As a teenager I, like most adolescents, believed my parents were total
nerds. Knew nothing, I thought, about music, sports, adventure, fun—all
the stuff I was into. They were so…well…old, that they embarrassed me.
But
as they aged, my dad started sorting through his mementos, and when he
showed me some of them it opened up a whole new window on his world.
Among those relics were a few small black-and-white pictures of him
canoeing with his friend, Bob Clough, in Minnesota’s north woods. They
looked to be in their late teens or early twenties, young and fit and
happy. I was intrigued.
This made us not just cool kid
and dorky father, but kindred spirits.
There
were also receipts from outfitters in Ely and Winton, Minnesota, towns
near entry points to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW).*
They listed flour, sugar, lard and various canned goods,** all in
quantities sufficient for extended stays in the wilderness.
And
there was this map, printed on treated canvas, of a portion of Ontario’s
Quetico Provincial Park, the BWCAW’s even wilder counterpart across the
border in Ontario. Hand-drawn on it was a new portage the two had
blazed across the base of a long peninsula, cutting off a couple of hours’
paddling time around it. They’d tentatively claimed it on the map with a
red arrow and their last initials, C&W.
KINDRED SPIRITS
I’d
known Dad was a Boy Scout, but this was something else, something more
exciting than good deeds and merit badges. The guy had roughed it on his
own terms, for weeks at a time, in true wilderness, back when that word
meant more than it does now. A real man’s man. And, since I’d also done
many BWCAW and Quetico trips myself, this made us not just cool kid and
dorky father, but kindred spirits.
Fast forward to 1997. Dad
was 91; I was 52. And that July Dad passed away. Even though Mom was
still living, I felt like an orphan. I regretted not having known him
better. But finally being aware of that adventurous, woodsman side of
his was still pretty special.
When it came time for the family to divvy up Dad’s stuff, I didn’t want much. But I wanted that map. And I got it.
That old cloth map stirred something in me. And during the following
year I began planning a canoe trip up to that portage. I invited six
friends with varying degrees of wilderness paddling experience who I
thought would most appreciate the adventure. We put our heads together
to plan logistics: dates, route, menu, equipment… And I created graphics
and mementos for
The Memorial Expedition—a six-inch round commemorative
plaque and a dozen three-inch souvenir medallions—and had the design
sand-etched onto clear glass blanks.
The miracle material can stop a bullet
or just about any other impact, but,
incredibly, is helpless against abrasion.
GETTING THEREOn
June second, 1998, we headed north for the five-and-a-half-hour drive
to Lake Superior's North Shore, the Gunflint Trail and Tuscarora Lodge, where we’d
arranged to bunk for the night and rent canoes for the trip. When we
left home, temperatures had been summer-like, with predicted highs in
the mid-80s. It looked like the warm streak would apply to northwestern
Minnesota too, and hold for at least several days. That was good to
know, as it allowed me to pack fairly light, always an advantage for a
wilderness canoe trip.
Alas, that night, on a cot barely fit for a
prisoner, it soon became clear I’d been grossly misled about the
weather. With no heat in the bunkhouse, the near-freezing chill easily
breached its walls and my flimsy, ultra-light sleeping bag, making for a miserable
night.
Next
morning, we were introduced to our two slick, translucent,
super-light Kevlar canoes. I learned that this miracle
material—originally developed by Dupont as a replacement for the
five-times-heavier steel belts used in racing tires, and later as the
basis of bulletproof body armor—can stop a bullet or just about any
other impact, but, incredibly, is helpless against abrasion.
All
this to explain why our host applied a strip of silver duct tape along
each canoe’s keel at the bow. If we returned the craft with any part of
that tape worn through, we’d be charged a penalty. No problem,
considering several of us had long ago learned that a canoe’s bow must
never, ever touch anything but water or air.
THE TWO SAGSThey
loaded up our gear, Carl’s beautiful wood-and-fiberglass Old Town
Canadienne and the two canoes we’d rented, and drove us up to the end of
the Gunflint Trail. There we put in at the tip of the long, narrow
south arm of Lake Saganaga, one of the BWCAW’s biggest and prettiest
glacier-scoured lakes.
We paddled a couple of miles north up the narrow, river-like channel and then into the huge expanse of Big Sag itself.
Then
it was west for about six miles across the widest part of Saganaga,
skirting its numerous islands and crossing the international border.
Once we entered Cache Bay, we had to register with Canadian Customs,
letting them know where we were headed and for how many days.
As
we paddled away from the rangers’ island, the wind picked up and it
started to snow—something I’d only once before encountered up here in
June. Luckily, paddling into the wind generated enough body heat to stay
quite comfortable…for a while. But soon, the piercing cold was
conspiring with high winds and some nasty two-foot waves to deny us much
headway, so we found a good landing spot on the lee side of a small
island, and built a fire.
The wind kept pounding us for the next
couple of hours until, finally, we were able to make a run for it to the
nearest decent campsite.
I thought of all the millions of footsteps
that have followed in theirs over 75 years.At
the time, officially-designated campsites in the Quetico weren’t shown
on the Fisher maps, so we scouted our own site and, hurried by pending
nightfall, quickly reacquainted ourselves with the various roles and
tasks it takes to set up camp, prepare a meal and protect our food pack
from bears.
I shared a tent with my brother-in-law, Carl. Thank
goodness neither of us is a super-loud snorer. Nonetheless, it proved to
be another long, miserable night, for, once again, the temperature kept
dropping, this time to well below freezing.
My nearly see-through
sleeping bag, with its scant one inch of loft and a rating for about 50
degrees, came up short—or should I say thin—for me, even wearing every
stitch of clothing I had. At dawn’s first scant light, still shivering
in fetal position, I looked enviously over at Carl, tucked in his brand
new LL Bean, five-inch-thick, zero-degree-rated goose down sleeping bag,
blissfully sawing wood. It was all I could do not to either crawl in
there with him…or punch him!
Next morning, we had breakfast and
broke camp rather leisurely, and then paddled west toward Silver Falls,
where we made several small portages before entering the very
southeastern tip of the narrow, twelve-mile-long Lake Saganagons*** (Indeed, its name is that similar to Saganaga’s.)
ETCHED IN STONE AND GLASS
About
three miles up the north side of Saganagons, we scoured the irregular
shoreline for the legendary portage. In the Quetico, portages are not
clearly marked with Forest Service signs as they are in the BWCAW. So it
took a while, but we finally spotted it, tucked behind a point that we'd mistaken for an island. At last, this was it. I felt we'd accomplished at least the physical and logistical part of our mission.
And then there was the spiritual part. I’ve always been a
sucker for all things mystical, especially if they involve ceremony. I
felt an immediate reverence for this place we were about to consecrate,
picturing my dad and his friend standing there, dirty and exhausted,
celebrating their success slogging their way across to the other side of
the peninsula. And I thought of all the millions of footsteps that have
followed in theirs over 75 years.
We paused for trail lunch**** before starting out across the 52-rod—about 285 yards—trail.
I
dug out the small packet of Dad’s ashes I’d filched from the
plastic-lined boxful we got from the crematorium. As we slowly retraced
my father’s steps, I scattered the sacred dust here and there, saving some to
anoint the lake on the other side. And I handed each member of the expedition one of the commemorative glass medallions as a keepsake.
I’ve filed a detailed description of the plaque's and medallions'
burial site with my will.As
we walked back, I scouted the surroundings for the best place to bury
the glass plaque and the remaining six medallions. I spotted a rock
outcrop with a distinctive, linear groove. Following that line down to
the point where it receded beneath the soil, I measured off a few feet
past that and dug a hole in the spongy, peat-like earth. And there I
carefully laid the mementos, along with the last of Dad's ashes.
After I
solemnly replaced and tamped down the soil, we gathered on the trail.
There was no question that Dad was present. Those who felt
the inclination offered heartfelt reflections about him and about the
extraordinary experience we were sharing. Some read or recited poems;
others simply offered their memories of Dad. I shared one of my favorite
T.S. Eliot quotes from his
Four Quartets:
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our
exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the
first time.”
We made camp that night on a lovely island not far from the portage, and
laid over there for one more day before heading back home.
Our paddle back across the border was much more tranquil than the
one getting to Saganagons—and no snow this time. I think we all felt a
sense of accomplishment, as 50-somethings, having proved our mettle
against the challenges of the wilderness, albeit for just five days.
And
I felt I’d done my father proud, acknowledging a part of him I’d barely
known, but came to greatly admire and respect. I realize it’s pure
romanticism, but I’ve filed a detailed description of the plaque's and medallions'
burial site, complete with map and photos, with my will.
My hope is that one of my antecedents—who knows how far into the
future—might learn of this tribute through family lore, and mount their
own quest to find Oscar Willius’s and Bob Clough’s portage and excavate
the buried medallions.
Call me a dreamer; I guess it's in my blood.
* The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is a
1,090,000-acre (4,400 km2) wilderness area within the Superior National
Forest in northeastern Minnesota (United States) under the
administration of the U.S. Forest Service. Its network of glacial lakes, streams and connecting portages provides over 1,200 miles of canoe routes.
** Until cans were outlawed in the BWCAW in 1971, the accepted practice had been to put empties into your fire to burn off their inner coating of shellac, and then sink them in the deepest part of the lake where one presumed they’d eventually rust and disintegrate.
*** Both Saganaga and Saganagons are Ojibwe for something like "lake of many islands."
**** Traditional "trail lunch," formulated for simplicity, packability, freshness without refrigeration and high caloric content, consists of: a chunk of hard salami, a chunk of cheese, a few RyeCrisp crackers, peanut butter and jelly, a handful of raisins, a few squares of Bakers semi-sweet chocolate and a cup of Kool-Aid. More recent interpretations have replaced several of these items with a few handfuls of gorp. Swapping some of these components among trip members is common.
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