The bite of the wilderness bug had proved too powerful for me to resist. Grandpa hadn’t been able to fish like he wanted to on our previous trip, nor did he get to have his long campfires with plenty of music. Quietly taking note of this fact, I set aside money and began to make plans to bring him back. All throughout that fall, winter, and spring, I had been quietly planning another adventure, this time a base camp. I accumulated most of my own gear and made reservations with Seagull Outfitters for a canoe, pack, extra paddle, and bear barrel.

We drove up the day before and stayed the night at the paddlers’ lodge across the street from Seagull Outfitters. Before heading out to the wilderness, we met Don and Carole Germain at Gunflint Lodge for dinner. Don and Carole are the former proprietors of Saganaga Outfitters, located on the channel, and longtime residents of the Gunflint Trail area. They outfitted Grandpa and his school groups back in the 1970s as outlined in Growing Inside Outside. Besides sharing a common passion for the wilderness, we also shared a common bond in Christ with them, so our conversation was enjoyable and edifying from all angles. Following our delicious meal, Don and Carole invited us over to their beautiful home on Gunflint Lake. They had purchased the cabin from the original owner and builder, who devoted a great deal of time to the woodwork inside. They had continued the good work he had started. All of the walls and the floor were beautiful knotty pine, with a big stone fireplace and memorabilia all over the walls. We continued our wonderful conversation in this incredible setting. In the course of the evening, Don, Grandpa and I looked over our map. We had been planning to camp on Red Rock Lake, but a returning party at the outfitters’ had told us there were no walleye to be had there. Don pointed to Englishman Island, on the west shore of Saganaga, and indicated a campsite on the south side. “This is a good site,” he said. “It has good wind exposure which will keep the bugs away, and you can paddle over to Devil’s Walk Bay. There’s good walleye fishing to be had there.” We both immediately decided to take Don’s advice. He told us that it would take us about three hours of paddling to reach the island from the beginning of the channel. As we left to return to the lodge, Don and Carole gave us two beautiful paddles, left over from Saganaga Outfitters when it closed. It was an evening neither Grandpa nor I will ever forget. We drove back to the outfitters simply amazed. A beautiful sunset tinged the horizon as we pulled into the parking lot.

As we hit the water the next morning, a cloudless sky and water calm as a sheet of glass lay before us. There was not a breath of wind in the air. After emerging from the channel, we quietly made our way southwest and began to work our way through the islands, which were more confusing than I had remembered. Slightly bewildered but thankful for the perfect paddling conditions, we emerged from a small narrows and beheld the incredible expanse of the lake, stretching to American Point and beyond. I looked to the north and tried to pick out the small island that had been our refuge from the storm. This view brought back many memories.

“I think that’s American Point up there,” I said. “I know for sure if we cross over to the other side of the lake there, we will be able to get our bearings.” “That’s a long way across,” Grandpa said. “Do you see that campsite over there?” “I do,” I said. “Maybe we should head over there, take a little break, and look over the map a little. Why don’t you pray for guidance, just to be on the safe side?” Grandpa did. As we paddled towards the campsite, I continued to look at the map. I then realized that we were heading for the north side of the very island we were trying to reach. “Grandpa, that’s the island we’re looking for,” I said excitedly. “If we paddle around to the south side, we should find a large campsite in a stand of Norway Pines with a large sand beach.” “Really?” Grandpa responded. “Well, let’s see.” We rounded the southern shore of the island to find a beautiful campsite, sand beach and all, matching Don Germain’s description exactly. “How long did Don say it would take to get here?” I asked, looking at my watch. “Thee hours.” “We’ve been on the water exactly three hours, almost to the second,” I said in disbelief. “That’s expert outfitting advice right there.” I hopped ashore and headed down the portage trail to check out the latrine. All the familiar smells of pine and duff filled my nostrils. The latrine was in excellent condition. It actually wasn’t that crappy.

I returned to Grandpa, who was waiting in the canoe. “It looks like we have our camp site,” I said. “There’s a fire grate here in good shape, a nice pile of kindling, and a great tent site over there.” “I can’t believe we found it,” Grandpa said. “I was ready to go back to the channel and start over. I think it was the prayer that did it.” We unloaded all of the equipment and got organized. Our campsite was on the south side of Englishman Island, located in a beautiful stand of Norway Pines. It was built into the side of a small hill, with a perfect tent pad right at the top. We set up our tent on that site. “This five person tent is going to be perfect for our base camp,” I stated, as we popped the tent up. “For sure,” Grandpa said. “We won’t be fighting for space. Say, we forgot to tie that top string. Can you reach it?” I stood on my tiptoes and tried to reach it, but promptly fell over right onto the tent. Thankfully, no damage was done. After Grandpa stopped laughing, we took the tent down a little, tied the top to the poles, and popped it right back up. We used my hatchet to secure the stakes and the fly. We filled up our water filter bag, scrounged up some firewood, and then ate a little lunch. By this time, we were both hot and sweaty from our hard work.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m going in for a swim,” I said. “We’ve got to take advantage of that sand beach.” “You know how rare a sand beach is up here?” Grandpa said as he grabbed his towel and suit. “I do. Now, we have to wear our life jackets.” Grandpa complained a little but I insisted. We dropped our towels on shore and began to wade slowly into the lake. It was a little chilly and took some getting used to, but it was so clear and refreshing that I finally gave in and ducked myself under water. “Come on Grandpa!” I yelled. “It feels great.” Grandpa finally splashed in. “Whoo!” he shouted. “That’s cold!” He soaped himself off and then waded ashore to get dressed. I followed suit, pun intended. “I’m going to take a nap, Joe,” Grandpa stated. “Go right ahead,” I responded. “That’s the beauty of a base camp. We have no schedule to keep. You can take a nap whenever you want.”

While Grandpa rested, I sat in the chair we brought, pulled out my copy of The Singing Wilderness, by Sigurd Olson, and began to read. Instinctively, I turned to my favorite chapter and read these words:

“Until the day when I discovered it, my life had been dominated by the search for a perfect wilderness lake. Always before me was the ideal, a place not only remote, not only of great beauty, but possessed of an intangible quality and spirit that typified to me all of the unbroken north beyond all roads. Time and again I thought I had found it, but always there was something wrong, some vague, unreasoned lack of shape or size, some totally unexplainable aspect involved with the threat of accessibility. Above all, I wanted vistas that controlled not only moonrises and sunsets, but the northern lights and the white mists of the river mouths at dawn…Then one golden day I came to Saganaga.”

I closed the book and began to admire the view before me. The afternoon sun was high in the sky. Its light brought out the sandy brown of the ground, the deep green of the shrubs and needles, and the smoky red of the bark gracing the Norway pines. From our vantage point on the southern side of the island, I beheld a panoramic view of Red Rock Bay, studded by islands. I stood up and, looking to the east, identified Long and Gold Islands. To the north, I could see the Canadian shoreline. The lake was calm as a sheet of glass, the water’s surface indistinguishable from the sky.

Sitting back in my chair, I took a deep breath. The alpine smells again filled my nostrils, pure oxygen straight from the source. I closed my eyes and listened. Birds chirped and sang to each other from the trees, and a squirrel chattered in his burrow. The ubiquitous whiny hum of the mosquitoes made me grateful for the bug spray and head net I had on. Not a single sound of civilization broke the music of the singing wilderness, not a plane, not a motor, not a human voice. This was the silence I had been longing for and dreaming of. This was ecstasy. This was peace.

Grandpa woke up from his nap, and we settled in to dinner. I built a fire in the grate and lit it up. It was a long time coming, but eventually we got enough heat to roast our hot dogs over the flames. I pulled out my guitar and we enjoyed the pleasure of some good music. After the fire died down, we cleaned up dinner and headed out for a fishing run around the island, which proved unfruitful. After lounging around camp for a while, we settled into our sleeping bags and fell asleep as the loons began to call farther out on the lake. The night noises were just starting as I drifted off.

This day’s expedition was a day trip to Ester Lake. Ester is Grandpa’s favorite lake and for years he has told me about his many adventures climbing the mountain, camping on the south side of the lake, and swimming at the sand bar and sand beach. We camped on Ester on the second day of my first Boundary Waters trip back in 2013 but rain and clouds dampened our spirits that day. I had wanted to bring Grandpa back to make some good memories ever since that day, and four years later I was able to fulfill that dream. It was surreal.

The sun was shining overhead and the wind was in our face, but with an empty canoe we were able to make good time. On the portages, Grandpa carried my Duluth pack and the paddles, and I managed the canoe. As we tackled Monument Portage and the Ottertrack-Ester portage, we relived the memories of our first trip together with our family. I once again was able to carry a canoe over the Ottertrack-Ester portage, the portage that I believe made a man out of me a few years ago. We took plenty of rests and water breaks and Grandpa did great. I also enjoyed seeing the high rocky shorelines of Ottertrack once again. I need to come back to that lake.

Grandpa was ecstatic once we reached Ester. He was so happy to be on his favorite lake again. Memory after memory began rising to his mind. He first told me that we had to follow the north shoreline of the lake to find the sand beach. I asked him if he was thinking about the sandbar near the campsites, which I remembered, but he wasn’t. We paddled along the north shoreline of the lake and lo and behold a big beautiful sand beach sat tucked away in a cove. Grandpa’s still with it!

We paddled across the lake to the high bluff, which Grandpa always refers to as Ester Mountain, to try to find the trail that led to the top. When he brought school groups up in the 1970s, they always made a trip to the top of Ester Mountain. We were planning to eat our lunch up there while enjoying the view. We investigated several likely locations and bushwhacked a little but were unable to find the trail. Grandpa was a little disappointed, but neither of us wanted to take any chances. We were able to find a nice overlook over Ester Lake and get a taste of the mountaintop experience. My outfitter later told me that the trail had probably grown over. I may go back in a few years, bushwhack to the top myself, and experience it for both of us.

We returned to the sand beach, which we both affectionately referred to as Maui of the North, and enjoyed our trail lunch. After that, Grandpa and I went in for a refreshing swim. This swim may have been the highlight of my whole summer. The sand was soft and easy on the feet, and the water was cool, pure, and refreshing. It was a real kick for me to see Grandpa enjoying one of his favorite spots in the Boundary Waters once again at age seventy-five. I sat on the shoreline and watched as he waded out into the lake and sat down in the water with ecstasy and joy radiating from him, knowing that age seventy-five he was able to return once again to his favorite lake. It was an incredible moment that I’ll never forget. I hope I live through my old age with the same vigor and vitality that he has.

We had our prayer time sitting on the beach, loaded up the canoe, and headed back for our campsite on Saganaga which we reached at about 2 PM, once again taking many breaks on the way home. Thankfully the wind was at our back now. The portages were a little more difficult now that we were not fresh, but it wasn’t too bad. Grandpa was tired, but we were both pleased at our accomplishment.

That afternoon, Grandpa rested while I prepared firewood for the evening campfire, read, and fished from shore. After he got up, we enjoyed a stimulating conversation while I prepared dinner, which was Mountain House chicken teriyaki with rice. This meal is pretty slick. All you have to do is add two cups of boiling water to the pouch, let it stand for about ten minutes, and stir and serve. It was relaxing not to have a pot to clean out that evening.

Once again we enjoyed a wonderful campfire. We quietly played my guitar and sang a few songs but as silence settled over the lake and the wind died down, we put it away and listened to the loons calling all over the lake. Both Grandpa and I are always filled with awe and wonder at the beauty of the Boundary Waters. We really appreciate having a place that frees us from distractions and puts us far away from the fast pace and problems that so define our world, instead allowing us to completely focus on God, His Word, and His works. Grandpa turned in early, and I nursed the coals for a little while longer before joining him.

We then loaded up the canoe and headed across to Devil’s Walk Bay. Don Germain had told us of a good spot for walleye in Devil’s Walk. If I had known how long of a paddle this was, I would have considered camping much closer given the way we were fishing. Grandpa seemed to be under the impression that they would be hitting topwater baits at high noon. (Bless his heart). I’m sure they would have been hitting much better at night.

We paddled through the bay and headed for Roy Lake, which Deb had told us was a fantastic bass lake. Grandpa dropped his paddle, so we had to go back and get it – always bring a spare paddle. We somehow found a small pathway through a marsh that took us to the portage landing. The portage was overgrown and it would have been difficult to get a canoe over it. We walked the portage and braved some buggy conditions while I took a few casts from shore. A fish grabbed my lure but I failed to set the hook properly and it got away. After some minor trouble turning the canoe around, we headed back to troll our spot in the bay again. After no success, we decided to fish the shoreline on the way out. We were set up with bobbers and leeches again.

Grandpa soon landed a nice sized bass, quite a bit bigger than the one I had caught yesterday. He was happy as a clam and said it was one of the biggest bass he’d ever caught. I was jealous, so we trolled the shoreline again. Another bass hit my lure and missed. We turned around the canoe for a second pass, and he hit and missed again. I turned to Grandpa and said, “That fish is on my plate tonight.” Pass three produced no hits. On the fourth pass he hit and missed again. I waited. He hit again. I hooked him on the third hit and pulled him in – another bass, just a tad fatter than Grandpa’s. We got him on the stringer and headed back for camp.

Neither of us had eaten any lunch other than a Clif bar or two, but the wilderness has a way of reducing life to its simplest terms, as both Thoreau and Sigurd Olson have emphasized. We decided to wait for dinner to eat, so after filleting the fish (and cutting his finger again, thankfully not a bad cut), Dinner that night was chicken wild rice soup, cooked with my new stove which screwed onto a can of Coleman gas (the brand name fails me at the moment). It was delicious and went well with our fish fillets, which again turned out great except for the fattest one, which Grandpa commented was a little like sushi. We got dinner all cleaned up.

Grandpa sat in camp for a while, and I bush whacked around Englishman Island for a while to take some pictures. It was a lovely evening, so as the sun was setting the two of us headed out to check out another fishing spot on the shoreline just northwest of our camp site. The lake was calm as glass, and with the Ross light hitting the red pines I couldn’t have asked for a better evening. Grandpa got a soft hit at one point (probably a walleye) but otherwise we were skunked. We headed back to our campsite and hit the hay after a long and satisfying day.

After an uneventful paddle, we pulled the canoe up on shore and strolled through the camp site. It was much more wooded with some enormous white pines that clearly had been there for many years. We then set up our fishing poles with some rapalas and began trolling through the bay. I hooked onto a hammer handle northern. It put up a good fight, every bit as strong as my bass, and was fun to catch.

We paddled back to camp and headed in for a swim. The water was cold but refreshing after a long paddle, maybe a half hour each way with the wind. I couldn’t get enough of our camp site – the perfect sand beach made for a wonderful swim.

As I was relaxing in the water, my crazy grandpa walked out of the water, walked over to the clothes line, took off all of his clothes, and hung them up on the line. “Get in the tent!” I yelled. “There’s no one out here, Joe, it’s fine!” he said with a smirk. Thankfully, he headed in and got dressed. I didn’t want some tow boat to come screaming by and seeing him au natural on shore. We only saw a handful of boats on the lake throughout our trip and were able to get plenty of quiet times in listening to the sounds of the forest.

The wind picked up later in the day. For some reason it made me a little antsy and I carefully packed up all of our gear after our dinner, which was made up of odds and ends left over from the previous dinners. We sat and talked, enjoying the sun set, before turning in early so we could get an early start while Saganaga was calm.

This was a wonderful trip in so many ways. It was the perfect way for me to unwind after a long and busy spring finishing high school and working very hard in the yard. The bass fishing was awesome. And I felt that I could approach my college journey knowing that Grandpa and I had fully covered it in prayer. I am so grateful that I can still travel up north with my greatest spiritual mentor and best friend. I love you Grandpa!

I also continue to love Saganaga. It remains my favorite BWCA lake so far. I don’t call myself Saganaga Joe for nothing!