Base Camping with a day Paddle: June 7th-June 9th As it would turn our our next excursion was going to be less than a month away. I had come across information for the BWCA expo that was being held at Bearskin Lodge and after researching what was available for education I decided that this would be a good next step in continuing to assess & build our skills at various different levels and to add to our knowledge base. I reserved a campsite at East Bearskin State Campground for that weekend. I had to work again the day we were to leave and I was reserved to the fact that we would not arrive to our campsite until almost 8pm. That it was a drive in site served to ease my mind. Thankfully, as fate would have it, I ran into daycare issues for this day and ended up only being able to work until 2pm. Yay us...No rushing around needed, now if we drove straight through and only stopped for a quick rest and a last stop gas station fill we should arrive at camp by 6pm. I loaded my, new to me, purchased after our last trip, Bell Morningstar Royalex 16 ft canoe, AKA “Difference Maker”, on my car the night before our take off. This time it went much smoother. Since my first trip with the Overcomer, I purchased cross bars for my Jeep and some ratchet tie rope tie downs so I did not have to tie anything :) A friend had given me some pointers on where to attach the ratchet ties downs at on my car. Was very helpful. That meant after work the next day, all I needed to do was put our camp gear in the car and drop Charlie off at the kennel.

Aurora and I headed up to Silver Bay that back way from Virginia.It has been awhile since I have gone that route. Beautiful drive, peaceful, non rushed, wild flowers, hills and a few barns with fields scattered here and there. In the past 8 years, we have traveled the North Shore, to the Gunflint Trail, many, many times; but we have only stopped at any of the quaint locally owned shops along the way on 1 trip. This time, Aurora and I decided we were stopping at Waters Edge Trading Company in Tofte. I was in want of new tripping pants and I also wanted to look at local items/trinkets. I am particular about my tripping pants…I know what I am looking for, what works for me and what does not. They had a fairly large selection of name brand outdoor clothing. However, most of the women’s clothing was geared more toward the casual end of the outdoor clothing line. The store did not have the more durable outdoor clothing for women i was looking for. But.....they did in the mens section and that was perfectly ok with that. I actually have been finding that mens outdoor pants fit me better and tend to be more durable. I found 2 pairs of mens pants and the best part…….I got 25% off for a father’s day sale they were having on all men’s clothing. Win, Win :) Aurora got a new sweat shirt and she enjoyed looking at the gems and picking out a few to buy that she had saved her money for. The store had a wonderful selection of locally made necklaces and rings. I did not have time to pursue getting one as there were too many to choose from and I still had a full trip ahead of me. Aurora had spied a toy she wanted as well. We both decided that maybe we would stop back at the store on our way back home. Onward to Grand Marais where we stopped at the grocery store for ice and bacon then on to Subway for our dinner sandwich. 704 pm and the water tower for the Gunflint Trail Scenic ByWay comes into my view…..I take a deep breath and slowly exhale…a peace settles about me…. Knowing the further I travel this road the further I get from the “Worldly” things in daily life…..Knowing it will take me to a place where eventually travel will solely be accomplished by my physical doing…..Knowing the exponential soul and character building that will occur for me in this beautiful wilderness I am closer to entering.

We finally arrive at our destination at 730pm and I quickly set up the tent and our sleeping gear (not anywhere close to my ideal site but it was to serve a purpose). While I set up camp, Aurora sets about gathering fire starting supplies from our surroundings. She comes back with much birch bark, a few small downed tree branches that she proceeds to break the twigs into approximately 8 inch pieces and piles them neatly; she then put the branch parts in a pile. She asks “Now what can I do?” Me “Well, you could go look for bigger downed trees that mama can drag out when I am done here.” “Or you could find bigger dead and down branches to drag back.” “Or you can explore.” She stood there for a few seconds and then asks “What is the best kind of wood for a fire?” At this question, her inquisition in gaining knowledge, really hit home for me that she truly loves being in the wilderness and enjoys the labor that comes with it. Its gets to be 815 and the bugs are awful, they are the worst I have ever seen in my over 21 trips I have done. I realize we are not going to have time to secure enough wood for the night so we head over to Bearskin Lodge to find they closed at 8pm but the nice guy was willing to sell me some firewood anyway. Back at camp I show Aurora how to build a one match fire with just a match and the supplies she brought back earlier. Once the fire was going and the bugs were not as bad, Aurora did her “Gem” dig sitting at the picnic table and I finished getting things organized in the car and around camp. We sat around the fire for about ½ hour and called it a day around 10pm.

I was awake at 430am. A little earlier that I would have liked but I did get plenty of solitude in before Aurora stumbled out of the tent at 8am. Fried some bacon and headed over to the Expo. Aurora made note of the beautiful paddles on display. We moved onto the booth of books….where Aurora noticed a book and said “look mommy, it’s a knot tying book”. I asked her if we should get one and she said yes. Upon purchasing the book, Cliff Jacobson imparted words of wisdom to Aurora(very heartwarming for me) and autographed the book for her. We made our way through the other vendors where Aurora picked up a “Happy” stone after which we went down to the beach and looked at the canoes and she played in the sand and water. She and I attended the Wilderness First Aid presentation where she chose to be an active member in the presentation on allergic reactions up to anaphylaxis. After this presentation we had a few hours before Dan Cooks Tarp hanging presentation. Aurora and I decided we would go back to camp, eat and then return for his presentation.

After getting back to camp Aurora said she was not hungry and only wanted a snack. Then she wanted to go for a paddle on East Bearskin. I wanted to process some more wood before we went canoeing. I begsn yo saw and split up some wood we had at camp, while Aurora went out and collected some downed trees and drug them back to camp. She was the chatter bug with our 2 way radios while she was out scrounging up some wood. I was finding it difficult to do my chore. We achieved what we needed to so I portaged the canoe to the lake and away we went.

When we left to paddle on East Bearskin, we took advantage of the pebble lined water for Aurora to work on getting in the canoe via wet foot and on her own. Amazing. To see and hear her excitement at overcoming her fear of doing so was awesome. When she was seated she exclaimed "I did it!!!" and there I sat overfilled with Joy.

We ended up paddling back to Bearskin Lodge instead of driving. We had about 45min before the next presentation I wanted to watch was to start and Aurora was now hungry. Bearskin lodge was only serving brats and Aurora does not like brats and she did not want to wait for the presentation to be over to go get something to eat. I ended up forgoing the presentation so we could paddle back to camp and drive to Trail Center for supper. Missing the presentation was absolutely the right thing to do as I need to ensure that I am flexible to meet Aurora’s realistic needs/wants/desires. Back at the trail to our campsite, Aurora exited the canoe via wet foot and all by herself. We had a fabulous meal as usual at Trail Center and headed back to camp. We walked the trail by our camp back over to the lake where I had left the canoe and Aurora and I went stone hunting.

Sitting back at camp, the gnats were awful and they chased Aurora into the car while I set about getting the fire going. Shortly after I got the fire going my fingers on my right hand had started to have shooting/throbbing pain, then I noticed my forearm hurt. I pulled up my sleeve and I had 2 huge welts. The pain started to travel from my forearm up to my armpit. By this time I was already getting Aurora so she could see how to treat this reaction and she said “isn’t it odd that we just attended the safety presentation on allergic reactions/” Very observant child. I took the opportunity to show her how to clean it and make a cool compress for it. She even said, “Don’t you need to take that one pill?” About 20 minutes later, and after Aurora had already very emphatically said multiple times said to the bugs “go away, leave me alone”, she loudly announced “these bugs are driving me crazy, I’m going to the tent!” and she stomped off to the tent. Thankfully she only received one bite our entire trip. I tidied up camp and followed very close behind her. It was not long before we were both in dreamland.

Sunday…go home day. We had not decided on our plans for the day. I had left that up to Aurora. She had the option of getting a day permit to paddle into the BWCA, just paddle East Bearskin and play by the lake, play by the lake or just load up and head home. Well, she started with let’s just play by the lake and then go home, to play by the lake and then paddle only East Bearskin. Once out paddling she decided that she wanted to get a day trip permit. So we paddled to the public put in spot and issued ourselves a day permit. In the issuing box someone had placed a damnit doll inside of it (happy I did not need to use it). From there we headed back to the trail to camp to get appropriate gear to take with on a day trip. I needed to get a dry bag, the first aid kit, our InReach Explorer, snacks and an additional bottle of water.

We left the campground and paddled the north side of East Bearskin up to the Moon lake portage. Along the way, Aurora spotted the BWCA sign and exclaimed “We are in the BWCA now”. I smiled from ear to ear and my vision became a little blurry. During this paddle Aurora too request to paddle all by herself. I was completely amazed at the power she had behind her stroke even on the somewhat wavy waters. She said “I don’t like paddling on this side”. I explained to her that we all have a preferred side but we need to be able to paddle from both sides. She took that in and began developing her stroke on her “weak” side.

We arrived at the Moon lake portage to a snake greeting us. It had apparently just captured its lunch; a frog was ½ way into its mouth. We were unable to portage the trail across to Moon as time would not allow. We took a few pictures, explored our surrounding a little and had a snack before heading back. I was ok with us not being able to head over to moon as the real reason for this trip was to test our skills paddling our new to us canoe on a lake larger than a puddle and to let Aurora and myself build our paddling skills.

On the way back we traveled the south side and experienced frequent wind gusts that showed Aurora the importance of needing to be able to paddle both sides. She started to develop a feel for what side she should be paddling on during those gusts and more importantly she ultimately ended up with fairly nice smooth cadence to her strokes and in switching paddling sides too.

We were getting close to the Crocodile portage and Aurora says, “Quiet for a sec. Is that the trees blowing or is that water I hear?” I was just about a puddle of tears at that. That brought such joy that she has developed that awareness of sounds and what they might represent. I told her I was not sure, that I would look at the map; sure enough, between the first and only camp site on the south side and the portage to Crocodile the map showed a stream of water running from Crocodile to East Bearskin. We headed to the campsite and it was not taken so Aurora wet foot got out of the canoe and ran up to camp, I pulled the Difference Maker up on shore and joined her. My first reaction to the camp was “Yuck”, there are no tent pads. To which Aurora exclaimed, “Oh yes there is, come over here.” There was a short 20 ft or so path from the proper camp area that led to a beautiful tent pad that was located close to the rapids portion of the water outlet. We proceeded to make our way to the waterfall head. To watch Aurora navigate the trail and how she just glows and thrives in this surrounding sure warmed my heart. One section of the trail was very enthralling to me; it spoke of perseverance in adverse environments. Let your roots go deep. We did not play in the water at all but absorbed the wonder of nature for awhile.

We paddled back to the campground in a little bit more trying wind. A few small white caps appeared at times but nothing worrisome for me. The Difference Maker was just that. She was stable and we were not blown about. On our paddle back I came to know that Aurora has a great paddling foundation and that she will perfect it with experience. What she displayed totally caught me by surprise and gave me enough confidence in her abilities to say “We Got this baby girl”. I also decided that she was ready for her very own paddle that was her fit. She earned and deserves it. We made it back to the landing and loaded the Difference maker on the car. It was time for this excursion to come to an end. Aurora asked if we were stopping back at the expo before we left the campground for the last time this trip (her reason found out later was she wanted to play at their beach). I said “Well that depends, would you like to get your own paddle?” She answered with a resounding “yes”. One last stop is in order at the expo where she was able to choose her first paddle from Glorud Design. I ordered it in a 48” and we are hoping it is ready in time for our Maiden Mother/Daughter Voyage of our “true” overnight BWCA trip this upcoming July.