Spartan1 was a counselor and riflery instructor at Camp Easton for Boys on Little Long Lake at Ely in the mid-60's. After camp in 1967 he and a group of other counselors did a 6-day canoe trip on the Namakan River loop out of LLC. When he came back to me that summer he proposed marriage, and he also proposed taking me to the canoe country. I was much more amenable to the former than the latter.
It took him four years to get me up north in a canoe, and in 1971, I did the Namakan River loop with him. Ever since then, we have been canoe-tripping together, almost yearly for the past 42 years. We have been to the Quetico (twice), to Algonquin (twice), to Temagami (once), and all of the rest of our trips have been in the BWCA.
We love the BWCA. We don't apologize for that. We don't go in July and August, and we don't find the locations that we choose to be crowded. To the contrary, we often go for 2-3 days seeing no one else, or at least no one else near enough to converse with. We don't mind having a fire grate and a biffy, and the BWCA is "wilderness" enough for us, at least now at our advanced age.
If we were a few decades younger we might be planning a trip to WCPP or Wabikimi, since we used to really enjoy exploring new territory. I regret that we never did a fly-in trip in Quetico when we were younger and more fit. But, realistically, I am the one holding us back now, as (at 67), I have degenerative arthritis and a level of pain that is making more than the easiest trip just a tiny bit this side of impossible. We are looking now at options for June, and they are quite limited.
We make other concessions in order to have fun. We have taken our granddaughter to Minnesota the past six summers for a "cabin week" and this year we will do it with our grandson, age seven. We enjoy canoeing and swimming and exploring, and take wonderful day trips. I suspect that will be our future when I am no longer able to handle the rigors of canoe-tripping.
Many of you know that we have already encountered a few challenges in our decades of canoe-tripping. Spartan1 had kidney disease, renal failure, did peritoneal dialysis, and then four years ago he had a kidney transplant. He has been an insulin-dependent diabetic since 1975, and he has vision problems as well. Taking into consideration the kidney diet, a retinal bleed, some severe insulin reactions, learning to cope with different delivery systems of insulin over 30-some years (now he is on a pump), etc., canoe-tripping has not been a piece of cake.
But it's our life. It's who we are. I often wish we had done more. More trips to the Q. More miles, more lakes, more rivers, more places. But then I think about what we have done and I am thankful to God for each and every experience. We have run Lady Rapids on the Namakan in a Grumman canoe--not once but twice. We have seen hundreds of misty mornings and glorious sunsets on the lakes of the canoe country. We have paddled until we were exhausted, or portaged until we thought we couldn't take another step, and then we have rested by a campfire and thought "this is the best place in the world". We have seen moose and otter and beavers and loons with little chicks on their backs. We haven't bushwacked up to the standards of many of you QJ guys, but we have forged a trail or two where one didn't really exist.
Now that we are retired, we travel more. We go to other places besides the Canoe Country, but we still go north every year. I suspect we will continue to do so long after we are unable to go out on extended trips, and we will be thankful for cabins that get us as close as we can be.
But out hearts are still back in the days of the harder pushing, the longer portages, the challenges and the adventures. Do it while you can. Wherever your heart calls you. It's all good.
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Quetico, BWCA, Wabakimi, WCPP, Woodland Caribou... (Read 20644 times)
