Here it is...FINALLY!!! I realize this is terribly overdue, but life has been a bit crazy the last couple weeks!! Now that things are slowing down a bit I have the time to share about my AMAZING trip into the wilderness.
Welcome to Boundary Waters, located in Northern Minnesota and Canada. It spans 1,090,000 acres and is home to moose (or meese as we were fond of calling them) and bear, untouched by human habitations. 8 girls from the Remington/Wolcott young group, including myself, set out to have a wonderful "vacation" of 4 days and 3 nights out on the lakes.
This is our group!! You may be wondering why this photo looks as though it was taken in the nineteen hundreds, and there is a good reason for that. We used disposable waterproof cameras starting after a day or two because we had an unfortunate *incident* in which the digital waterproof camera was lost to the bottom of the lake. Lost, but not forever!! All of us girls are praying that a fisherman catches it and turns it in. For the time being, however, we have these pictures. This picture was taken at our outtake, after a long 4 days of canoeing.
Back to the beginning...
We went through Cliff Wold's Outfitting Company, located in Ely Minnesota. They provided the meals, tents, sleeping bags and equipment. All we had to do was bring our small amount of personal gear. We couldn't take much because we had to make some portages. Everything had to fit into 8 packs, 4 of those being tents, sleeping bags and cooking supplies. When we got to the outfitter I was super excited. Adventure was in the air!
Before setting out on the water, we were each "assigned" a canoeing partner for the trip. This is Katie and Kayla loading their canoe at the last campsite. Ruth and Alisia, Kim and Mindy, and Jo and I made up the other three groups. Jo and I christened ourselves "canoebies", pronounced canoe-bees. Really, don't ask me how to spell it. It is a mix of canoe and buddies, because it takes WAY to long to say canoeing buddies, yah know.
Each night we stayed at a different campsite after canoeing an average of 9 or so miles a day. The average speed for our group was 1-2 miles per hour. Out on the water we played a TON of 20 questions, we sang praise songs, talked, or just paddled along in silence. It was peaceful and the scenery was so pure. There were no smoke stacks, noisy roads, or homes. We were surrounded by a beautiful sky, tree line and an occasional island. God's creation.
One of our portages was on Canadian soil!
The first day we ate lunch in our canoes. We quickly realized that was not the best thing to do. The 4 canoes had to be linked together, then the food had to be dug out of the pack and passed around to everyone. It was a lot more difficult than it sounds!
Also, since it was the first day we had to deal with the confusion of figuring out how to make the juice. Now, making juice may not sound difficult, but you have to use correct measurements. Let's just say our first jug was really nasty and diluted. From there on out, we put several mixes into one jug to make some pretty interesting drinks. In this case, interesting wasn't necessarily good! We used water straight from the lake. That first day it was an orange-ish tint, but every day after that it was clear. None of us got sick, so it must have been ok!
After lunch on that first day is rained. At first it was just a drizzle, but pretty soon it advanced into a pretty steady rain. Because of that, we stopped a little early to make camp. The picture above is of Ruth unloading her gear at the first campsite.
The first thing we did every time we paddled into a campsite was soak ourselves with bug spray. The mosquitoes were AWFUL. However, one of the girls on the trip reminded us of the book "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom. We had to find some reason to be thankful for the bugs. By the end of the trip we decided that we were thankful for them because they made us grateful to be on the water (the mosquitoes were not out on the water AT ALL...what a blessing!) and they also made us thankful for our homes that are sheltered from the hordes of bugs.
The first thing we did every time we paddled into a campsite was soak ourselves with bug spray. The mosquitoes were AWFUL. However, one of the girls on the trip reminded us of the book "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom. We had to find some reason to be thankful for the bugs. By the end of the trip we decided that we were thankful for them because they made us grateful to be on the water (the mosquitoes were not out on the water AT ALL...what a blessing!) and they also made us thankful for our homes that are sheltered from the hordes of bugs.
After coating ourselves with the spray we set up tents. It ended up that the Wolcott girls were in one tent and the Remington girls were in the other one, but we really do get along together!! :)
Next we started a fire for dinner. Kayla was the fire starter of our group! The first night we weren't able to have a fire because of the rain. Instead we huddled under a tarp and cooked on the propane stove we thankfully had along. The other nights we were much more authentic and made our own fire. We weren't allowed to burn paper or cardboard, so we had to rely on all the twigs and pine needles we could find. Kayla did an amazing job though and it made dinner possible. One thing you definitely need to take note of in the picture above is the quantity of food. There were only 8 of us and look at that ENORMOUS tray of polish sausages!! Each meal was large enough for 8 hungry lumberjacks, and we would get to the point of feeling sick, especially when we had to eat hash browns. Honestly, just typing those words makes me feel sick to my stomach. They were delicious...just not when you had to eat an entire heaping plateful of them PLUS whatever the meat was :P BLECH.
Following mealtime was the dreaded clean up. Everything was completely sanitary and sparkling clean by the time we were done. Good thing it didn't really matter to anyone, because all we had was lake water to wash our dishes in. We used hot water to wash...and then cold water to rinse. Somehow that defeated the whole purpose.
After eating and before turning in for the night we had to hang the food pack in a tree to keep bears away. There were a whole bunch of guidelines for how high, how far out, and how far from the branch the pack had to be. We, meaning Kayla the tree climber, Alisia the rope tie-er, and Katie the rope holder, were just glad to get it in the tree!
One of the most difficult, and oddly fun, parts of the trip was portaging. You really should be impressed right now. Seriously...just look at us! That is what we all thought until we saw the guy from the outfitter pick up the canoe and set it on his own shoulders at the end of the trip. We just let him...no sense in losing our sense of strength at the end. Of course, we could have done that if we wanted to. We really just wanted to work on team building!
In all seriousness, those canoes AND the packs were really heavy. Each portage required a mantra, "this is a vacation, this is a vacation."
In all seriousness, those canoes AND the packs were really heavy. Each portage required a mantra, "this is a vacation, this is a vacation."
This mantra also came in handy when I had some sort of a reaction to the bug bites. That bump on my arm was huge, itchy and hot to the touch. It was sure a good lesson on how to be content in all circumstances.
One night we were a bit surprised when a turtle wandered into our camp! He seemed confused, but kept coming back to the same spot and then he would get startled by us. Finally he found his spot and started digging. A few of us girls started watching and after watching him painstakingly dig a pretty deep hole, we had a nice surprise. HE was a SHE. So we proceeded to watch HER lay 12 eggs!! How amazing! That night they had packed popcorn for us, so we popped popcorn and stood there in our own personal theater watching the best National Geographic ever. We were all so amazed by this small example of God's amazing creation. We watched her lay her eggs for almost 2 hours, until she covered the hole back up and went back to the water.
I have saved the *best* for last...
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to La Latrine de Wilderness. Please notice the weed growing inside of it, the bushes surrounding it and remember, mosquitoes don't care where they bite you. Let's just say none of us enjoyed the latrine.
Now I am just going to throw some random pics at you...
Watching Kayla chop wood at the second campsite
Oh no! Mindy is stranded!!
Eating our almost unbelievable portions of granola...just one more thing I won't be eating for a LONG time.
Jo, Kim and I at the rapids we paddled out of our way to see
The dreaded bag of potatoes :P Alisia is hanging the clothesline in the background.
In the van on the way back to civilization
As I am sitting here writing this post, I am finding myself missing being out in the wilderness. I absolutely LOVED the trip, and I would go back in a heartbeat. I was so blessed to share in the experience with those 7 girls. We learned a lot about each other and I know that I feel closer to them than ever since Boundary Waters. However, the most amazing part of the trip was GOD. He really used the trip to allow us to learn more of Him through an amazing bible study (thanks Ruth!) and through His astounding creation.
Thank You Lord for gathering us closer to You through this experience and for Your great creation which pointed us toward You.
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.
Genesis 1:31
