Who could resist with those sexy black walnut decks?

PFD=seat cushion?

I like your wild rose picture today Lynda!  This is what they look like on my trip.


starwatcher

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Thanks.  We leave Thursday to pick up our granddaughter and head for Minnesota.  Looking forward to seeing the canoe country again.   

Anna-you did a GREAT job with the picture!

I totally agree with Hoho. Seen them but, but never as fresh as that one...your soooo lucky!

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Well, (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links) started this morning on the Fishing forum should cure your ills.

dd

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I'm eagerly looking forward too your POD submissions

Oh I understand the fascination with fishing pictures.

Every photo of a nice fish elicits in me a range of emotions – admiration for the angler and the angled (forget bears -- nothing screams ferocity and wildness like the toothy grin of a northern pike) … curiosity about the story behind the catch (What lure? How was the strike? How long the fight?) … some uncontrollable salivary response (no better way to start a campfire debate than to mischievously suggest that smallmouth tastes better than walleye) … and, truth be told, a vague twinge of envy.

That being said, to reduce one’s Quetico experience to the poundage of a stringer is to be inexplicably blind to the spiritual fervor of the place as well as the sensory blitzkrieg around you, or (to update the military lexicon), the sensory “shock and awe.”

Part of the challenge of being in Quetico is being able to keep moving – who wants to leave behind the vista surrounding you at any given moment, both on a macro and micro level? Look wide-eyed at the wide expanse … narrow the focus on whatever’s at your feet. I’m sure that’s what draws people like Spartan2 (whom I don’t know) to be perfectly and completely satisfied with bringing a camera and leaving behind the rod.

My skill with the lens is limited, but I can see in my own mind, this very moment, a range of images that for me make up the fabric of the Quetico experience … the rhythmic drips of water sliding off the paddle on each return stroke across a mirrored lake … the endless covering and emergence of a tip of a rock washed over by a wave, every two or three seconds, for all of eternity … the tenacity of a tiny pine gripping a spot of dirt in a cleft of rock … the scree piled up underneath an Agnes cliff … the haunting echo of each pictograph … the silhouette of individual pines and spruces on a far shoreline at dusk … a ground squirrel bold enough to grab a crumb … the falls of the Poet Chain … the many hues of lichen … the ….

Oh.

Wow.

I’m sorry. I got lost for a second.

The thing is, when I first began visiting Quetico, I marked each day by “events”: the 19-inch smallmouth I caught that morning … the Northern Lights I saw that night … the moose … the wolf I heard. And my litmus test for a successful day was the number of such occurrences. A day without a nice stringer was oddly diminished.

But as I got older, I realized that I was drawn more by the whole expanse – the simple “being” of the place that writers like Wallace Stegner and Rick Bass have captured so well in describing the remote corners of the American wilderness. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, that spiritual shadow calls to our ancestry.

And that “being” is captured in my opinion best not by a stringer shot or even a horizon shot captured by a wide-angle lens or those funky disposable cameras you can buy that capture the whole width of a landscape (sorry, my mind is blanking, what’s the name of them?), but on a micro level, with pictures of a split-apart rock, an insect, a pile of bones, scales and claws left by the gulls, an assortment of rusty hinges and nails, a unique-shaped pine cone, or a single, white-capped wave.

While I like to fish and I love to eat fish and I too smile extra broadly when holding an especially fine fish (Look at me! Look at me!), the fish are but a part of it. And to weigh Quetico by the weight of the fish, to judge by the numbers and to tally them like one would tally profit from a day’s work, is almost sacrilegious. (And no, I am not directing that at anybody at this forum or in my life).

In “The Unforeseen Wilderness,” Wendell Berry said it best: “To be blind to everything outside an account book is, as we have been told over and over, to be spiritually dead; it is also, as we are slowly learning, to be an accomplice in the death of the world.”

So, in closing (and sorry about the length), give me fish pictures. I love ‘em. But give me a healthy dose of trees and luna moths and portage bogs and flowers  as well. Through the eyes of these cameras and these camera holders, I relive each trip and anticipate each one ahead, too.

Thanks for reading ...

-- Kypaddler

Well said, kypaddler.  Welcome to Quiet Journey.   

El_Tigre wrote on Aug 28^th, 2009 at 3:54pm:
If my recollection is correct, there have been a number of PODs over the last 5 years or so which fall in the category of "on the journey to the BW/Q".  It's a relatively small portion, but captures what for some of us is an important part of the overall experience. As such, I like that db allows that flexibility.
-Tom

Hi Kypaddler, that hit the spot so I'll extend another rather rare welcome. Your post in this thread was a timely reminder for me how the BW/Q always seems able to ferret out the worst in some and the best in others. (BTW - I believe your thinking panoramma.)

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Beyond what's already been mentioned, I don't so much. There's a mean, rather rude chunk of it lingering in the cat hole and an offshoot in the mod forum that continues to waste many people's time beyond my own. Unfortunately, the same human has spewed the same crap before. Why the second chance? Perhaps because I mistakenly saw some honest good lurking plus the damage was already done so allowing people to voice, vent and even find some creative humor of their own making seemed necessary.

I know almost everyone would by now would enjoy a repost of either of the two shots we've already seen of Balls_Johnson holding his stringer of eye's in the Q ...yet I think I'll save that path for another time. Hopefully there won't be one. Hmmm, I should probably follow up with a PM and fill in the mods "aina-hey". Nah, where's fun in that?

This has become a good thread to remind folks that I appreciate all the various 'heads up' type PMs I receive on any subject, even though I don't answer all of them and it may look like I've not even read some. (I consider theym FYIs) I do read and appreciate them all and often have a lot more to go on as well so normally my answer is simple action. We all tire of particular tangents and want some to be water under the bridge. Frankly, this one is such a no brainer I was willing to play a bit longer than most would like so I don't need any more PMs on it. I can take it from here - thanks.

Personally, I'm a real softy for differing opinions. It's the not so anonymous, intentional rudeness with all it's repercussions I can live w/o.

Don't mind this addition too much, I'm just trying to find some small enjoyment in adversity while touching some bases - carry on. Just remember we all leave tracks that are easy to follow if need be. That's why a few get hidden after a time and some find their way to the cathole A.S.A.P.  - they are just not good footsteps to follow.

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Speaking of tracks , I recently returned from a solo. I pack heavy and that requires three portage trips in one direction. Well, on the drier, yet muddy portage into Pickerel from Maria, I must have started my first trip with my left foot and the second with my right or vice versa because on my third trip, I noticed my right and left prints matched up for three paces in a row so well that I hadda laugh. It looked like I had been hopping. I would have taken a picture that wouldn't do it justice but the cameras went over on the second trip.

Kill the Tiger!

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Wally Wally Wally, LOL
But as a cat lover, I think the "miscreant" is poorly represented by a cute little striped tabby cat.
The Luchador  El Tigre better suits his personality.
A masked clown with a limited grasp of what the Wilderness experience is all about  

dd, Thanks for the ancient paddler pic! JC had one hell of a portage crew

I know four people who have been to curtain falls once. Years ago after trips we'd always get together for baked trout and a slideshow and play name that spot. For some reason Curtain for me, and I expect them, remains amazingly memorable. It's no longer possible but I'd be willing to bet all four could still name that spot if they saw yesterday's and today's POD. I've learned to recognize a few other spots I've never even been to via pictures on the web but Curtain remains as THE most recognizable BW/Q place I've been to once or twice. I don't know what it is but there is just something unmistakable about it in any water level although it looks nastier in low.

Those Curtain shots are great....Agree db, there is something unidentifiable there...and it brings one back instantly to that special place.

It reminded me of my last time to Curtain with my girls...6 yrs ago.  Come to think of it, there was just something plain weird about that day, something fishy.  Sometimes those falls can take on a nasty disposition...

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Rebeccah is another place that can always bring back memories....instantly!

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Loved the dramatic picture of Curtain Falls Randy!  db is correct, it's truely easy place to recognize.  See attached picture from "The Voyaguer Highway, Grace Lee Nute, MN Hist Society, 1944 describes:

"David Thompson's journal, July 18th 1797; He "very near upset" in a strong Current' just before reaching the portage at Curtain Falls, which he descrbes as about two hundred yards in length on the right-hand side of his route.  The unloading was "very bad" and the bank was steep.  He gives the height of the falls as twenty feet.  At nine thirty he and his people encamped for the night."

starwatcher

How did your/are foam lure "holder" work?
I believe I see a lure "snagged" up on it

Prouty -

If you get back to WCPP and happen to make it to Mexican Hat Lake, I'll give you the location of a walleye hole to end all walleye holes!  Four of us fished a relatively small area for maybe an hour ... I guessing we caught/released well over 100 before moving on.  They were almost all at the large end of eater size or bigger.  I wouldn't say they were active, but I made the mistake of leaving my lure dangling, partially submerged, over the side of the canoe while releasing one of my catches.  WHAM ... another 24+ incher on the line ... a quick grab saved my fishing rig!

dd

DentonDoc wrote on Sep 3^rd, 2009 at 2:31am:

DD -- I'm going back next year...no route planned yet, but I'll keep in touch!

prouboy

Thanks Starwatcher -- I was inspired by your photos to try something like that!

prouboy

Geesh can you imagine the shoulders on the guy that has to portage that canoe?????

Best day ever.  And the jug was still 1/2 full!  I think I was wondering why I was even wearing my rain gear.

We dont dump the bodies.  We cut them up for chum.   

POD 9/10/09: Didn't know Burt Reynolds paddled the BW/Q. 

WiF

If any of you gals (or guys) want a copy of that one for your PC wallpaper just let me know.   

Hurry!  Get it back into the water!!!

I saw one of those washed way up on the beach once at Cape Hatteras after a big Nor'Easter!  It's simply amazing what the power of the sea will kick out sometimes.  Took a half-dozen of us the better part of 2 hours to haul the thing 60 yards back into the water... where it belongs!

Jimbo  

I think you're all missing the artistic value of this photo.

As you can see, my work is often set in the nonspaces of third-tier wilderness, where the modern and anachronistic are both present and in tension with each other, fostering an aura of undefined out-of-place-ness.  The space defined by the rock and water already exists, and instead of observing the formation of the specific subject (albeit "fleshy"), you can see them gradually disappearing and revealing beneath a layer of skin, skivvies, and whisky.

My $0.02 anyway.

PhantomJug wrote on Sep 10^th, 2009 at 4:06pm:


Man your missing your calling  With a line of BS like that, you should run for public office! Your state already has one COMIC in the Senate, might as well have another. You have the bottomless jug, that's about all the QUALIFICATION most of those guys seem too have in common. Your campaign motto could be: " Two Fingers from my jug, and I'll give YOUR "baby" a HUG  

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Yes, PJ has a good sense of humor.
For any Seinfeld fans out there, doesn't his "pose" on the rocks, remind you of that show, where Kramer took "risqué" pictures of George for his "secret" admirer at the Photo shop
I hope PJ's exposure turns out "better" than that

OK!!!! trueth be known....... who was afraid to opens todays POD  after yesterdays pic

Nice picture down the lake today!  Can't wait to be there in two weeks and counting.

starwatcher

Off the island campsite on the West end of Jesse.

I have yet to see a moose while in the park, or a bear for that matter, except on the road to Beaverhouse. I'm usually up before sunrise and scanning the shorelines all morning but no sightings yet. My luck, they will retreat into the bush before I can get a shot if I ever do see one. See lots of wildlife on the highway, though, in early summer.

oh, and intriguing use of lighting and shadows in today's picture. the effect is multi-dimensional.

-- kypaddler

Ken,  Wonderful pictures over the past several days...especially like the father-son toast...that's what it's all about...thx!!

Awesome Loon Pic!! 

Agreed.  Absolutely stunning!  I have been trying to get that shot for decades!

solotripper wrote on Oct 5^th, 2009 at 11:09pm:



Yeah, but have you ever had eagle? My bet is they're kinda tasty.

jimmar wrote on Oct 6^th, 2009 at 1:26am:


The problem is getting past those talons and that sharp beak

That is an awesome eagle photo today!

I wonder how old....any herp. comments?

Well, this old timer was dozing in the sun on an island in North Bay near the entrance to the S-Chain. Wish I'd been able to put something in the pic to give perspective. Take my word for it, he was all of 3 1/2 feet from his ugly puss to the end of his nasty tail. No doubt he's helped himself to plenty of stringer-dinners from unsuspecting campers. And yes, it does make one think twice when going for a relaxing dip.
Would love to hear some ideas on the ol' boy's age...  

- Ken

Looks like a lot of nice equipment

Hold on-
I didn't think it quite possible, but your daughter-in-law took all of those great shots on one trip?? Very nice.  

Spartan,
Your comments, as the resident photographer extraordinaire, are especially appreciated. My daughter-in-law truly has a gift, IMO. She is a recent grad from vet school, so she has that unique perspective when taking a photograph. She is also an extremely patient photographer, not afraid to spend an hour or more waiting. And, as you mention, she's not afraid to take A LOT of shots. We took almost 11 hours to paddle the S-Chain from Agnes to North Bay, patiently indulging her as she clicked away. And she sat for hours to get what she wanted for those eagle pics. For me, it was enlightening to see how much I was missing when I travel my normal mode.
Ken

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 That's a very insightful observation. Slowing down is ideal but even if you can't, it pays too keep your head on a swivel and the noise to a minimum. Obviously you need to pay attention to your paddling path, but I've seen so many wild critters by initially catching the flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. You can't do this is you have the paddling version of " White Line Fever"

Back in early September, we had a gnarly old snapper come up out of the deep like some monster out of a horror movie and almost take a fillet out of the hand of guy washing it off in the water.

Talk about someone who jumped back from the water's edge.

(We told 'him he shrieked like a 2nd-grade girl.)

The turtle hung around for hours, poking out his head to stare at us and sniff around. He (?) was not afraid of ANYTHING.

We tossed it a few fish scraps (I know we shouldn't) but he ate 'em up and then looked at us for more.

Another turtle came in at one point, and they sort of stared at each other in a sort of stand-off for a while, and then they lunged at each other like bulls. The first turtle promptly flipped the other one on its back, and that was it: the second turtle took off.

It was fascinating.

-- kypaddler

We were canoeing some crown land a few years ago and our campsite had a nice 20' +/- cliff off the south side.  With our plates full of dinner we set up our chairs to eat on the top of the cliff.  A few minutes into our meal we hear something creeping up on us from behind.  We turn around to see this painted turtle on a mission coming up between us.  She walked between us and without so much as a pause did a flippin' Harry Carey right off the cliff into the water.  Just like Harrison Ford in The Fugitive.  Weirdest thing I have ever seen.

Are we telling tales now? I had some turtle fun. The last was after a long rainy day after which my bow paddler had an unexpected break down. I found her in tears with everything that went in the tent piled around her in the middle to avoid the half cup of water she brought in. But as I wiped up the puddle, the rain kept pouring down and in her defense, it sounded nasty in the tent.

Meanwhile a snapper was eyeing our hard won dinner and it took a couple of good whacks with the spare paddle to convince him to let go. Once  he did, he resurfaced five feet out and continued to hiss for a very long time, loud enough to be heard in the tent once the rain stopped.

The rain did eventually subside and I'm happy to report neither held a grudge although I did keep an eye out for that bad ass turtle the rest of the evening.