It was finally time to take my 11 year old son Jaden on his first trip to the Boundary Waters. He had "warmed up" for this trip with three day trips to Sylvania the previous 2 summers, and deemed himself ready for the real thing. As circumstances would go, it was just he and I on this trip, which led to some great moments between father and son. While of course you don't know my son, suffice it to say this was a challenge for him (and me, at times). In his words- "Dad, you know, I'm just paranoid of everything". Yep. Like the dark, noises in the dark, big fish, getting lost, tipping over in a canoe, etc. He's also fairly clumsy and is about to be the last kid in our household as his sister goes back to college soon and his brother left the day before our trip for Basic Training. To top all that, he starts middle school about a week after this trip. He does love the outdoors though and had been looking forward to this trip all summer. Here is our story.