Day 7: In My Place
Friday, May 24th, 2024
After a solid night of sleep, I immediately head out on the water to fish. It is a marvelous cool, calm, sunny morning, and I begin trolling the rocky shorelines with fallen logs and the sun shining on them, in several different spots from yesterday.

After a few smaller fish, I’m steadily paddling along one of the northern shorelines of the western bay of the lake when the rod forcefully jolts, and I feel like I’ve been hit by a bolt of lightning. When I snatch the rod from my specially designed rod holder (also known as my leg holding it against the gunwale), the fish is on one of those telltale long drag ripping runs that signal an aggressive pike. Not only am I startled, but I’m also clumsy, as I pinch the line to the rod and instantly the leader snaps off. I only had one of those perch X-Raps…now it’s gone. While I have some steel leaders with me, I’ve just never seemed to have much luck when fishing with them. Plus, the swivels are cheap and very difficult to get fastened properly, so I’ve just been taking my chances with my fluorocarbon leader. Now I am paying the price for that gamble. Perhaps it wasn’t a giant fish, but I’m confident it was a larger one than the one I ate last night.

With the X-Rap gone, it’s experiment time. I tie on a steel leader and a similarly patterned X-Rap. I quickly catch a small one or two, but then the bite slows down again. I tie on a smaller perch shad rap and catch another small one. I then switch back to my fluorocarbon leader to see if that helps. I catch one or two more fish, but nothing of significant size. The very last one shakes himself of the hook just as I’m lifting him into the boat, and I say “That’s a perfect way to end it for now!” It’s time to head back to camp for a break and some breakfast. The wind has picked up noticably, and the temperature has dropped too. With these changes, the bite has slowed or stopped completely. The afternoon forecast is for plenty of wind with more chances of rain, so I figure I won’t be doing any more fishing on this trip. Before heading back to camp, I make one more trip into the woods to scavenge firewood to help keep me comfortable in camp today.

Relaxing in camp on another cold, gray, windy day draws me into a melancholic, but contemplative mood. With no more fish to catch and only one more portage left, I allow my mind to ruminate at will, reliving each moment of this trip, trying to understand not only the meaning and effect of each moment, but also who I am, who I long to be, and how that identity and purpose should shape future trips into the Boundary Waters. I’ve never understood why I feel so compelled to take these Boundary Waters trips, never quite figured out the point of it all, in spite of how much I love it. However, my ruminations on this day draw me as close as I’ve ever been to understanding why my soul feels most alive when I’m in the Boundary Waters.

It'd be easy to add up all the pain
And all the dreams you sat and watched go up in flames
Dwell on the wreckage as it smolders in the rain
But not me, I'm alive
And today, you know that's good enough for me
Breathing in and out's a blessing, can't you see?
Today's the first day of the rest of my life
And I'm alive and well
Kenny Chesney with Dave Matthews, “I’m Alive”

With the end of my trip comes the return of multiple challenges waiting for me back home. When I think about the most important tasks in my life, namely maintaining strong relationships with my wife and kids, I can’t help but feel overwhelmed by the work that lies ahead, and how often I’ve failed in the past. To be fully honest, most of my home life is complete nonsensical chaos. Each day I pour myself out to try to make things better for our family, and the great majority of the time, I feel like I’m spinning my wheels, or worse, I feel that my presence has a negative impact. So many people think of a Boundary Waters trip as a very difficult thing. And it is, to be fair, but while the workload is high, the overall difficulty feels several orders of magnitude lower than the average day I spend at home, still working hard but also navigating the many ups and downs that go into taking care of a household of six. Why are the challenges of everyday life so exhausting to me, while out here, it often feels like I can go forever, pushing beyond limits in a way that I never dreamed possible? In fact, it is in the mere facing of these challenges that I feel invigorated, rather than exhausted. The challenges faced on a canoe trip often feel like something I am made for, while the challenges of life in the real world feel like I’ve been handed a test that I must pass, but never knew how to study for. Why couldn’t I simply have been created with what I need to handle the challenges of home life in the same way I feel so at home tackling the challenges of the BWCA? Wouldn’t the world be a better place if this was so?

The best answer I can come up with is this: It’s a better story. Your struggle isn’t part of your story, it IS your story. And this story of struggle is what bonds us together as part of the human race.

No one wants to hear me tell a story about catching fish on nearly every cast for a week in sunny weather. You want to hear how a tiny pike drove a Rapala hook deep into the meat of my thumb. Finally catching a fish to eat and then deciding to take a chance on the old breading I’d been packing around for multiple years. Getting lost, cold, making bad decisions, and then wriggling with all my might to escape the consequences of those decisions. Only then can a person become a character that others are interested in. The slings and arrows that wound us in the siege of life give us something to focus on, to work through. And though our wounds may knock us to the ground in defeat, they also bond us to those that journey alongside us in this human existence. After falling, we are forced to reach out to someone along the way, who lends us a hand, dusts us off, and tells us their own story of struggle. When the next man falls on the way, now we have a reason to reach out, help, bond, and share our own struggle, to provide a ray of hope in the darkness to the fallen.

I strongly sense that I won’t be out here solo again for a long time…and perhaps never again on a rugged route like the Frost River. My role on this planet is slowly but surely morphing from one focused on great achievement and conquering challenges that strengthen me to leading others to take on such challenges for themselves. Before this trip, when in the final packing phase, I told my 11 year old son, “You may not know this yet, but you are definitely coming with me next year!” I have every intention of making good on that impromptu statement.

My mind again turns to the “ancient ones” in my life that passed the experience of the outdoors to me, namely my father, my uncle, and my grandma. Those fall weekends hunting pheasants and quail, and the countless cold days with my best friends in high school in pursuit of ducks, geese, turkeys, and doves changed the trajectory of my life, and forever bonded me to two great friends that would one day stand up as groomsmen at my wedding. Now I know it is time for me to pass the priceless gift of the outdoors on to my children. My head is filled with more questions than answers when I think of planning a trip with my son, with hopes of many more trips to follow after. How will I be able to manage the additional workload? When should we go? How can I make sure it provides the right balance of both challenge and fun? How can I make sure we find a few fish to catch along the way? I can only pray that God will show me the path forward. The planning process for next year begins as soon as I hit I-35 southbound out of Duluth tomorrow.

“The glory of God is man fully alive.”~St. Irenaeus
“I came that they might have life, and have it more abundatly.”~John 10:10
Speaking of youth, have I really even grown up at all? As I lay here in my hammock journaling this afternoon covered by my cozy “winter camo” top quilt, I am reminded of the backpack I carried to kindergarten, which was a nylon brown army camo color. Am I still just a little boy that loves spending hours playing in the woods? Could that be the explanation for why I struggle so much to relate to the realities of the adult world I live in each day? Or does getting in touch with the little boy, the young soul inside of me, actually help me become the grown man I was born to be somehow? That little boy’s favorite TV show was Marty Stouffer’s “Wild America” on PBS. Over 30 years later, I’ve been fortunate to see a small part of that “Wild America” for myself, to struggle against it…and to revel in it. Surely, rediscovering that wonder isn’t all bad?

I conclude my final day at Grandpa Lake by quietly stoking the fire and eating supper. The sun is very low on the horizon and I take one last hike up to the top of the bluff behind the latrine just to sit and take it all in. After a day in which I filled many pages of my journal with my own thoughts, I need a moment to sit and listen to God, and to his marvelous creation before taking down the tarp and doing my final pack up of camp to be ready for a pre-dawn departure.

A Bald Eagle flies by and says:

“Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will also help you, I will also uphold you with My righteous right hand.” ~Isaiah 41:10

The stormy sky says: “It is time for you to face the storm…to return and walk bravely.”

The jack pines say: “We were born of the fire decades before you were born. You too can gain life though the fire, and grow tall, straight, and strong.”

The Swainson’s Thrush says: “It’s not an end. It’s a beginning. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Keep singing your song. I love you. This place must be shared. This place must be shared. This place must be shared. Pass it on to others and part of you will be passed on through this place, through the memories…forever.”

The Chipping Sparrow says: “Come now. It’s time to begin.”

Stats—>Pike caught: 5 or 6?|Big ones that got away: 1 (there’s always one)|Naps: 1|Time spent journaling: Hours

~Grandpa Lake