Boundary Waters Recap

The art of blog posts can be lumped into three categories. Easy, medium, and just plain time consuming. The easy ones are a funny picture and a few odd-ball comments to with. The medium ones are consist of a YouTube clip and/or pictures along with a few paragraphs. The time consuming ones are the ones I want to get right. The ones I put more care into. Recaps for example almost always fall into this category. I want to not only tell you what happened, but best describe some of the finer details all the while trying not to bore you. I don't think I need to tell you this post is filed under Time Consuming which is partly why it's taken me a few days to finally nail down.

After months of planning, the time was here. It was 3:00 AM, Thursday the 15 and my dad, brother, and I were finally heading to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.


Whispering our goodbye's to Erin and my brother's wife Cyri, we climbed into a white Dodge Dakota destined for Northern Minnesota. To anyone who witnessed our early departure, they could easily put two and two together just by the green canoe strapped to the top of the truck. We were manly men doing what manly men did! Right? (Actually we could have easily been the start of joke that would go something like this: A Graphic Designer, Accountant, and their dad walk into a bar...You get the point.)

8:32 AM roles around and we turn left off of Gunflint Trail (see map below) and hit our destination, Adventurous Christians. In order to enter the Boundary Waters, just like regular camping, you need to pay your dues and fill out some paperwork. But unlike regular camping, you need to watch a video and go over rather strict (but necessary) rules. Because campsites can be visited by bears, moose, and other unwanted visitors and there are no places to put garbage, you need to hang up your food between two trees no shorter than six feet apart. And with no running water or electricity, and only a hole in the ground to go to the bathroom, the Forestry Service has a list of guidelines they need everyone to follow. After passing our "quiz", we made our way to the entry point on Poplar Lake.

(click to enlarge)

Getting the canoe ready to go took a little effort. The canoe itself is the easy part, but finding the best place to put the food, clothes, sleeping bags, and tents all the while not wanting to be top heavy was another; let alone three people who need a place to sit. A little bit of organizing and we were off.

It was a gorgeous day and we couldn't have asked for better weather. Although it would have been nice if the rest of the days could have been so picture perfect. (I'll expand on that later.)

45 minutes of paddling and we had reached our first portage. For those of you who don't know, in order to get to a campsite, you need to portage. None of the lakes in the Boundary Waters are connected. So every time you portage, you run aground, remove the bags from the canoe, and carry everything to the next lake. How far you have to walk depends on the distance between each lake. The distance is measured by "Rods". One Rod is roughly equivalent to the length of one canoe.

Throughout the Boundary Waters, the length of portages can run any where from 5 Rods to over 200 Rods. Our particular route's longest distance was 68 Rods. Now it wouldn't really be a big deal to carry gear the length of 68 canoes on solid level ground, but alas, that's NEVER what we got. We were climbing over fallen trees, walking through running water, and avoiding ankle deep mud pits. And all of that was either going up or down hill and sometimes both. It's kind of like those stories a grandpa might tell:

"When I was your age, in order to get to school, I had to skate up hill both ways through 5 feet of snow all the while fighting indians with only a slingshot."

Five lakes, four portages, and six hours later, we reached out campsite. It really felt good to unpack and set everything up. Actually, I'm assuming it did as Leif and my dad did that. As soon as I saw the fire pit, I was made home. Having pyro-like tendancies, any excuse I get to play with matches, I take em. Growing up, my mom had to hide the matches from me. That's normal right? ;)

My dad and Leif were/are the true outdoors men. I don't think I'd have to convince any of you that. Dad knew it all and Leif wanted to learn it all. As for me...I lack motivation in that area. Don't get me wrong, I did help but not nearly as much as Leif did. If Brevin wants to get in touch with the outdoors growing up, either he'll be spending a lot of time at his grandpa's or uncle's because the most I could do would be to have a leash attached to clothesline with him on the other end so he could run around without me having to pay close attention to him. I'M KIDDING!

Keeping active was never an issue. We either went canoing, exploring, or fishing without the catching. The only element that was a hinder to us to do more was the weather. The first day was perfect for this greenhorn. The other days...well...below is my take on what the weather did.


Yep rainy, windy, and the last day we even got snow! We new it would be cold but I don't think any of us expected snow. There was even patches of snow still on the ground.

Thankfully my dad was prepared for anything. Leif and I don't have the necessary gear to make it out alive by ourselves but my dad does. We drank the lake water thanks to his water purifier, we had water proof hiking boots, a down sleeping bag, even water resistant/proof pants and coats.

His strategically placed tarp helped with the rain as we were outside without getting wet. The only thing even the tarp couldn't help with was the wind. The wind on Saturday was so strong, we didn't dare start a fire. Like I said before, my dad was prepared so he used a tiny gas grill for food.

Needless to say, the weather kept us on our toes and made the trip more memorable. It would rain one minute, the sun would come out, and start pouring. It was that odd.

By 4:00 PM Sunday, we had reached civilization once again. The Dodge that had been anxiously awaiting our return was a great sight to see. The charcoal gray seats never felt so good. Both Leif and I agreed we'd never make it in the TV show Survivor. Not that I had any aspirations of an appearance on the show, but four days without a hot shower and seeing my wife and son was enough for me.

9:30 PM that night we saw familiar faces. But there was a twist. As we were excited to see them, they were upset with us. On the way to the Boundary Waters, we waited too long to call them letting concerning our safe arrival as there was zero cell phone service. "Oh well" I thought. After all, no news would be good news right? On the way home we waited until we got to Two Harbors before we called home. Oops. We hadn't had cell phone service for very long and waited until after filling both the gas tank and our stomaches to call. As it turns out, the wives were expecting us home at 5:00 and here we didn't even call until 6:00. D'oh! It was a classic guy mistake.

Looking back on the experience, it will always be a positive one. We had a lot of fun even with the weather. In fact, I think the weather helped us enjoy the experience as well as appreciate all we had. God had truly blessed us. Not only with safety, health, and despite our prayers to the contrary, "crappy" weather. I look forward to going back...but only if my dad and brother come with and they do all the work...again. :) Kidding.

Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend, rain or shine!

—b