BWCAW in June - 5 Layers of Joy

Stairway to heaven.

Shelly. Up the Gunflint Trail where last year a moose ran across right after Franks car and just before our car. Lucky us - for seeing the moose and for his excellent timing!!! (My first moose.)

Ron and Styron on Caribou.

My first lady slipper.

Styron, Ron and Frank at the portage from hell: Excellent learning experience - only a short portage on the map, but a challenging stumble over pointy boulders! It's at the West side of Caribou leading to Meeds; we carried the canoes over that distance knowing that it was already 4pm and we still needed to garner a large enough campsite with rain in the forecast. We managed to pitch our tents and get the tarp ready just before it started to rain. How fun it is to listen to the rain when you are dry and nicely curled up in your tent :-)

Butterflies posing: This is what we look like open and this is what we look like closed.

It is that beautiful everywhere in the BWCAW!

Second day: Ron and Shelly on the way to our final campsite in Gaskin. It was a challenging day canoeing and portaging from Meeds to Gaskin. As soon as the tents were pitched and a couple of other needs attended to, my first priority was a wee nap! And I would have so loved to join the others for a nice swim too!

Third day rainy...But if we had to have rain at all it couldn't have been better timed. Time for some much needed napping and card playing. Some braved the weather and went to Horseshoe to hunt for moose sightings but the biggest mammals we were to see all weekend were red squirrels and a couple of mice.

Styron, Jennifer and Shelly & Ryan, Ashley and Ron.

How did that get onto our cardtable/rucksack? And what the heck is it? It's not still moving, is it? While this one is just an empty shell there'll be more of these later...

Is that a lady slipper? Noes! It's Shelly the nature photographer capturing a merganser mum with some 16 chicks! So cute how the launch themself from the rock into the water! The circled around our little point and were followed by all with much excitement and cooing :-)

Jennifer and Shelly.

Styron, Frank and Mr Bass: Open wide! That leech is much to big for such a little feller as you are! - Pliers were plied and the good fish coughed up an intact hook and leech, ready for another adventure! Bass released to do more growing. The leech was redeployed and it didn't have to wait long for more action. Sitting by the fire we should soon hear an excited Frank informing us that he saw a turtle, followed in the same breath by: "Oh no, it's going for my leech!"

So when they tell you that they caught two fish with one leech, that may actually be true! Or at least when they tell you they caught a fish and a turtle with the same leech.

Frank and Mr Turtle after a tug of war to get the hook and leech back. 

There goes Mr Turtle, who was again sighted the next day. Mr Leech was retired after that. Just as well, next thing would have been a loon...

The dawn of a beautiful day - Sunday after all!

Reflections, immersion and what rises above the surface.

Beautiful dead things that will make a morsel for another creature.

A brave old cedar persisting on a receding shore clawing tight with knobbly fingers.

Dragonfly larva poised to make a new start above water.

A still sleepy camp.

Pretty things on the forest floor.

A campsite at Winchell: a favorite lunch spot! Frank, Uwe and Shelly.

Jennifer, Styron and Ron.

Shelly, Ron and Jennifer.

Styron and Frank: as life should be.

Shelly, Ron, Uwe and Jennifer. Look at the stunning view from this campsite!

Uwe at rest.

A great old Cedar tree. You could come up with all sorts of stories looking at that tree and letting your fantasy dangle...

For the Tilley catalogue.

Another campsite further west on Windchell. Isn't that a sight for sore eyes?!

Madam merganser: Great hair and still all her ducks in a row!

Last evening back at camp.

A game of frisbee. Perfect campsite for it!

Uwe, Ryan, Ron and Frank.

Wilderness hospital: Shelly caught a leech.

Frank, Shelly and Ron.

There is no such thing as two many sunset pictures.

Styron and Jennifer.

Styron and Jennifer.

Shelly.

A larva shell by moonlight: eerie.

Shelly.

Pushing off for home.

The 5 layers of joy:
1st - Preparation and anticipation
2nd - The trip itself
3rd - Renewed appreciation of every day urban convenience
4th - Reliving the adventure
5th - Looking forward to the next time


Thanks Ron for organizing! It was a great trip!

Snowshoe Lacing Complete!

Phiew! Finally Marsha and I have completed the lacing of our Ojibwa snowshoes!!! You know what, we did not expect it to be as nerve wrecking when we first started with a pilgrimage to Duluth to our class with the RSOP.

What is so difficult about it? Well, you have to think about 3 things all at once and here and there you forget one of the three and then notice several rounds later that you made a mistake.

- There is first the knots, which have a habit to all of a sudden escape your brain, even though you have done the same knot dozends of times maybe even that day.

- Then you need to make sure it is all tight and taught, because after all, the point of the exercise is to have something that distributes your weight from a small footprint to the large surface of the snowshoe. We ain't just makin' them to hang on the wall ya know! According to Pat K. our instructor when you first start out you can't get both, right and tight. Well, we did a bit of redoing on just about every section of the shoes...

- An then there is the "unders and overs". It's not like weaving, where you have a warp that is set beforehand and then you weave your way through those constant warp threads, no, you are creating the warps as you weave! One directions warp is another direction's weave and all of that in a triangle. A very patient Pat gave us 3 sets of instructions that describe it slightly different, so you have a hope that at least one of them suits you. He even sent us another set by e-mail after the two sessions were over because he knew that a lot of us would still be lacing.

This kind of thing usually comes pretty easy to me and I have strong hands so I can tighten a knot, but this project really challenged me! But you know what: We will cherrish those snowshoes forever!

Can't wait for next Wednesday when we do the last step of the deed, the forth base of snowshoe making: Putting on flexible marine varnish to protect the wood and the lacing. Marsha also has a woodburning tool, so we'll be signing them before sealing them. Oh yeah and we'll put some bindings on as well. I was going to make them myself, but since I couldn't get a cheap sheet of latex from a busted truck or tractor tire, they will be ready made and only need to be tied to the shoe, quick and easy.

And in the summer? They'll be deco on the wall :-)