Campfires and Loon Calls by Jerry Apps

Author:Jerry Apps
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fulcrum Publishing
Published: 2016-09-14T00:00:00+00:00

These are the most memorable of the many times I have pored over our maps and wondered, “Where in the heck are we, anyway?” For us it’s all part of our BWCAW experience.

12

Family Adventure

In 1988 our canoe party included Steve and me, my youngest son, Jeff, daughter Sue, and her husband, Wayne—all in their twenties, except for me. I was fifty-four at the time. Sue was a first grade teacher, Steve a newspaper photographer, and Jeff just completing two years as a master counselor for an alternative youth camp in North Carolina—a wilderness camp where first-offender boys were sent in lieu of going to prison. For two years he had been camping full-time with ten not-to-be trusted boys who were as likely to steal his wallet as help with camp chores. Jeff was burned out and looking for a career alternative.

My three kids had canoed the BWCAW several times, but for my son-in-law, Wayne, this was the first time. Our equipment included two 17-foot Grumman canoes, and two Eureka tents—one four-person tent for the boys and me and a two-person tent for Sue and Wayne. I drove my Nissan pickup; Jeff drove his Ford Ranger.

We picked up BWCAW permits and bought fishing licenses in Grand Marais and then drove the 50-plus miles of the Gunflint Trail to the Trails End Campground, where we spent the night. Early on Tuesday morning we put in at Round Lake, portaged 142 rods to Missing Link Lake, and paddled across Missing Link Lake to face an arduous 366-rod portage to Tuscarora Lake, our first day’s destination. The weather was hot, temperatures in the low nineties, the mosquitoes hungry, and the portages difficult. But we were fresh, my crew was young, and I heard little complaining. On the portages, Steve and Jeff carried the canoes and light packs; the three remaining carried the heavier packs. We discovered that humor takes a different form under difficult conditions. My daughter, Sue, about five feet two, thin and trim, carried a huge backpack on the long portage from Missing Link to Tuscarora—it must have weighed 50 pounds. It took both Wayne and Steve to help her put it on and adjust it. She plodded ahead of me on the crooked trail strewn with rocks. When the path wasn’t climbing steeply it was falling away quickly. Sue, Wayne, and I walked under the weight of our packs with our heads down and our bodies leaning forward.

I heard a gasp from Sue and looked up to see her flying through the air in a complete somersault, heavy pack still in place. She landed on the pack, laughing at her misfortune. She had caught one of her hiking boots under a root, which completely upended her. She was uninjured, except for her pride, and we all chuckled about the incident around the campfire that evening.

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