Clay's summer Vacation

This summer I was the adult advisor to a group of high-school kids from my church on a week long canoe trip. I've done a write-up of that trip that I thought some of you might be intersted in. The text of that is copy/pasted below. It's OK, I don't expect anyone to actually read all of this.


Here's a photo from the trip, I'm the guy sitting.

BWC Trip 2004 – Upperclassmen trip.

Saturday (Day 1)
After a 6 hour drive we arrived at Camp Vermillion near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. We segregated into our two groups as follows:

Guide – Joe P.
Advisor – Gail
Advisor – Clay
Paul
Julie
Mike
Emily
Maggie
Meredith

Guide – Kristy
Advisor – Pastor Greg
Paul
Dan
Melissa
Megan
Travis
Katie
Becky

Each group gathered their Camp Vermillian provided equipment, selected the meals for the trail, did the swim test, and did the canoe flip and recovery test. This was followed by a little time to pack our bags in the bunk house. We had a delicious dinner of Lasagna prepared at the Mess Hall.

A lakeside devotion followed supper. Each group then gathered with their guide and planned their trip. The hour grew late and most people went to sleep shortly after this.


Sunday (Day 2)
The morning began with a hearty 7:00AM breakfast. Most people skipped the showers – not much point. We threw our packs in our cars and drove the 2 hours to our entry point. Pastor Greg’s group departed first, so we had our devotion on the waterfall while they did so.


For our 9-man party, we had 3 canoes and 7 packs. The water was about 60 rods away (a rod is 16.5 feet – the same as a canoe), meaning that we had to portage our gear from the parking area to the water. Each canoe load out was 2 (or 3) packs and 3 people – 2 paddlers and one duffer. Each canoe was between 60 and 80 lb’s and about 16 feet long – requiring both strength and balance to carry. The packs were typically about 25 – 50 lbs. The equipment pack was very heavy (just shy of 100lbs?). Some of our crew members could not physically carry this pack more than a few dozen yards. The canoes had shoulder pads to allow a person to carry them without wrecking their shoulders. Unfortunately the weight was crushing, making breathing difficult on the initial portages. We got much stronger and better at it as the trip progressed.
After our portage, we launched the canoes at about noon and got underway. You have to walk into the water to load the packs and yourself into it. This means your feet are wet whenever outside of your evening camp. This sounds worse than it was and in short order no one really noticed or cared about it. Gail and I took one canoe and had our guide relax in the duffing position. Our initial travels were somewhat comical – some of us didn’t know how to steer so we’d crisscross the river intimately investigating the weeds on each side. We got a lot better pretty quick.
Our trip began by passing down a weedy river for a few hours, encountering maybe 5 canoes coming the other way – this is high traffic for the Boundary Waters. The weather was – in a word – glorious. Mosquitoes and flies were light, the sun was out, the temperature was comfortably hot.
Another 40 rod portage. Here is where we were introduced to Camp Vermillion GORP – this stuff was really good. Meredith and Emily were particularly impressed with it. They hounded Joe for pretty much the rest of the trip with their signature “Hey Joe, got any more GORP?” We ran into congestion at a portage (3 other canoes = massive congestion here), so we stopped for lunch at a campsite. We had peanut butter on WASA – it hit the spot. This is where we learned that “leave no trace” includes food. If any is dropped it must be eaten. Don’t drop the Jelly!
Maggie started singing her favorite song – “Hi, my name is Joe. I’ve got a wife, 3 kids, and I work at a but-ton fact-ory” for the next 5 days. I think Joe actually grew fond of it.
We headed across Lower Pauness Lake to Devils Cascade falls. It was here that we finally caught up with Pastor Greg and his band of Merry 9th Graders heading out on a different course than ours.

We parked our canoes and ran up to the falls – which were seriously pretty! It was so nice, that everyone took out their cameras and took pictures. Except one of our cameras got dropped and fell to the bottom of the ravine! Oh no! Hardly a “Leave no trace”! Before I knew it, there goes Joe scaling down the cliff to get the camera! Oh great, we’re going to kill our guide – I feel bad about this.

He gets the camera, and scales straight back up the cliff to return it, stopping only to eat some kind of edible brown mold off of the rocks on his way back up. I think he actually had fun doing this. At this point, I’m feeling pretty good about our guide – but mostly happy that he’s alive and not mad. We’re a lot more careful with the cameras for the remainder of the trip.
This portage was a tougher one, lots of vertical and long at 160 rods. We made it about half way, passed out, and then went the rest of the way. More GORP – GORP is good. Another long canoe paddle down a river and past motor boats that are fishing. Motor boats? Didn’t expect that – fortunately those were the only two we saw the whole day – and they were anchored at the time. We decided to push a little on our first day and Joe had the perfect site picked out for us on East Loon Bay. But it was already taken. As was the next site. And the next site. And the next site. Finally, after some exhaustive paddling, we found a site just before entering Little Loon Lake. And it was a good site! For our first night in the woods, this was a very picturesque spot overlooking the lake. Shortly after getting the boats in and camp set up, we all jumped into the water and went for a little swim – wearing our PFD’s of course.

We did find a leach on Paul, had to take a picture of that.
We set up the tents, which were rather spacious 6 man tents that went up pretty quickly. Mike and Paul tried a little fishing, though with no luck (Dadnabit!). For dinner, Joe made us a fantastic dinner of steaks (out of our freezer pack), corn, and mashed potatoes – well seasoned with dill. I actually ate two. Maggie had a veggie-burger. After dinner I burned my underwear and t-shirt on the fire to lighten the load (I had brought more). Joe was rather amused by this – and since the cloths were 100% vegetable matter, didn’t have a problem with it.
Around this time someone noticed one of our canoes floating out in the lake! Maggie showed her true mettle at this point, racing to the shore, screaming “Don’t look!” while throwing off her cloths and donning a life vest. She swam out into the lake and recovered our canoe for us. I think it was at this point that Joe decided this crew’s going to be all right. Indeed Joe seemed quite content to do almost all the work it – but we’d have none of that and were always there helping out. Even when he said he didn’t need help, he’d turn around and find one of us taking care of something so he wouldn’t have to.
Doing dishes while on-trail is a bit different. You dry-scrub the dishes with dirt. This works because dirt is an absorbent abrasive. You then scatter the dirt, so that it doesn’t attract animals. Now this was new! Emily made it clear that her mother would not approve – and then dove right into it. So far we had learned to eat food off the ground and scrub our dishes with dirt.
To keep your food safe you have to suspend it from a high branch in a tree. Simple enough concept – harder to do than you’d think in practice. Throwing a shoe, or water bottle, over a branch with a rope tied around it is a lot harder than it looks. After a few people struggled, I decided to show off with an extra cool Xena style technique that was sure to work. I began whipping the shoe around by the string and releasing it at just the right moment so that it would arc over the branch – with many ooo’s and aaah’s from those astonished by this display. At least that was the theory – instead the shoe petered off into some bush off to the side. A pretty humble display. With some luck we eventually did get the food pack up – though I suspect any self-respecting bear could have bested it.
That night we did a circle massage to get the soreness out. It really helped. We also did our bible devotion that night – I really liked doing that. It was well past dark by now and I sat with Mike, Julie, and Paul on the shoreline to talk and watch the stars and feed the mosquitoes. This is what I live for, just the peaceful moments like this where people are comfortable to just talk. It’s neat watching the stars with the satellites go by. We didn’t really see any Northern Lights this night. I supposed there was a mild glow to the north – but that’s not very exciting. After the appropriate amount of blood loss we decided to turn in.
The 5 girls went into their tent, and 3 guys into ours (Joe slept outside in a hammock). I had brought a large underpad that really made a difference – and slept pretty well. I also had earplugs – which also helped me sleep OK.
The only problem was that I drank too much water and woke up at 2 AM (or so, who knows – none of us wore a watch). It’s a bit more involved trying to creep out of a zippered tent over 2 other guys while trying not to wake them in the pitch dark, putting on shoes, and then wondering to a safe spot. On camping trips in the past, wondering around in the woods in the dark can actually be pretty scary, but for some reason I never really got that nervous about it on this trip. All the same, I think I’ll try to remember my flashlight next trip.

Monday (Day 3)
We awoke to another glorious day. Wow – we’re really lucking out on this trip. Julie was yelling at us from outside to get moving – we have a full schedule for today. Perhaps a career in management is in her future. We packed up rather quickly and gathered for breakfast. Today we had moose munch (I think), which was carnation instant breakfast dissolved in boiling water, powdered milk, and grape nuts. To be honest, I thought it was delicious and had two helpings. Following this we did something really cool. We gathered in a circle, Joe led us in a brief morning prayer, and then did stretches. Each person in the circle would say a little prayer – what they hoped for today or were happy about yesterday – while everyone was doing their stretch. Joe then repaired my sunglasses, which managed to get crunched the day before.
We were off. First thing we did was paddle through a lovely cliff channel into the appropriately named Little Loon Lake.
Loons and Eagles were so commonplace on this trip that I think most people didn’t even bother taking their pictures. All the same, they were magnificent to listen to and watch.
Today was to be on the picturesque lakes that are the lesser traveled. They’re lesser traveled because there’s lots of portages on this route. Our first of the day was 173 rods with 120 feet of elevation, most of that right away. We had a good crew though and made it without incident. The morning was filled with really pretty lakes, exactly what I was envisioning in my minds eye before we came. Really pretty lakes, and really steep portages. Our most difficult of the day was the 120 rod portage between South Lake and Steep Lake, where we rose about 120 feet in 40 rods. When doing a portage one person carries a canoe while another is assigned a regular weight pack (none are light) and follows behind to help. Paul Merkey grabbed a canoe and I took a pack to help him out. Paul took off! I couldn’t keep up with him and I was just carrying a pack! Wow.
I think Joe and Gail or Maggie carried the other canoes. I was impressed with Gail, she carried a canoe on almost every portage.
Julie started having knee problems around this time. True to form, she refused to even consider lighting up. For the rest of the day she fought (and usually won) for the chance to carry a canoe and paddle. Fortunately her problems went away after this day (or so it appeared, one has to keep a sharp eye on this young athlete). Later in the day Maggie had some shoulder rotation problems and could no longer paddle. To make up for this, she insisted on carrying a canoe at each and every portage. I think she stopped for a “bridge” about twice the entire rest of the trip. Considering that a canoe weights around 80lbs and is 17 feet long, this is no trivial task for the uninitiated. Mike and I traded turns with the 100 lb equipment pack. Mike is training for football this season and was pretty psyched at the chance for some weight training. At 15, Meredith and Emily were our young lightweights, so of course they both also thought they should carry a canoe and the equipment pack too. It was too much for them at this point – but stay tuned, there’s an amazing comeback story for these two by the end. This was a crew with pride – nobody was about to be the slacker. Joe was amazing - he’d carry both a canoe and a pack on most portages. Considering the frequent battles to carry a canoe, he sometimes was too slow so he’d just carry two packs.
We broke for lunch at the campsite south of the channel on Eugene lake. The wind was picking up by now and it was surprising to see how much the waves picked up on such a little lake. It’s always amazing how good food can be when on a trip like this. We had bagles with cheese and summer sausage hunks. It was awesome. At this point we decided to review our itinerary. Originally we were going to hit the Indian Pictographs, but that was a long paddle away, across large lakes which could be scary in this wind – sometimes the waves get up to five feet out there. More importantly, it was going to be a lot of hard work. After some pondering, we decided it might be a more fun trip to instead scoot south tomorrow. This way we’ll have a little spare time to actually enjoy this environment. We considered going to Fat Lake also, but will save that one for a future trip.
More lakes and portages in the afternoon until we hit the beautiful Finger Lake. Joe had an awesome site picked out for us on an island in the middle of the lake. Joe was paddling in the front this time and I was steering. Problem was I was such a novice steerer and Joe such a strong paddler that I was unable to compensate for his strokes. We ended up crisscrossing all over the place. We noticed another canoe on the lake (one of the very few we’d seen today) and it looked like they were going for our spot! The race was on! But they had already set up camp as it turns out, so alas, we didn’t get this spot. Crestfallen we headed to the next site on the lake. We were tired by this point and yesterdays difficulties of finding an open site were fresh in our minds.
As we paddled to our second choice Maggie pulled out her camera and took a picture of our site. The closer we got, the clearer it became that this spot was totally awesome. It’s a huge rock with the fire grate located on the top overlooking the lake. The face of the rock had a sculpted amphitheater setting, probably carved by the glaciers, and now perfect for a group of people to lounge in and overlook the lake. The girls grabbed the tent pad next to the fire grate for their spot right away – it did look like a very nice spot. The other tent pad wasn’t around, so we wondered about until we found it – up high on a ledge overlooking the lake. I can’t imagine a better tent spot anywhere. With ear-to-ear grins, the guys set up the tent quickly.
Our rock was absolutely perfect for easing ourselves into the water from, which everyone did! The swim was great.
Whenever you make camp, you have to collect drinking and cooking water. This is done by paddling out to the center of the lake, where the water is free of Giardia. After changing into their dry cloths, Emily and Meredith took one of the canoes and headed out to get our water. They got about 5 feet before Gail and I saw they had no PFD’s on, so we had them stop so we could throw some down from the rock to them. But the PFD’s were still wet. So once again, we all had to turn our backs while the girls took off their dry outer clothes and put on the wet PFD’s – all while still in the canoe. They got our water and paddled back – or so the boys were told.



Joe made us another delicious feast tonight. It was so good we even had an uninvited guest come and visit, while we were eating our blueberry white cake. The little guy is just below the big pot.
After dinner we again scrubbed and sterilized our dishes and hoisted our food pack. We had our devotion this night in the boys tent, were you could see across the dark lake out of our tent front door. On our way out, we looked up and saw the Northern Lights. This was very exciting to me – it has been a goal of mine to see the Northern Lights at least once in the 5 years I’ve been living in the northwoods, and tonight was the night! Everyone was pretty excited by this. We all went back down to our rock on the lake, laid out, and just watched the light show for almost an hour. We talked, laughed, oohh’d and ahhh’d the night away – it was my favorite part of the whole trip. After awhile, they faded and most of us did too.
Much later that night, after again the call of nature awoke me, I managed to step on Paul getting out of the tent. So he headed out too. When we looked up we saw that the Northern Lights were back with a vengeance. They were swirling and pulsating at a rate I never expected to see. It was breathtaking.

Tuesday (Day 4)
Yet another glorious day. We broke camp after breakfast and our morning stretches. We headed northeast up Finger Creek to Pocket Lake. By now portages were no longer that intimidating – we’d already bested the worst of them. After turning south down Pocket Creek we saw our first moose. This was fantastic, it was a magnificent bull and Joe was pretty happy with our luck – he wasn’t expecting to see one here. Feeling excited by our sighting, we continued on and turned south into the Gebeonequet Creek. But first Maggie had business to attend to, so we had to stop. This section was actually a rather marshy area and making landfall was harder than you’d think. Frustrated, Maggie scrambled out onto a rather shaky log, and once again we all had to turn around. I kept waiting for an inevitable loud splash and scream, which thankfully never came. Julie however thought this an excellent time to capture a candid Maggie moment on film.
Our portage onto Lake Gebeonequet was another steep one, but one of the prettiest yet. The wind was up and Lake Gebeonequet was more of a challenge than the flat rivers were. This was one of the more formidable lakes on the trip, large, choppy, and probably deep. But was it ever worth it. We made it to our campsite by lunch time – giving us the rest of the day to relax. Not 15 minutes after making landfall a boyscout troop of 4 canoes rounded the corner heading straight for our spot. Seeing our canoes they paddled further out, heaved to, and pulled out their maps. Whew!
More sausage and cheese, on Pita bread this time for lunch, with Mary Bars for desert. Mary Bars are these sweet peanuty past things that are very tasty. Only after we ate them did Joe helpfully point out that they’re also very good at regulating the system. We ended up almost running out of toilet paper this trip – sneaky folks these Camp Vermillion people
This site was as good as our last! It had a big rock for a beach with wonderful trees all around. After lunch we went swimming. Also, there was a huge climbing rock right by camp that just said “climb-me” – so we did!
Maggie, Mike and Paul took a canoe out into the lake to get our water. Funny thing is, that pot gets very heavy when full of water. Maggie almost flipped the canoe while pulling it back in. That would have been sad, because all of our Nalgene water bottles were in the boat (and full) and all of our other pots and pans were in the boat. Someone had already researched today that the Nalgene bottles don’t float when full, so we would have been stuck with no cooking tools and no water. Spooked by this prospect, Maggie decided to clip the rest of the water bottles to her vest.
After making camp Joe led us in our reading. Joe is at a point in his life where he has to decide what he’s going to do. The call of the wild is one he doesn’t want to leave, but the reality of modern life’s choices is upon him. Struggling with this, Joe himself is praying very hard for his own future, as are we all. Joe’s sincerity was helpful in driving home his biblical readings. After reading a passage from a naturalist book as well, Joe sent us into the wilderness for a moment of solitude.
The solitude time was a wondrous thing and I think we all got much out of it. It was a period where we each walk into the wilderness until no-one else is around. Then sit, ponder, prey, and meditate. I can’t say how long we were out – an hour – maybe two? I found a rocky cliff above the lake, offset enough that the sounds of the forest muffled the sounds of the water. This was personal time and most chose not to share their personal thoughts upon return to camp – nor should they.
The cycle you go through in solutide is interesting. At first you go tromping through the forest to find that perfect spot. Then sit, make yourself comfortable. You pray, gather your thoughts, and are at peace. After a time, you think to yourself “Self, it’s been a while, I wonder when he’s going to call us back”. So you sit, glance at your wrist – even though it hasn’t touched a watch in half a week now – and get mildly antsy. Realizing that no one is calling, you resign yourself to this and settle in for a longer haul. This is where the real meditation and introspection kicks in, for me at least. I shall keep my thoughts my own, but when Joe did finally call us, I was not ready to return from my thoughts just yet.
I was amazed to see Gail Johnson raise not 50 feet from me. I’m glad I’m not a deer in her neck of the woods! We enjoyed our day very much and I’m glad we chose to take the easier path.
We ate a dinner of Mac and Cheese that night that was a big hit. We had a small amount of pancake batter from yesterdays excellent pancake breakfast, so we tried crapes for desert. With a little peanut butter, they didn’t last long.
After dinner we needed more water, so Paul, Gail, and I took out a canoe to do so. There was this incredibly picturesque little isle just off of our campsite that we stopped at to enjoy. Enjoy and pick blueberry’s that is – the isle was completely overrun with them!
Campsites here have three things – a fire grate for cooking over, flattened areas for tents, and a ranger box. The ranger box consists of a seat with a hole. That’s it, no walls. This ranger box was a bit airy in particular. Anyone using this box was partially visible from pretty much all locations. Fortunately vanity was one of our first casualties, so by now most people did not care. Distance and underbrush were enough to eliminate any real decency worries.
This night was so dark that I almost got lost coming back from my 2 AM wake-up call – not a happy moment.

Wednesday (Day 5)
Overcast day today. We had a busy day ahead of us, so we broke camp and headed out rather quickly. Today we traveled due south down through Oyster Lake. Oyster Lake was another large choppy lake, and we actually had to tack across the lake to assure the canoes didn’t flip. On one river stretch I did managed to plow directly into a passing canoe – one of maybe 5 we saw all day. I thought it was hilarious, though for some reason Julie spent the rest of that leg steering from the front.
After the long portage from the Oyster River in Lake Agnes, we stopped for lunch on a sandy beach. We had peanut butter and jelly on Wasa and GORP. Emily managed to catch a minnow while we were there.
As we continued south on Lake Agnes the rains hit. It was the first time I got cold and I put on my poncho to keep warm. Emily and Meredith did the same, but to do so they had to stop paddling. The wind pushed them back so far that it took them 10 minutes to catch up. Tired, wet, winded, and cold, they were of course singing merrily as they crept back into earshot.
The passage into the Nina Moose River is very large, with one large rock off to the side. One of our canoes veered off straight for it and managed to get pretty thoroughly grounded. It took a couple minutes to get it unstuck from the rock, though I think the laughter was slowing people down.
By now we must have been the loudest crew on this river in weeks, so of course we managed to see not one but two Moose! Our first was a cow moose that really wasn’t that interested in us. The second was the largest bull moose I’d ever seen (not that I’ve seen many). This thing was huge and the pictures don’t do him justice. This was cool!
On Nina Moose Lake we are told that there is but one good campsite. This lake is often not only crowded, but completely full. Every site we’d passed by now on our way in was already taken. So entering the Lake was a bit apprehensive, since the next stop past it is the parking lot 3 miles away! Imagine our delight to discover that the lake was completely empty – not a soul to be sighted in 8 camp sites. We grabbed the best spot on the Lake and settled right on in. Because it was so overcast the light was deceiving, we actually had quite a bit of time left this day. Mike and Paul went fishing and Meredith and Emily went frog hunting. A group took a canoe to go rock climbing and find a lost freshwater spring. They found a dried up spring, but nothing better. After a time we played cards in the tent. Emily threw shoes (usually Paul’s) at the overly inquisitive squirrels.
The weather rolled in shortly after we got camp finalized – and it was beautiful. I stood out on our rock peninsula in my poncho by a tree and watched it roll in. Joe stood out there for a time with me and we just talked.
We had dinner of chicken and rice under a tarp, held up by a Christmas tree. It was perfect. Joe even made us brownies, which probably were some of the best brownies I’d ever had.
Tonight’s devotion was held in the girls tent after dinner. The rains had died off by now so it was quite comfortable. We shared stories of how we thought the trip went, and what we thought of each other. Our flashlight went dead, so we did this in the dark. This particular devotion meant a lot to me. We slept well that night.

Thursday (Day 6)
We had made such good time yesterday that we slept in today. Actually we pretty much slept in every day. We also got to skip dishes today – Wahoo! We didn’t get too far up the Moose River before we found a beaver dam that we had to drag the canoes over – that was a bit of a balancing act. The portages were easy. We had gotten so strong at this by now that everyone, including Emily and Meredith, was able to do it easily. A couple of us even jogged down the trail while carrying the canoes!

Part way home we stopped at “Top of the World” which is a huge rock overlooking quite a view. We climbed up to the top and took a couple pictures.
Traffic was heavier on this leg of the trip, we were getting near the entrance point. We all got a chuckle over some of the incoming canoes that were careening off into the weeds – that was us just a few days ago. Even though we were moving quickly, Maggie did manage to mark every single portage we hit over the entire trip – quite an accomplishment.
We pulled out exactly on schedule, and right on schedule just 15 minutes behind us was Pastor Greg and the 9th Graders.

We drove into town and had A&W burgers and ice cream. YUM! I was surprised at how full I was from a “normal” sized meal. You’re never really hungry out in the Boundry Waters (at least I wasn’t) but apparently you do eat less, because I think my stomach shrunk. This probably isn’t a bad thing.
We then drove back to base camp, where we cleaned up and put back all of our gear. Following this we did the Sauna, which, when alternated with the lake, was totally awesome.
Dinner was fantastic that night, and we all slept very well. We hounded our guides to help us mark our adventures on our maps and they were very amenable. Both groups had really great guides – it was a most excellent adventure.

Very cool, Clay!