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A final stop to pick up Ken and we’re off. I look at the glowing clock on the dashboard. It reads: 9:30 PM. A late start. We head north, leaving the city lights of Duluth behind us. The rain pummels the earth.
We pull into Grand Marais around 12:30 AM – just in time to miss last call at the Howlin’ Wolf. The Gunflint Tavern is dark. Nick persuades us to get a room at a local hotel rather than try to make camp in the rain and pack up wet gear in the morning. Logical. We get a room and I fall asleep.
In the morning I rise early and grab some continental breakfast. I try to make small talk with the young Russian girls working at the hotel. Their English is good but they fail to catch my subtle innuendos. I’d like to take one of them with me – Katherina – she says she’s never been canoeing. I consider the opportunity and reconsider. The guys appear, I say my goodbyes to Katherina, and we make for the Gunflint Trail – gateway to the Wilderness.
The sky is dark, but dry. We pull up to the Gunflint Lake boat launch. Our entry into the Boundary Waters will be Magnetic Lake, just north of Gunflint.
As its name suggests, Magnetic Lake exhibits an interesting geologic phenomenon which causes magnets, such as those in a compass, to deflect from the true magnetic north. Luckily the lake is relatively small and we know where we’re headed. My compass never leaves my pocket.It’s readily apparent that the magnitude of the recent Ham Lake fire is enormous. The northern shore of Gunflint and Magnetic lakes are scarred by the blackened remains of a previously lush boreal forest.
Once adorned with jack pine, black spruce, and pockets of paper birch, few trees survived the flames. Early Precambrian bedrock, once concealed by a thin layer of organic matter is exposed; its white surface a distinct contrast to the charcoal colored snags still standing on the hillside. As we paddle northward across Gunflint Lake the wind howls in our faces. With Ken and the helm of our canoe, I steer us towards the channel to Magnetic Lake. We fight the wind across the lake and I try to keep the canoe perpendicular to the wind. This proves difficult and I exert a lot of energy keeping us on track towards Magnetic Lake. One gust catches Ken’s India Jones hat and it flies off his head, nearly hits me in the face, and lands in the choppy lake behind us. In a maneuver so stupid it’s impressive, I quickly turn the canoe broadside to the wind and let the force of the wind turn us 180 degrees. We paddle as hard as we can towards the hat as it begins to sink. We barely lose the hat and we fight to turn the canoe into the wind. We make it, but only nearly. The hat does not.
According to historians, the Granite-Pine River system was part of a heavily traveled route used by Indians and Voyageurs transporting their furs northward towards the Hudson Bay. The river follows the international border with Canada – a one-time imaginary line separating the two countries, now easily demarcated by small silver cairns. Now we paddle the scenic river system as part of an escape from the bustle of modern day life. We paddle out of the complex, into the simple – a realm where only survival and direct physical experience prevail. One thing to keep in mind though, ‘simple’ does not necessarily equate to ‘easy’.
After a few short portages we come to the first set of rapids, Little Rock Falls.
We stop to evaluate the fifteen foot drop. We decide not to run the rapids. As they say, “the wilderness is no place to take unnecessary chances”. To which I say, “You’re right, we’ve got a big enough challenge ahead of us anyways”. A bit further north along the Granite River and we come to our first major portage. The Pine Portage, as it’s called, is a 110 rod carry along a trail that first climbs to the island’s high point and then descends down a long, steep drop to Clove Lake. Once on Clove Lake, we make our first night’s camp. We unload our gear, set up the tents, and prepare the bear hang (you gotta hang your food from a tree out here to make sure the bears don’t get at it). The sun goes down behind the thick cloud cover, giving us barely a glimpse of a sunset.
As darkness settles in, we sip Windsor and tell stories, laughing and drinking until the fatigue from the day’s paddling sets in and we drift off to sleep.I awake refreshed – I always sleep well in the Boundary Waters. The fresh air and the physical exertion combine to make for a restful night of sleep. We take our time breaking down the camp, sipping hot coffee to get us prepped for the day’s adventure. In the late morning we set out.
Our first excitement is not long in coming as we run a few short rapids before portaging into Gneiss Lake. We round the Devil’s Elbow without incident and paddle our way to Marboeuf Lake. A little farther north and we come to Horsetail Rapids which the guidebooks indicate are not safe to run.
Regardless, I am anxious to try our luck and Jonah jumps into my canoe, which I’d been paddling solo, for the ride. Thing is, Jonah gets in with no paddle and convinces me that we don’t need a second paddle. Ok. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “are you a complete idiot?” Well, my only answer is: yes, this was a bad choice. So, with one paddle, we start down the rapids and immediately encounter problems as the weight of Jonah in the front, with no leverage to provide, lead us straight towards a boulder I was intentionally trying to avoid. In seconds, our canoe is capsized and we are thrown into the river. We float the rest of the way down the rapids and are able to salvage ourselves and the canoe. No harm done, although we’re soaked. Oh, and so is the food basket. Opps.The next two days are spent working our way north along the Pine River towards Saganaga Lake. The weather is mild – overcast and cool. We find amazing campsites embedded in little pockets of unburned pines and spend our evenings sipping Windsor and playing scrabble. We don’t build any fires due to the fire ban.
My perspective as we head north.
Paul - paddling solo.
Jonah - portage master.
On day four, we portage around Saganaga Falls, a picturesque 6 foot cascade that dumps into Saganaga Lake. The beast. We head north on Saganaga briefly before turning southwest on our route towards Seagull Lake and the end of our trip. The weather is pleasant along this stretch, sunny and cool with very little wind. We paddle leisurely along the lake’s eastern shore, headed south. In no great hurry to exit the Wilderness, we decide to spend our last night in James Bay, roughly four miles north of Trail’s End. We sneak in one last game of scrabble, drink some whiskey and spend our last afternoon in the wilderness relaxing.
Shortly before sunset, the wind begins to pick up and the clouds start to roll in. Soon afterwards, a steady drizzle begins to soak the earth. Sometime in the middle of the night the winds pick up and the drizzle becomes a downpour. Morning comes with little positive change in weather. Three foot rollers crash against the shoreline and whitecaps cover the lake. The rain lets up slightly as we finish our coffee and start to break camp. There is some lengthy discussion regarding who will be paddling the solo canoe. Paul ends up volunteering, more by the lack of interest by the rest of us that by his desire to brave the rollers on his own.
We set out from the shore, a sense of anxiety and foreboding dominate my psyche as we paddle into the wind and out of James Bay into the frothing, turbulent Saganaga. We try with all our might to paddle south but are forced to paddle into the gale force winds coming from the west – a side wind with lots of potential for dumping our canoes. We struggle for what seems like an hour to make it roughly a quarter-mile to a small refugia on the leeward side of a small island. We reach shore and decide to attempt to wait out the storming waters.
The winds continue to pummel us as we hold up on the island – discussing every possible plan we can muster for making it back safe. The wind does not subside and the waves only seem to worsen. Finally we decide to paddle to the shoreline a short distance east of the island. From there we decide that we can portage our gear all the way back to Trail’s End, or until the lake calms down. Unfortunately there are no trails for us to utilize and we end up having to bushwhack our way through forest, over ridge, across bogs, and with a few dicey paddles across open water we make it to the narrows leading to Seagull Lake.
At this point the steep ridge to the west protects the narrows from the winds and the whitecaps disappear. Exhausted from the four mile portage, we hop in our canoes and paddle the rest of the way to Trail’s End. An hour later we’re in Grand Marais drinking beer and eating burgers at the Gunflint Tavern. We’ve survived another adventure in the Boundary Waters…
