Boundary Waters Quetico Forum :: Trip Reports :: Trip Report - 1980 Return to the Namakan: Going Back in Time #5
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TrailZen |
TZ |
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Spartan2 |
Trip Name: 1980 Return to the Namakan: Going Back in Time #5. Entry Point: Quetico Click Here to View Trip Report |
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smoke11 |
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Spartan2 |
JohnR: "I’m glad this got bumped to the top of the trip report page because I missed it originally. Yes, as I said in Day Eight, the ranger stopped and told us that there was a fire ban in place. We hadn't known until that point, as it wasn't in place when we started. Probably should have been, though. It was very hot and dry. |
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Spartan2 |
My husband wasn’t like your son. He didn’t develop diabetic symptoms until 1974 and didn’t go on insulin until 1975. By then he was 30 years old. It was such a different world then: testing glucose in the urine only told you what your blood sugar was “yesterday” or “awhile ago”, and treating the BG was a crap shoot. Over the years things have changed so much. Long-lasting insulin products, improved syringes, insulin pens, finger sticks (yes, no one likes them, but they do give a much more accurate idea of what is going on). And now he has an insulin pump and CGM and the difference that has made in his health and our lives is like day and night! Amazing!! Still not easy. . .but when compared to the struggles in the 70’s. . . Wow! My husband is not a person to let something get him down. He has had treatments for diabetic retinopathy, for kidney disease (finally resulting in a transplant 13 years ago), and for about six other conditions that probably are all diabetes related. He has been hospitalized with pneumonia and another time with sepsis. He is immunosuppressed (due to the transplant) and I worry about him constantly now that COVID is among us and people are refusing to wear masks, so the ones for whom the vaccines are not as effective are so much more vulnerable. He jokes that he has 10 specialists who keep him going strong at age 76, and I am thankful for each and every one of them. So we keep on keeping on. Every summer we go to a cabin on the Gunflint and enjoy the canoe country, take day trips, and are just thankful for the many good memories we have of our canoe tripping days. It was fun to read about your son, and if, in any way my husband was an inspiration, I know that pleases him. |
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PineKnot |
Anyway, really enjoyed the report and the before and after pics despite the light leak....really neat how a waterfall/rapids can be so different depending on high or low water levels.... |
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TuscaroraBorealis |
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Spartan2 |
This was my winter pandemic "project". I ended up doing five vintage trips, and made two books on Snapfish with the photos and the stories. The first volume had the two trips from Lake One (1973 and 1982) and the next one had three trips: two from Moose Lake and one from Crane Lake (1974, 1977, and 1980). Then it was fairly easy to just retype the stories and add the scanned photos from my folder. Computers do make all of this so much easier--although scanning the photos is very tedious. We have many trips that do not have a Trip Report, but now there are no trips that don't have a book. Who cares? Probably no one but us, but sometimes it is fun to take out a book and relive the memories. I am reasonably sure that none of this would have been done if I hadn't been limited in the scope of my normal activities all winter. And I can tell you that I would rather have been seeing our family, doing my in-person volunteer work, directing the church choir, going to lunch with friends, etc. Sometimes we can't choose what we want to do, so we do what we are able to do. |
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JimStone |
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JohnR |
So cool that you have these detailed notes from so decades ago. Fun to see throwback pictures including the tent - though the wilderness looks the same which is great! Just curious- did they ever do fire bans back then? |
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JohnR |
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HighnDry |
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