Boundary Waters Voyage, Pt1

There exists a special primal place hidden and pristine in northern Minnesota. Banned from motorized vehicles, a wilderness kept as untouched and untainted as possible. One last part of the country that may remain as it did echoing decades ago, wild, and unpolluted. The Boundary Waters, a 1,090,000-acre of wilderness, and not for the light hearted novice camper/traveler.

The entirety of the area is navigated by canoe or kayak through a chain of lakes. A travel of survival where all amenities and necessities are brought with and carried. There are no pit stop options to buy food or toilet paper. What you start with going in is all there is to survive off of. Critical planning is essential. I recommend dried and dehydrated foods that can be heated up using a Jetboil or something of the similar sort. Oatmeal for breakfast, jerky for snacks, and Mountain House meals for lunch, and dinner (and boy can they give a person gas). Pack as light as possible, for between lakes, everything must be portaged.

A portage is the path connecting between lakes. While some portages may be a couple hundred feet, some can be hundreds of rods. A rod is the unit of measurement Boundary Water maps use to measure portages. One rod is equal to one canoe length, or about 16 feet. Our longest most grueling portage was 120 rods, about 2,000 feet, through woods, up hill, weaving between trees, dodging roots, and back down to the water all while carrying big ass canoe on my head.

Carrying gear while in a canoe is easy. Everything floats. But, between the lakes is a different story. One person carries the boat over their head and everyone carries a backpack of gear. For us, I carried the boat and all our clothing packed in a waterproof bag. @velveteendream carried our home like a turtle on her back: tent, sleeping bags, and sleeping pads. Little Ninz our daughter carried all our food (her job got easier as the days progressed).

Injecting one's self into the Boundary Waters is completely isolating one's self from the rest of the busy bustling chaos of society. Other than the few other canoers out there on the outskirts, the deeper in you go, the more isolated it gets. Zero cellphone reception. No emails, the mind at peace and ease from stress and worry of the day to day, as long as you know where you’re going and can navigate through an almost identical landscape of shorelines, turns, and horizons. The beauty is immeasurable.

Within the first thirty minutes I realized, shit, how do I not get us completely lost? I’ve spent a fair time wandering through forests, usually by trail, go one way, turn around and come back out. I’ve even done a bit of compass wandering through the woods where, once deep in the thick, it can all look the same; left is right, as back is forward. Out here, in the Boundary Waters, it’s water, islands, and shoreline. I put the map in front of me and the compass at my feet trying to find similarities between the outcropping of the landscape and the map. Within twenty minutes I got my bearings and found where we needed to be using the designated campgrounds to confirm our location.

The Boundary Waters is known for its common bear inhabitants. It’s not everyday camping when your potential neighbor is a black bear. It is essential to suspend all food over 12 feet high and 10 feet out from a tree trunk and away from the tent:

http://www.bwca.cc/wildlife/bears/campingwithbears.htm

I also tied tin cups and pots to the food storage bag as an alarm system in case a visitor should come curious for a midnight snack while we slept. Luckily throughout the entire five-day trip we had no close encounter of the furry kind, although, there were the rabbits.

Amongst the wilderness in its purest form, it can be a sacred tranquil place, depending on the weather. We departed the Twin Cities at O-600, aka 6am, and headed north to the Gun Flint Trail, Entry point 54, Sea Gull Lake. Our mission: to navigate west through the burned down area past Ogishkamuncie Lake and to Eddy Falls, where we would decide then if we were to turn back or pass the point of no return.

The bad ass crew of S.S. DOGE