State 40: Minnesota
Winter camping in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area
February 19-24, 2019
Women’s Wilderness Discovery, Peta Barrett, Guide and Owner
Reading List: The Singing Wilderness, by Sigurd Olsen; In the Lake of the Woods, by Tim O’Brien
Winter is my 4th favorite season, and February is the cruelest month. Wet, grey, downcast days, stuck inside, watching the water drip from the boulder in the basement and trickle across the floor to the sump pit. You get my drift.
Dragging myself up the cellar stairs and out of the doldrums, I thought, “Why not go in search of snowdrifts?
My mind harkened back to the day I came across a Facebook page for Women’s Wilderness Discovery, based in Ely, Minnesota.
www.womenswildernessdiscovery.com
Peta Barrett runs this women-centered outfitter. I could tell from the tone of her writing voice that she and I would get along well, so right away, I put a note on her page, saying, simply, “I’m going to do this.” She jumped right on it, asking if I wanted to do summer canoeing or winter camping. Well, summer for me means Maine, and besides, I had never tried winter camping. I waited till the calendar page turned to 2019, and got back in touch.
Time for some expedition planning, NOLS Grad Style!
Who? Me, of course, and Peta to keep me alive out there, and… what would camping be without Jackie Vail, my new NOLS buddy? Luckily, she found a way to say YES despite a full-time job, a government shutdown, a ten year old son, and four graduate school courses in Adventure-Based Therapy. She and I set out for some adventure therapy of our own.
What? 3 days, 2 nights camping in a snow shedder tent equipped with a wood stove and -20 degree rated sleeping bags.
Where? Start in Ely, Minnesota, snowshoe 4 miles, the length of Moose Lake and across Newfound Lake, dragging 7-foot toboggans laden with gear, set up camp, procure water and wood the old fashioned way, then enjoy one full day in the wilderness before breaking camp and retracing our steps, although our footprints were well buried in fresh snow.
When? The first set of dates we considered turned out to be smack in the middle of the Polar Vortex. This sounds like a puffy jacket but is not. It’s a period of extreme cold brought on by a freak weather pattern. Minnesota was at 40 below zero with wind chills about 60 below overnight. Luckily, we chose the second set of dates, missing both the PV and the GS (Government Shutdown). This meant that not only were our planes on time and the TSA fully staffed, but the temperatures rose to what could only be described as Minnesota Nice. And we all know how nice Minnesotans are.
How? We had a day and a half to kick around Ely and get our outfits together. Within the first hour, Jackie started thinking she would retire there. She always does that.
We rented boots and anoraks from Wintergreen Northern Wear. The anoraks are the most awesome jackets ever, no bull. They are manufactured right in Ely and are just plain cool. I wore mine nonstop. The pockets can hold everything you need on trail plus huge handfuls of gummy bears. The boots were huge and heavy, but warm.
We both were tempted to buy mukluks at Steger, another wonderful store and factory in Ely, but we will have to do so at www.mukluks.com
Pragis is another fabulous store where we got gifts and gloves and layers. Upstairs they have a bookstore. Jackie bought many stuffed animals. I bought some wild rice, which is grown in Minnesota by Native Americans. We also shopped at a toy store, the best I’ve seen anywhere, and it also featured a huge selection of candy. Every child’s dream store.
We took our in-town dinners at Insula. Terrific place. Get the cheesecake. If they don’t have it, the chocolate cake is also excellent. Jackie made it through the final day’s hike imagining herself drinking prosecco and eating cheesecake at Insula.
We met up with Peta at WWD (Women’s Wilderness Discovery, not Women’s Wear Daily!) headquarters the night before our trip, where we found Peta had already loaded most of the gear. She was pleased to see that we had very little personal gear, having been well schooled at NOLS Alaska. Final preps involved the issue of compasses and headlamps and Jackie’s purchase of four bags of gummy bears and a box of red wine. We all were to thank her for both instances of expedition behavior.
The following morning, we got an early start and drove to the trailhead in Peta’s car, which was stuffed with our three toboggans, three shovels, two saws, one axe, and one ice breaker pole called a Redneck. It was red. We managed to drop only one of the sleds while offloading the car, then we wrestled our way into our snowshoes. This chore was difficult enough to count as a 50inthefifties challenge in and of itself. I was positive that I would never be able to accomplish it alone, but I did, with much sweating and muttering and cramping as accompaniment.
Off we strode, confidently leaning into our traces like workhorses, lugging our loads to the center of snow-covered Moose Lake, with Peta leading the way, breaking trail while hauling the heaviest sled, which also bore the strongest resemblance to a dead body.
After four miles of hard work, we arrived at a likely spot for a campsite, where the hard work began in earnest. First order of business was to find a place to do our business, i.e., a privy. All three of us clambered up a steep hillside draped in four feet of snow, looking for a drift of snow that was strangely circular and oddly man- made. Peta found it and began to dig it out. I finished the job so she and Jackie could slide back down the cliff to start setting up the tent. Once we had it erected and the bottom eight inches of it dug down to the ice and then re-covered with snow, Peta sent Jackie and I out for wood, and also, I suspect, to get us out of her way for a while. She said we could stop at any time for lunch or to take a break, but we refused to quit. Dead wood, we can absolutely find that: I worked at an insurance company and Jackie is working for the government.
After substantial effort, we had this to show for it:
Ok, so if that wasn’t wood, we decided to have a snack and change chores. We ate cheese sticks and drank water and had a few gummies. Peta said if we were not into getting wood (we were into getting wood, but alas, what we found was not wood…), we could go fetch water. We looked for a tap…
No. We trundled out to the middle of the bay armed with a shovel and the Redneck. We cleared off the snow, hit ice, then started hitting the ice with the Redneck, switching off as we tired. Which we did. Some two feet down, we busted through and sweet, savory, icy cold water bubbled up.
Flush with exertion and success, we returned to the tent to find that Peta had removed several inches of powdery snow from its interior to create two raised ice beds, a single and a double, and lugged the woodstove in and set it up in the corner. She shaded her eyes against the lowering winter sun and pointed to a dead tree in the distance. She wanted it for her own. Jackie and I arranged a scouting party.
While not exactly a John Muir style redwood, it was a substantial tree, about 14 inches in diameter. It was two hundred yards from the tent. Even if it were possible to cut it down with a handsaw without ending up a dead body lashed inside the biggest sled, I thought we should report back to our leader and gauge her tolerance for having trees fall on her clients. Jackie just didn’t want to fail. Eventually we decided to head back, forlorn and empty-handed.
Peta agreed the tree was too big, but she also said that we would have to go find wood on the morrow instead of trekking to the open water otter playground on Sucker Lake. She stated we would have just as much fun getting wood. We weren’t entirely sure of that but were willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Jackie had found one good-sized log. We would live through the night. We had a smattering of wood, a source of water, and… we had a bag of red wine that looked like an IV drip of whole blood. What more could we ask? We made one last trip to the privy, wrested our feet from our snowshoes, and walked into our lovely, heated tent.
Peta made yummy trail pizza, smothered with fresh veggies, for dinner, and we toasted a successful first day with red wine, toasty toes, and gummy bears for dessert. By seven, we were falling asleep, dreaming of dead wood in abundance.
Morning broke soon after the raucous calls of two pileated woodpeckers drew me from sleep. As I pulled on my boots, Peta unzipped her bag and greeted me with a cheery “Hiya!”, and we set about our chores. The simplicity of life out on the lake is very reassuring.
Put on snowshoes. Hike to the privy. Marvel at the tracks of snowshoe hare. Grab the Redneck, break the ice, get the water. Remove snowshoes. Drink camp coffee and eat a good hot eggy breakfast, expertly prepared by our leader. Wrestle with snowshoes once again. And head out together, with a five foot sled, to Horseshoe Island, which we hoped would yield a good crop of firewood.
Bingo! I sawed through a tree about six inches in diameter, yielding actual logs for Peta to split with her extremely sharp axe. Jackie literally twisted a three inch tree off its stump. We women have water, wine, and, finally, wood, so much that we were able to leave a nice supply at the edge of the lake for the next lucky campers to edge into our bay, whether on snowshoes or in canoes.
Peta was right: we did have fun gathering wood, once we found a viable source. Chores accomplished before noon, Jackie and I set off on a circumnavigation of Horseshoe Island, a feat we are pretty sure no one has accomplished. Ever. Or, at least, this winter. We had to blaze a fresh trail, breaking trail much of the way, except when we could follow in the footsteps of a moose. We discovered an unnamed island, just big enough for the two of us, and we sat under the shade of its trees, scarfing down venison sausage, made from a deer Peta shot last season. Yum. It’s so good that Jackie is considering taking up hunting and bagging a doe.
After returning triumphantly to camp, we three spent the late afternoon standing about in the Minnesota sunshine with our snowshoes off, talking and laughing. As soon as my watch said 4:01, I remembered that it was in fact 5 o’clock somewhere, and we poured the wine into our tin cups. Dinner that night was a thick and satisfying sausage gumbo, which left my puffy jacket redolent of wood smoke and smoked sausage. I may never wash it. We slept even better than the first night on our ice mattresses, though we could hear the forecasted snow shedding from our tent.
The next morning, after eggs and hash browns, we set about breaking camp. It’s hard work, and I proved especially adept at the “breaking” part. As Jackie and I struggled to loose the ice that served as insulation at the bottom of the tent, Peta suggested I try hitting it with the backside of the aforementioned extremely sharp axe. I went to town on it, brushed away some ice shards, and set back to work. I heard a little rip. I stopped, stunned. I said, “Something is wrong.” Peta glanced my way. She said, “No. Hit it hard.” I did. RIP RIP. Somehow, I had turned the axe. The extremely sharp edge broke free of its protective cover and attacked the tent.
I felt bad, had been careless in my fatigue. Peta said she could and would fix it. I have no doubt of that, since she had MacGyver’d several solutions to problems earlier in the trip. After fretting an hour or so and breaking trail in penance, I took her advice, and I let go of the guilt.
Hard work done, it was time for the hard work of hiking out. Four miles, into the wind, hauling sleds, breaking trail, two feet of snow. With determination as steely as the edge of the axe, we slogged a mile before hitting the blessed relief of a dogsled trail and getting a chance to talk to the mushers and pet the pups, our only close human (and canine)encounter of the three day trip.
At the tiny land crossing between lakes Newfound and Moose, we three shared venison sticks and gummies, and took shelter under large pines. I felt it before I heard it.
I said, “Everybody be quiet.” And there it was. The intermittent rustle of the wind through a white pine. The little pings of snowflakes hitting our anoraks. The whoosh of the swaying spruces. The distant croak of a raven. The song of the wilderness serenading us, as it has for centuries before the coming of the voyageurs, as it will for centuries to come. If we protect it.
We set our shoulders to the burden of our possessions and headed for home.
