Day 2 - Wednesday, August 10, 2005
South Arm Knife Lake - Eddie Lake - Jenny Lake - Annie Lake - Ogishkemuncie Lake - Spice Lake
We had a long day yesterday--covered a lot of ground and made camp pretty late--so it's taking forever to get out of the tent, make breakfast, pack, and get on the water this morning. When camping, it sometimes takes me awhile to relax and to let go of all the worries of the "real world." One thing I have trouble letting go of is a schedule and this is causing some tensions. Or maybe the actual problem is that I'm a morning person (once I'm awake I'm ready to get moving and see what there is to see) and Eric is most definitely not (it seems to take him at least an hour from the time he wakes up until the time when he's actually awake). This is the first trip Eric and I have gone on where it’s just the two of us and also our first trip to the Boundary Waters since we started dating so it’s kind of a crash course in relationships.
Well, we make it to Eddy Lake for lunch and, after stashing our gear to the side of the incredible monotonic portage, we backtrack to the falls for lunch. Everything is mossy and cool and wet and it seems as if we’re eating in an enchanted grotto. Sunshine dapples the water and highlights dancing sparkles rushing through the verdant shade. The strain I felt this morning drains away. We finish lunch and continue on towards Ogishkemuncie.

Things on the campsite front aren’t looking good—every site we pass is full and we hear from people coming towards us that there aren't any empty sites on Ogish. It’s already late afternoon so we cross our fingers and head towards Spice Lake hoping that no one has taken that lake’s one campsite. Hallelujah! We don’t have to paddle into the evening and we have a whole little lake to ourselves!
We quickly set up camp and head back out to see if we can catch our dinner. We’re only on the water for about five minutes before Eric catches a nice sized Northern. Now it’s time for me to live up to a promise… A couple of months ago, Eric gave me a beautiful puukko knife on the condition that I help him clean a fish the next time we went to the Boundary Waters. I was really touched since in his family a puukko knife is sort of a coming-of-age gift that the kids can’t wait to earn, but now I need to “man up” so to speak.
A little confession--flopping fish freak me out. I have no trouble baiting a hook with leeches or worms and I can even pass someone a minnow hand-to-hand, but once someone actually catches a fish and it’s banging around while they get the hook out, it’s all I can do to stay in the boat. In school I dissected hearts, eyeballs, frogs, squid and even a fetal pig without problem so it’s not that I’m squeamish about guts--but when things flop around! Ugh! I guess if it was a matter of survival, I’d have to make sure I was surviving somewhere with an abundant supply of mac and cheese.
Anyhow, we make it to a nice flat rock away from camp and begin the ordeal. I try, I really do, to grab the flopping fish and cut off its head but my sweaty, clammy hands simply will not reach out towards the horrid thing. Eric relents and says that as long as I watch, he’ll go ahead and clean the fish. It’s terrible, but I do watch and once the last spasmodic twitching dies away, I help with the descaling and filleting.
By the time we make it back to camp, I have firmly repressed all memory of the nightmare and happily fry up and enjoy the fillets which mysteriously appeared in our pan. I cheerfully wash the dishes tonight (a chore which Eric loathes) and realize that relationships are made stronger by helping one another through the flopping fish and dirty dishes of life.