Boundary Waters Birthday

Sublime

Pipestone Bay, Basswood Lake, in the Boundary Waters Wilderness. There was a blue flag iris, my favorite wildflower, holding down the landing of my chosen camp site. [post too long for email]

The first morning, my birthday, I went fishing around the larger island in that first picture. I caught three walleye, one four pound pike and a decent size perch before 10am. This walleye was the only walleye that was big enough to eat. I let the pike go as I figured the fishing all week would be good. The walleye was plenty enough for my birthday brunch.

It looked like it might rain the first day, but it barely sprinkled. July 2nd I stayed in the Fall Lake Forest Service campsite, which also contains the Fall Lake boat landing so I was on the water by 8am July 3rd, and in the campsite by 2pm. I only paddled about eight miles in, including two portages each about 80 rods (80 x 17ft = 856ft; a rod is the length of a typical canoe.) Though I brought too much food and gear and had to cross each portage three times.

Paddling eight miles crossing two portages and setting up base camp is not my usual practice. Typically I paddle 8-10 miles a day or more, 60-80 miles over the course of a week, with usually at least one campsite where I would stay for two nights. But it has been several years since I went on a solo journey, and I was content with this site all week. This is not my usual sort of camp either, more like a State Park group camp, but a big open space in the midst of the red and white pines made for a nice dance floor, and the pines make it easy to hang the food pack away from bears (though in 400 plus days in the BWCAW I have never seen a bear, despite some 1000+ that are said to make this home.) It is also a high traffic area for humans, Lewis Narrows near by, so I saw everyone passing by heading home or out to the further parts of this very large Basswood Lake, in boats and canoes. This is part of the motorized area of Basswood Lake, you can bring a boat in with up to a 25hp motor, so I saw 3-4 boats a day and up to 30 canoes (the boats have wheels attached, the boaters have to manually pull it across the portage). There were a lot of young people, boys and girls, young men and young women, 12-30, which is good to see. Good for the future of this place.

I spent all of my time in a little part of that lower bay triangulated by the left “Basswood Lake” and the white sign.

The last campsite below Lewis Narrows on the western shore of Pipestone Bay. You can see the two little islands, one bigger than the other across from it.

There were also serviceberries/juneberries in camp. Not many, but a nice treat.

Then I found five or six shrubs loaded, on a portage to Back Bay. So then I started checking empty campsites, and by the end of the trip I am sure I ate three quarts.

The weather was fine, pristine even, most of the time. At least one afternoon and evening there wasn’t anything to be done but sit on the shore, fish and watch the evolution of a chef’s cap.

I don’t even remember if I caught anything.

The catching of fish after that first morning was not great, but I love fishing anyway, learning to handle my new canoe in the wind, using a depth finder for the first time in a canoe and tracking a 16-18ft depth for walleye. I also own a 12’6” Old Town royalex canoe, I have used on my previous solo tours, including all of the 2002 paddling season, but this Northstar, Northwinds Solo, at 15’6”, is at least twice as fast and just as maneuverable. There were times when the sun was shining, it was warm and there was little wind, there was no one else around and I wondered what is better than fishing alone in a bay like this? I fished every morning but one and every late afternoon.

I did not catch a single fish casting into and along the shore and in shallow bays, which is usually the easiest way to catch fish here. I did just about as well trolling in 16-18 ft, as I did throwing a slip bobber from the shore of the campsite in the evenings. All told I caught about seven walleye, two pike, the one perch, and two rock bass. I had a smallmouth bass on the line but lost it. It was the first trip in these boundary waters I did not catch a smallmouth bass. I assume the weather and season meant the fish had abundant feed, and are maybe feeling as lazy as we humans are in the summer? I lost a lot of bait, walleye nibbling on it, pulling it of the line when I tried to set the hook.

Another good way, maybe the best way, to catch all manner of fish including walleye, is to fish downstream from falls. This is Pipestone Falls, on our way back to Fall Lake. I didn’t stop to fish, though I might have camped closer to here and caught more fish.

Dog, as per a brief conversation I had in the comments with reader Joy in my last post, I have decided is my shield maiden. She disarms people with her beauty, playfulness and friendly demeanor, making them much more open to me than they would be otherwise. Dog did great, this her first long Boundary Waters trip. She was respectful to people on the portages, she was a good friend in camp, and she handled herself with ease in the canoe, unbalancing it at times but not so much I couldn’t compensate. She was very curious about the loons, the baby mergansers, the fish I caught, eagles, but she never upset the canoe. Good dog.

Here are some trees slowly demolishing this rock wall, turning it into a boulder pile. That is part of the great Laurentian Shield, a granite slab extending from here to Nova Scotia. It makes me feel less old. That was a lot of my thought, fishing, exploring and sitting in camp, how far I have come; where am I going? I thought a lot about how much gratitude I have, for family, friends, my health, my knowledge and skills, these boundary waters and woods, my garden, my orchard, this earth, life generally, my readers.

I paddled back to Fall Lake on the 9th, and stayed in a campsite adjacent to the portage, only a little over a mile on the water from the boat landing and my van. This campsite too was full of serviceberries, well more than enough to have a pint for dinner and a pint for breakfast. I thought about collecting some for a batch of homebrew - serviceberry makes the best homebrew - but that is for another trip, maybe next year at this time. It was the one night that it really rained, and by morning I was ready to go home.

This Boundary Waters is like my spiritual home. Many people who write about it often write with a tone of reverence. It is not hard to fathom why, once you have spent some time here. It is not simply that this is wilderness, there being so little real wilderness left, like a reminder of where we came from, but the loons and the many woodland and hermit thrush with their ethereal calls, the way the winds whistle through mature red and especially white pine needles, even the way squirrels seem to work together to make a harmony beat, the simplicity of camp and the grace of paddling a canoe, all lends a sense of peace, of the divine, the beauty and mystery and the sublime of life (1). I meant to move here, when I was young. I still mean to retire and die here - but not for awhile yet.

I’m always a little sad to leave Ely, this gateway to the center of these Boundary Waters. But I will be back in a few weeks, for a men’s Rendezvous, and I intend to paddle a 70+/- mile loop in September, on a route I have never been.

I’m sure the fishing will be better.

1. One cannot talk about the sublime without mentioning the mosquitos. There was a fire ban but they lifted it the morning I went in, but I never lit a fire. In the summer, the mosquitos are ferocious at twilight, and an issue after dark, I don’t care to douse myself with mosquito spray to sit by a fire when it is already warm out. So I went to bed early and woke early to fish.