This is a project I wrote about over a year ago. I had intended to post it, but then never did. It grew so long (by blogging standards) that I didn't know what to do with it and felt self-conscious enough about it that I tabled it. A week ago, one of my writing students wrote a paper on a trip to the boundary waters, so I dug this up. Maybe it's time to share it.
Iron Man Portage
One summer my friend Tim, his dad Don, and I went up to Canada for a week to go canoeing in the boundary waters near the Minnesota/Canada border.
We left on a Sunday afternoon, drove through Wisconsin and Minnesota, and arrived at the canoe outfitting post around 5. It wouldn’t open for a couple more hours, so we dozed in the car while we waited.
Monday:
We ate breakfast at a diner in town, and when the outpost opened, we were signed in by a ranger girl with a cute smile, short, brown hair and long, lean hiking legs that ended in short shorts. She gave us a few maps and Tim and Don began charting out our course while I wandered around, looking at the large model of Quetico Park.
Half an hour later, our eighteen foot aluminum canoe rested in the water, our loaded backpacks tucked away inside on the bottom of the canoe, and we pushed off. We wouldn’t see our car, the ranger, or many people for another five days.
The day was clear and we traveled nine miles, with little more than the sound of our paddles dipping in and out of the water, scraping the side of the canoe, and our quiet, almost shy conversation in the midst of this vast cathedral. Blue sky stretched out above us, and silvery steel water surrounded us. We passed cabins and islands, but gradually these thinned and became nonexistent until we were surrounded by forested shores, water, the sky and islands. Tim and Don remembered previous years when it had rained, but for this trip the weather couldn’t have been better.
At one point earlier in the day we had passed a cabin with a Canadian flag, gave our registry papers to a border officer, and crossed the boundary from one country into another. Other than the flag, everything was the same. There was no dividing line, no marker to show that we were in the United States one moment, and then weren’t. The woman with the papers and the cabin were the only thing that let us know the difference. And yet we had crossed over. We were in a new place, new territory, and we made a big deal about it.
We came to an island and decided to camp that afternoon, and took baths in the lake (with organic soap). We cooked chicken and potatoes over the burners, and cleaned the pans. Since none of us had slept much the night before, our arms and legs felt leaden, our minds fuzzy, and we decided to sleep a couple hours. We’d clean the other dishes later, start a fire, and relax.
At one in the morning we awoke. I don’t think any of us remembers what woke us up, but we had all overslept through the alarm. We were no longer tired, so we decided to clean the rest of the dishes. Don was out of the tent first. “Come out here and look at this,” he said. We followed, and I saw Don’s silhouette, and saw him looking up into the night sky. I looked up as well, and won’t forget what I saw, but can’t describe it. At least not well. It was a clear night, and where I’ve seen hundreds of stars in town or out in the country, or from the deserts in Idaho, here there were thousands. The starlight was so bright it reflected off the water like moonlight. “There’s a shooting star,” said Tim, “and another.” We kept calling them out, but soon stopped after there were too many. The sky was bleeding white, as if someone had poked holes in the night and had gone crazy with it. Some of the holes were big, others were small, but they were all over. We were awed into silence, and just watched the sky above us. We were too far south to see the northern lights, but I’m not sure we needed them. I wasn’t ready for anything more beautiful.
I’m not sure how long we stood watching the stars, but it was quite a while. Eventually we pulled away, and built up a fire, talked, drank hot tea and Tang until we were tired again and crawled back into the tent.
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