The Challenge of the Portage
by Tony Baroni (continued from page 2)

There was a good log for sitting on and I was doing just that as I ate my cream of wheat and drank my coffee.  The sky was a little lighter now, but it was still dark and a flashlight was necessary to see any detail.  The hissing of my stove was the only sound until I heard the rustling in the bushes.  There was something coming toward me!  I grabbed my flashlight and shined it in the general direction of the sound.  As the light flickered through the brush, it found movement.  Cast upon the ground it shined upon a skunk approaching my primitive breakfast nook.  I yelled, "Shoo!" and kicked a stick in his direction hoping to frighten him away.  I must have frightened him all right, but not away.  He started running, a silly waddling sort of run, but directly toward me!  Cream of wheat and coffee flew into the air in two different directions, and I flew off in yet a third.  I wasn't paying attention while running, but I suppose the skunk took a better assessment of the situation and turned around and ran back into the forest from where he came.

The incident was short lived and seemed ever funnier to me at the time than it does now.  The fear, the adrenaline, the foolishness of the whole scene combined in good proportions to make me laugh out loud at myself and the skunk.  I couldn't imagine who looked more stupid, me or it.

I had found a good pole and trimmed it down the previous evening.  It was helpful against the current especially the quick little rapid that came into the lake near my campsite.  I poled my way up the current and avoided the first portage of the day.

Portages are ironic.  They are grueling, hard, tiring.  One can hurt his back permanently by performing them.  Yet they are satisfying.  One really feels he has accomplished something after a portage.  Some of us actually spend vacations going places where we have to do portages.  That is the irony, that something that is next door to self torture is also fun.  But avoiding a portage is even more fun.  And I was proud of myself for avoiding this one.

Up the creek in that morning mist, I planned on seeing more moose.  But it wasn't to happen.  Oh, I got all excited and prepared the camera a couple times for some mist shrouded clumps of moose-like bushes, but I never saw another moose.  The absurd looking animal last night would be my only moose sighting for this trip.

The creek ended at a pretty little lake.  The mist had burnt off and the sun was shining.  At the other side of this lake was a portage.  It would be a good one to try the single carry.  I had toughened up now that I was into my third day out.  And I was organized.  The portage following this one would not be a good one to experiment on, it was the longest and steepest I would encounter on this trip.  And it was to hold a special significance in that it crosses the Laurentian Divide, where the waters flow Northward.

In the Boundary Waters, unlike Algonquin Park, the portages are unmarked.  Algonquin has little orange signs at each portage with a picture of a guy carrying a canoe designating the beginning of each portage.  The sign notes the distance to, and the name of, the next lake.  The Boundary Waters offers no such amenities; one is supposed to look for a low spot in the hills where the portage trail must go.  But a well-trampled spot on the shore where those before have put in and taken out, is a more definite sign.  Easier yet - a bunch of canoes and people vying for access to the portage trail.  Not always, but often there will be other parties at the portage trails.  This is where you are most apt to meet others.

I'd rather have a portage to myself.  I hate coming up to a portage and finding some canoes using up the only good landing spots.  I may have to land on a stump in four inches of mud that is six feet from solid ground.  People might be lounging around eating lunch and watching in amusement as I try to avoid an inelegant entry.  They study my gear and canoe and may comment or perhaps just snicker under their breath.  I, of course, must not let on that I am exhausted and want to have lunch too.  Upon landing I wonder what I should leave behind, the canoe or the pack? Which are they least apt to steal?