shows an assumption I make about people with nose rings.  She inspected and commented on our wood supply.  We had used a couple nails left in a tree but we didn't put them there.  She removed the nails.  She inspected our permits and reviewed all the rules again.  Before they left, the rangers told us about a waterfall we could find on the portage to Vernon Lake.  We were told to take a side path to the left.  They also warned us about storms coming with hail and lightening expected that day.  At camp, a little bird sang and sang and sang all dang day. I looked for it until I got a sore neck. I knew which tree it was in but the dang noisy bird never moved so I could not find it.  The bird sounded like a red-eyed vireo but a little different.  This bird had more variation in it's song.  I researched the sounds of vireo's and I believe it was a Philadelphia vireo.  That day we also saw vultures, common mergansers, ravens, loons, broadwing hawk, white throated sparrow, swamp sparrow, veery boreal chickadee, robins and eagles.  Many black and yellow admiral butterflies surrounded us.  I saw some twin flowers that I had read about at the ranger station.  We had lunch at a portage. We took the side trail that the rangers mentioned.  For a waterfall, it was very disappointing; nice rapids though. We had sandwiches at another campsite and paddled back to our home again. We had black bean burritos for dinner.  I had a little heartburn after dinner.  Kathy mentioned heart burn too and then commented that we had red and green peppers at breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Clouds filled the sky but the rain held off until after I was in bed.  The ranger exaggerated about the storm and the waterfall.  The pitter patter of rain on the tent fly was very soothing.  The sound of the rain, the water lapping at the shore just a few feet away, and the other campers snoring in their tents put me right to sleep.

Beginning of the Canoe Trip

Beautiful wild lupines bloomed in purple, pink and cream on the roadsides north of Duluth.

Our cozy abode on a foggy morning.

The day before my trip, I learned that we were not meeting at the ranger station in Ely but in Tofte instead.  The difference between Ely and Tofte is substantial so I changed my course of action to head north east. On the way up I stopped at Gooseberry Falls to watch the water pour over the falls.  Some of the water looked clear, some was light yellow and some was the color of root beer - it looked like a girl's hair that had been recently foiled.  I met our group at the ranger station.  There were three staff; Max, Leah and Kathleen plus an ASL (American Sign Language) interpreter named Kathy.  The two other campers, Jennifer and Greg, needed the interpreter.  The National Park Service had us watch a video and then quizzed us orally to see if we knew how to "Leave No Trace."  We were not allowed to use soap in the lake.  Any soapy water had to be dumped far from shore.  No paper could be burned in the campfire and the fire must be contained under the grate.  Is this the same outfit that thinks it would okay to mine copper in the boundary waters?  Wouldn't that be worse than a little biodegradable soap in the water?  The National Park Service people are serious about their jobs and it's best not to question them too much before we get our permit.  Our destination was Brule Lake - a 26 mile drive on the Caribou Trail.  Brule is the largest lake in the BWCA.  We loaded our canoes, Duluth packs, bear proof barrels and other supplies into three canoes. One person had to ride "Duff" (sitting in the middle without a paddle).  We paddled for a couple hours looking for a good campsite - one large enough for four tents.  We paddles past black spruce, white spruce, red cedar, white pine, red pine, birch, rocks and water.  All the shores are rocky here.  Getting in and out of the canoe was treacherous because some of the rocks are slimy with moss.  We picked a site about 6 p.m., set up camp, and made dinner of pasta with pesto sauce.  I shared a tent with Kathy.  It was an intimate tent and I am very grateful that Kathy was easy going and humorous because it would have been terrible if we didn't like each other.  We were packed in tight.  I had my Duluth pack at my head and my feet touched the bottom of the tent.  If we both laid on our backs we were fine but if we both curled on our sides and had our knees touching the tent, our backs touched as well. The little yellow tent was one way to get to know someone really well, really fast. 

Back From the BWCA

I'm too tired to write much but I can sum up the trip in three words:  paddle, eat, sleep.  Each day was eat, paddle, eat, paddle, eat, paddle, eat, paddle, eat, sleep.  I love the BWCA!  Details and pictures to follow.