Lake Superior Ice Caves

An unusual approach on Rose Falls

Rose Falls has the feel of an ancient place, where if you touch one of the massive cedars it might awaken from a long sleep and say something profound in an eerie voice. Here gravity pulls water out of Duncan Lake through a narrow cut in the rocks, cascading 136 feet closer to our planet's center. All of us have access to this rare, raw power.

I arrived on the Gunflint Trail in late April that year and everything was old, but new to me. New job, new co-workers, my fishing gear stacked neatly in the corner of my new one-room cabin. I shivered in my new bed the first night, reading Grapes of Wrath by lamplight, chapter fourteen: "muscles and mind aching to grow, to work, to create, multiplied a million times."

The cabin wall was papered with park maps, there was Rose Falls roaring above my pillow.

Deek and I spent several days ripping old carpet and glue from hardwood floors in Clearwater Lodge, sanding them down smooth. Strangers still but here for the same reasons, we started making plans for our first day off. Fishing wasn't an option, and with most of the lakes still frozen, neither was paddling.
"Maybe we should take a hike," suggested Deek.

Having spent the previous six years stuck in a cubicle, I was in absolutely terrible shape, but it still sounded like a good idea. I had to get out there. Spring was in the air and my legs were yipping.

It had been a decade since I first climbed the Stairway Portage at Rose Falls, during my first summer working at Clearwater. My dad was visiting, we camped two nights on Daniels and caught a pile of smallies. And we took a day-trip to Rose and saw the tumbling waters and sleeping cedars and all the other tourists eating snacks. It was a great trip.

Ten years later Deek and I sat around sipping beers after a long day of lodge restoration, watching the snow melt, imagining the rush of spring water being pulled over the rocks. Yes, we agreed, tomorrow we would hike an unusual approach on Rose Falls.

 The vast majority of all Rose Falls visitors in any given year arrive by canoe during the months of July or August, and that's a great way to see them. The second easiest route to the falls is snowshoeing across snow-covered lakes, but of course the falls are frozen solid then, very quiet and stunning still.
Here in the springtime, though, when the falls are most impressive and least visited, the approach is by rock... A wild beast feeling.

There are a number of over-land hiking routes leading to Rose Falls but the most direct and difficult is the Caribou Rock Trail, running north from Hungry Jack Road. Even for someone in fit condition, this would be a serious test. Deek and I had originally planned on taking the easier route up the Daniels Spur to the Long Portage, but had found the Daniels Spur a knee-deep stream of meltwater, boots swamped. No doubt the Long Portage would have been even soggier. After a hearty breakfast of biscuits and gravy we decided on a third option: South Lake to the Border Route to Rose Falls to Caribou Rock.

The South Lake Trail was kind to us, and we glided along at a fast pace, shredding layers and searching for moose shed. Dropping into a cool and shaded lowlands, Deek proclaimed, "This looks like a bullpen, I bet there's a huge bull moose watching us right now." He looked serious.

We reached the Border Route before noon and stopped for a break on a massive rock outcropping overlooking South, Rat and Rose Lakes. The day was warm and the legs still felt strong. A light rain started falling. We pushed on along the undulating Border Route, beside a small beaver pond chirping with life and the glowing green of spring.

By the time we reached the falls my legs were getting sore but there we recharged. The falls are at their prime in early May, full of spectacular energy. We could hear Rose Falls roaring ahead on the trail for a full half hour before we finally reached the gorge. Sitting on the rocks below the main drop we had lunch in a cloud of mist, the abundant humidity and thunder erasing all the dry quiet of winter. "That the earth can do that," I said, shiny-eyed, and Deek nodded.

 The sun crept low behind the clouds and we turned south towards the truck along the Caribou Rock Trail. At first I thought the trail builders were maniacs but eventually I realized there is simply no reasonable land-route from Hungry Jack Road to Rose Falls. The trail was steep and mostly slick rock. We'd climb and climb, cling to small branches sliding back downhill, but always keeping an eye out for interesting wildlife.
Deek pointed out blueberry bushes in the making, smoking cigarettes on the top of each vista. Could he be trusted? He seemed to know a lot about plants and I knew almost nothing at the time... and he had worked more summers on the trail, so I paid attention.

We crossed the stream between Bearskin and Duncan and Deek said, "One time here I almost stepped on a huge snapping turtle sitting in the stream." I wasn't sure if he was crazy or a genius. We hopped across the rocks, all of them rocks this time, then pulled ourselves uphill, away from the center of the world once again. My muscles wheezed, then breathed.

And there goes Duncan, and there we see Moss, and there is Bearskin ahead, the lakes were melting in the rain, winter just turned into spring, just then.

The last two miles of the hike something happened, where we got too tired but still kept stepping forward. It was a triumph of will... Or hunger. And this was the same feeling I had the first time I hauled gear up the stairs beside Rose Falls without stopping for rest. The feeling you get in the park so often: lungs and muscles burning sweetly, a wild beast feeling. The feeling after a hard day of work, peeling off your boots. Or catching a toothy fish. Or kissing a girl by the light of a campfire. When you hit the top of the hill on an impossible hike and take a deep breath in a new place.

That you can do that.

But of course there was a price, well worth it: For three days I couldn't hardly walk, let alone sand floors. The hike had the last laugh, but we made it to the falls and back, we heard what the ancient cedars had to say on that day and nobody else did. Or will. After dinner I rolled into bed, by the light of a lamp with no shade, legs whimpering beneath the wool blankets, but laughing. I re-read chapter fourteen of Steinbeck's masterpiece:

"Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back. This you may say and know it and know it."

Drilling through 29 inches of instinct and ice

1 - Across the snow and ice I walk, listening to the lake, imagining the depth contours below, how the fish will swim along this shoreline. Down there lives a beast I seek. Often I look for animal tracks on the surface. Where are you going, wild things? But really I wonder: Where I am going?

2 - There is something invisible in this world that reveals the perfect place for a fishing hole. This force gives my instincts mass. I read an article about a similar mysterious force, the Higgs boson, "an elusive, missing snowflake in our theory of falling snow."*

3 - Looking at a frozen lake blanketed you cannot see a single particular snowflake, or a single molecule of ice. This is impossible for the human eye. But there they are, millions and millions, together a soft quilt across a hard sheet of ice, a barrier between me and them.

4 - My skin perceives the snowfield as it fluctuates and breaks back into singular flakes, shimmering between the sky above and the water below. Eventually I am satisfied and stop my feet, drop the drill from my shoulder, right hand on top pressing down, left hand the engine, driving the blades round and round. This is something I've done thousands of times before.

5 - However: This is the end of February on a big lake. Two feet of snow on top, twenty feet of water below, the ice membrane a deep and strong field in between.

6 - The blades of the drill must be sharp at the perfect angle, creating the perfect friction. It would be a mistake pushing too hard or turning too fast. Great force in short bursts works better. One violent turn of the handle at a time, a steady rhythm, and for each turn I am one inch closer to the fish.

7 - The first few spins are effortless, the blades of the drill just getting teeth into the ice field. The arms whir with youthful electricity.

8 - Five inches down, life is easy. Ten inches down, the hands are still lively. Fifteen inches down, ice particles start grabbing at the blades... And then they grab at the arms, and then the shoulders, and the feet. Friction spreads quickly through the body, soon the lungs and guts start burning, then they howl. It's odd, to a person watching on shore this must seem like nothing at all. Such a stationary and simple thing shouldn't be so hard, but it is. Vision narrows with primal determination: Keep going, keep going. Sixteen inches, seventeen inches...

9 - The muscles become looser, but heavier. The mind must be quiet, but aggressive. Energies increasing against resistance. All of these competing forces pushing towards a breaking point. How much further to liquid water? Can I turn the handle one more time? Three more times? A thousand more times? What is my limit?

10 - When I was 18 I got my first job in the boundary waters. I had never been up here before that. I've been wondering ever since why I sought that job, how it all came to be, that first step in the right direction. Some invisible force, perhaps, something I will never really understand. On my nineteenth birthday I got drunk and watched the northern lights at the end of an old dock. And after you've seen that, what is there to understand?

11 - Then a few weeks later I moved back south.

12 - It seems to me that everyone is just looking for their place in this world. Part of me is upset I didn't see mine right away. Maybe I just couldn't comprehend it. I guess I was stuck in an in-between, I wasn't air anymore but I wasn't quite water.

13 - Twenty inches and the top of the auger blades begin disappearing into the lake's frozen skin, the teeth so far away... At this point each turn of the handle requires a steep increase in energy. A reckoning. The ice and snow fight back now, but I get meaner.

14 - Twenty-one inches, twenty three, twenty five... Managing a small newspaper in the city, married, bought a cute house with hardwood floors. We adopted two kittens, planted lilacs and tomatoes in the yard.

15 - Drilling a hole through deep ice requires great energy but so often that energy is wasted, it seems. Nothing substantial is caught there. It was not the right place. Or maybe, the right time.

16 - Thing is: I'm stubborn. Twenty six, twenty seven... I get what I want. I won't ever stop looking, twenty eight...

17 - The reason I'm always yearning, why I'm grinding ice to slush, is that I'm demanding of myself. I can't take naps. I never get sick. But there is a sickness, this constant cold desire, never satisfied. And I try so hard for optimism, but this world makes it so difficult.

18 - Is the lake even down there anymore? Has it frozen solid? How many turns of the handle has it been now?

19 - My teeth grind and jawbones clench, twenty eight, twenty eight, I'm seeing red... 

20 - As has happened so often in this life the doubt creeps in. Maybe the whole world is an icy heart. Maybe I'll never catch another beast.

21 - My arms are dead, my lungs are empty, my mind goes blank, twenty eight, twenty eight... The last grinding punch is the most difficult as the bottom gives out, but then everything breaks free and the blades taste the lake again, the barrier between us has been obliterated. Every single cell in my body howls with happiness. And there is excitement in this new possibility. Maybe, just maybe, this is the place.

22 - Seeing wild liquid water in the winter always electrifies me. I place my bare hand in the lake and splash it on my forehead, and instantly feel better. I snap back into myself.

23 - Then I realized something I already knew: No energy is ever wasted.

24 - Energy is mass.**

25  - All the hard work, the mistakes and successes, the tired muscles and happiness, each and every infintismal moment big and small, snowflakes falling on a frozen lake, piling up, there is the origin of instinct. What happened drives us to what will happen. These are the animal tracks in the snow.

26 - In my twenty-ninth year I said goodbye to the city and the girl I loved and I moved up north again, to the Gunflint Trail. Some invisible force brought me back here, something I will never understand.

27 - I breathe deeply and bait the hook, always hopeful. Watching the minnow drift down through the ice field into the vast darkness, I know something it does not, but I still know very little.

28 - Farewell, little one, bring me back a big one. It's an old trick, knocking a hole in the ice for water and meat.

29 - And I want that meat badly, I'm so thirsty for cold water, but I want nothing more than this: A permanent life in these boundary waters that have given me everything and energy and mass.

* - "Chasing the Higgs," New York Times, March 5, 2013

** - E=MC2

-30-

An elusive lake

There is an elusive lake filled with trout, says Ed. I read about it in a Sam Cook column. He never found it but we should. It's just loaded with lakers. 

This conversation I file under "future adventures." A few weeks later I am still thinking about it. The difficulty only increases the desire.

There are two reasonable options into this lake. One is shorter but requires more bush-whacking. The second is a longer hike but the trail passes nearby. Looking over my F13 Fisher park-map in the out-house I visualize the approach up the frozen creek. A small space heater roasts my right thigh, and I burn the course into my gps.

The Packers lose miserably on Saturday night... and we move from early ice to the mid-season. On Sunday we watch more football and play cards, we feast solemnly on slow-roasted beef.

Monday rises cold and quickly. Too quickly. After breakfast KB and I lazily gather gear, sip on coffee and watch the sun hit high noon. No urgency. But at one there is an itch, let's go blaze this trail, let's go find the lonely lake. It's too late in the day and too cold, but we go anyways.

Should be three miles in, or maybe three and a half. Wonder what this path used to be? Somebody's old drive-way, some dreamer. Something goofy with almost anyone that would live up here. Someone cut this path and the trees try and erase it. It feels level but the whole way we're going downhill, deep into the park. 

A helicopter flies over, are they counting moose? Are they watching us? We take a few wrong turns. Sections of the trail are so overgrown we are crawling on our bellies. In a cluster of birch sits the metal remains of an old buggy, rusty and haunted. And then we reach the valley, where even in winter the water keeps running north. 

The trail levels out and when it turns back north my gps grows wary. Turn right. Turn right! An organ starts playing in my thorax, somewhere in my guts a bass drum starts kicking. It's over there, I can feel the gravity. Off the trail the snow gets deep but we bounce through the marshlands and tall grass poking through the snow.

And then the landscape opens up. And there it is, the elusive lake. Off a deep point I punch four holes and set the traps. We snuggle against the shoreline out of the wind, chewing frozen granola bars. 

This is fun, but this is crazy. And our eyes say:

This is ourrrr lake!

Yesss it is!

But we've left ourselves too small a window here, and lacking live bait, we fish for just one-half-hour, unsuccessfully, then point sore legs uphill, into the wind. 

We cross the creek, meander along the valley of the marsh gawking at the rock-cliffs, up to the west, across the secondary creek, up and up and up, and under the fallen trees. But I don't remember that tree. Or that one. Then: there's the old buggy. And: look at the size of that cedar! 

We reach the truck in the blue of night light dissolving into blackness. And now we know the way. It is so burned into our thighs. And another day we shall return, but today, oh today so hungry, we are done.

Big Walter

My brother Andrew visited the northcountry last week for some ice fishing in the park. The first two days were so-so but on Monday he pulled this big walter on the close trap around noon. It was, without question, the largest walleye either of us had ever seen caught.

september cedars

Capsized on Caribou Lake

Capsizing a canoe is rarely a choice, and it's also rare that one would make that choice in May. But this has been a really warm spring, and therefore, I think the decision was correct. I'm not sure I would've made the same choice, given the chance, but it's impossible to know.

Erik and I wanted to put some walleyes in the freezer so we paddled four miles out to the far end of Caribou Lake the other afternoon with dark clouds to the north and calm winds out of the south. It was an ideal afternoon for paddling. We passed four guys on the portage over from Clearwater carrying their loaded canoes in teams of two. They hadn't caught any walleyes. I wondered why they were leaving the lake now... primetime was near. We saw four other canoes on the lake as we paddled east, one of them had a stringer of fish hanging off the back of the boat, and every campsite was occupied. The lake was busy. The air was very warm, the water was also warm. We got to our spot and started jigging minnows, and I caught a little pike right away. A saw-whet owl squeaked at us from the hilltops. I switched to one of the bigger creek chubs, hoping for something monstrous. But nothing happened.

There was not enough wind for drifting. Eventually we gave up on live bait and decided to be more aggressive. We started trolling crankbaits along our favorite section of shoreline. On the second pass Erik caught a nice 16-inch walleye. I took the picture above and Erik put the fish on the stringer. Luckily the camera is waterproof. I put it in my pocket, then I bombed my rapala away from shore, and then I heard a commotion and the canoe rocked quickly to the left and then hard back to the right, all the way over on its side, and I twisted my neck to keep my eyes level with the water as it touched my right knee, and then my arm... I sort of jumped out and pushed back on the canoe to keep it from rolling completely and the water was not so warm anymore. I spun around and Erik was in the water behind me. Either I couldn't breath or I couldn't talk, I wasn't sure. We were in deep water but fairly close to the shoreline, and somehow everything had stayed in the boat besides us. Even my fishing pole was floating in the boat, which was filled with water but upright. I'm not sure how it ended up there. I still couldn't talk, but we both started swimming for shore with the boat on our right, my knee-boots were full of water but I didn't have difficulty swimming. Then we were on the rocks and we gathered our gear by the cedar roots. Finally I caught my breath, the shock of the cold water loosened its grip on me.

What happened?

The walleye almost got away. I mentally tied the stringer to the canoe but I guess I didn't, Erik said, and I looked down and saw the walleye swimming away with the stringer, so I decided to dive in after it. I had to laugh. I tried picturing it. What would I have done? He said he caught it by the last loop on the stringer somehow. I knew we would capsize, he continued, but I jumped in anyways. I couldn't let that walleye and stringer get away.

We still had an hour of daylight left so we wrung the water out of our clothes, I emptied my boots, and then we got back in the canoe and resumed fishing. The saw-whet chimed again. The air was still really warm so we were fine even though we were still wet. It had been years since I had capsized, and Erik had never capsized before. We made it through 300 miles of Quetico together, with a fully-loaded canoe across diabolic waves and never came close to capsizing... We laughed, thinking about what the people on the campsites on the opposite shoreline were saying about the show. Well, I said, we gave them a professional demonstration on how to handle the situation.

After a few more passes and no fish, we turned for home one final time, and just before we ran up into shallower water I felt a ting-ting, and then a heavy strike. I set the hook and gave a yep, calling for the net. And then we had a second 16-inch walleye! Erik attached it to the stringer and then threw the stringer safely in the bottom of the boat. The sun was down and we had about an hour of visible light so we gave maximum effort across the three miles of Caribou Lake. We had just enough light to keep the headlamps in our pockets through the portage, which was good since they may have not worked anyways, and as we finished the final mile of paddling on Clearwater a planet rose and shined brightly in the west - probably Mars. Back at camp we cleaned our meat, and then I drove back to my cabin and put on dry clothing. It was well after ten. I had the next day off. I was mighty thirsty. My arms felt electric.

Nighthawk Lake

The rain stopped on Saturday afternoon so I took a hike in search of The Big Black Boulder. After swamping my boots and locating the large erratic, I came upon a small lake that looked appealing with Lima Mountain in the background. I did some research back at the cabin. Nighthawk Lake has pike and walleye and, since it is a long way from other lakes within the BWCA, and over a mile from the nearest access point, I am guessing it never gets fished. Although I will probably chase lakers on Minnesota Fishing Opener this Saturday, I plan on coming back to Nighthawk with a canoe and some big bucktails in the near future.


Full logbook entry from the hike and more pictures on Wild Almanac.

-30-

Fixing The Pearl

“For it is said that humans are never satisfied, that you give them one thing and they want something more. And this is said in disparagement, whereas it is one of the greatest talents the species has and one that has made it superior to animals that are satisfied with what they have.”
- J. Steinbeck, The Pearl

In the summer of 2011 I read The Pearl and bought a used Wenonah Minnesota II, a lightweight and super-fast kevlar boat with a pearl-white gelcoat finish that was covered with battle scars, which meant I got a really good deal. It worked fine but it was beat-up, and I felt immediately bonded to this canoe. I gave it a good cleaning with the power washer and threw a coat of bondo on the hull, and then Erik and I paddled it 300+ miles into Canada and back. I returned to Wisconsin in November and stuck the boat next to the shed and in the spring I assessed the damages.


There was a few bad cracks where the actual kevlar was exposed, the bondo had been badly gouged on the Big Adventure and what remained had yellowed significantly. Bottom line: The Pearl was in bad shape, probably the worst of its life (1997- ). Luckily I (1981- ) had some experience working on kevlar boats and also, lots of free time. I carefully chipped away the bondo layer and then smoothed out the gelcoat with an orbital sander.

Then I bought two quarts of wax-finished white gelcoat, putting a double coating on the most vulnerable parts of the hull. Gelcoat requires a hardening agent and you have to work fast before it starts curdling ... And also if it's sunny it might start smoking. So you kinda have to slop it on. Initially it looks a little patchy. The final step is resanding with fine grit and then bathing the entire boat with mineral spirits to clean up the dust.

I'm pretty satisfied with the work. It felt good smoothing out those scars, giving a beat-up canoe another chapter in life. Now about that interior...

-30-

Lure thrown in tree

Rushing water pushes against my stomach as my feet sink into impossible muck, and I grip with my toes and lean carefully back towards the shoreline, balancing right on the edge, trying to hug the inside corner while remaining upright - and most importantly - perfectly quiet. Reading the banks and the water, always inching forward. At once, I am an animal and invisible.

At least that's the idea.

This is not A River Runs Through It. This isn't the idealized postcard of troutfishing, it's more of a struggle. I don't even own a fly rod. For the most part, Wisconsin's trout streams are narrow and choked with overhanging branches of all sorts. Just reaching them is a challenge sometimes. People do fly fish but I don't understand how, aside from the country club waters in the driftless. I prefer a more direct approach.

As I balance on the steep and squishy bank I see a clear window into a good hiding spot - maybe a foot squared, 25 feet up on the right. I flip the bail on the reel and avoid limbs above and behind me before bombing my Rapala towards the target. And it's not close. Snapping back on the rod tip I narrowly avoid a Lure Thrown In Tree (LTIT), splashing the middle of the deep run and shattering my invisibility. Shit, I mutter to myself.

Waist-deep in the stream everything is a balancing act.

We score LTITs just like we score Fish Caught and Fish Missed. It's a good way to measure your success and efficiency. And it's fun to give your buddy a hard time when he wraps a lure in the top deck of a tree. Hey, take it easy! You're spooking the fish! But an LTIT isn't so bad. It shows you are pushing yourself. You can catch fish with safe casts, but the difference between an expensive lure in a branch and lure that gets crushed by a hippo brown trout is usually a matter of inches one way or the other. And I hate losing lures, but I keep aiming for impossible windows around every corner.

After the first few pools I tune into the wind and my hands calm down. I take one more imperceptible step and the next cast reveals itself. I visualize the path, a side-armed snap, the lure flying six inches above the water, skidding perfectly under the branches and landing an inch from shore. I let go and time slows. My breath jumps and my guts feel an electric jolt, eyes narrow to a perfect focus. Splash. Before I complete one turn of the handle the fish attacks...

And then I attack. The trees clear out and there are two animals in the rushing water, taking risks and seeking rewards.

-30-

Driftless

It was just too nice out so I grabbed the tent and my fishing gear and sped southwest into The Driftless, that old glacier-free pocket of Wisconsin where valleys outnumber towns. Ryan and his doggie met me in Richland County and we built a big bonfire next to a stream and a weathered rockwall. The coyotes yipped and barked at the crescent moon. We enjoyed some whiskey, and after midnight a dense fog moved in... Tiny twinkling stars of water vapor drifted in front of our headlamps and then - it seemed - through us. The coyotes screamed, closer now. We marveled at all of this. Pretty lucky, we concluded, to be here and now...
We spent most of the next day wading up blue ribbon trout streams, beneath scattered clouds and perfect spring lighting.

Sometimes the general scenery out there is so stunning that I find myself missing the fine detail, but the fine detail is what makes a perfect moment. I'd catch a gorgeous trout but be so consumed with getting a good picture that I'd never actually look at the living fish.
I realized I had not been fully present in the moment.
Sometime before noon Ryan put a perfect cast above a deep and menacing root system in the strong middle of a big bend, and we saw a bright flash, and Ryan made a strange noise that told me it was a big fish. The brown trout was 18 inches, his biggest so far. There was no world beyond that bend of rushing spring water, and we burned the fish into memory, and watched it swim away.

I was driftless for two days and nothing beyond where I was standing in the stream mattered. I was quieted. I let the fire die down on Sunday night and climbed in my sleeping bag. Something woke me at 5:30 and I saw the fire burning brightly. Strange, I thought. I rubbed my eyes and expected to see a coyote stoking the coals. I went back to sleep.
On Monday morning we woke to cold rain so we packed up camp and headed for home, where glaciers had made room for more people, and pretty quickly I began thinking about what I would do tomorrow, and next week. And what was happening elsewhere... And should I make tacos tonight? What about all the things I need to get done in April? ... And what if, what if?
-30-

Snowmelt into the stream

It's been a dry winter and the Town of Mecan finally got a reasonable snowfall on Friday, maybe five inches of snowman snow. Deensie showed up right before whiteout conditions set in and we went out ice fishing for the final time of the season... We couldn't see the shore in any direction but I got a pike and Deen got a catfish so we had to celebrate the successful end of a successful campaign. Old-fashioneds all around! And that was the end of our winter.
The next morning we got up early for stream trout catch-and-release season opener. Deen's wife Stacey and my buddy Ryan joined us on my favorite stream up north of Puckaway and we stepped into the cold waters from snowy banks. The terrain was a frightening contrast of seasons. Trees heavy with snow drooped their branches into the deep bends, the sky and forest were light and the stream fast and dark. The air warmed and the snow slowly melted from this odd world. Upstream we snuck against gravity and clear current, zipping rapalas into small windows close to cover where montrous browns lay hiding:
Here it comes back to me just watch for the quick flashes that flood my eyes with adreneline, wait for the weight and the wiggling beautiful fish... There! There!

On Monday it was warmer still and me and Deen came back. The valley was a different place. Most of the snow was gone and the fantastic crisp white was replaced by infinite shades of brown. Even the stream seemed brown, full of the snowmelt and sediments. The trout didn't really mind though. Neither did we. It was good to get off the ice and chuck a lure around again.
I was so sore when we got back home, even my toes were shot from squishing through the muck and stumbling over grapefruit rocks, but it was a satisfying sore. In stream wading I had used every muscle on my frame quietly, against quiet resistance, the constant murmur of water rolling downhill. I felt like I feel after yoga in the morning. Tired but light. Like water resisting gravity. Bouncey.
How is it that burning fuel creates more energy? What would happen if I performed Warrior 3 in a set of rolling spring rapids? Yoga and trout fishing, two new things in my life, and how did I ever really appreciate springtime before? Awaking from deep sleep? The streams all swell and I stand there, quietly, breathing and watching the snow melt... I adjust my feet and exhale, find my target between two trees dipping into the current, factor in the wind and place my rapala an inch from the undercut bank. My breath catches for a split second before I turn the handle.
Flash! There! It all happens so quickly.

I can't blame the trout for feasting... If a lure were to land close to my cover I would snap hungrily, too. That is what we do.
-30-

Cold North Dakota Hot

My good friends Tyler and Mary have been living in North Dakota for several years now and I had been planning on visiting them via the Amtrak 'Perch Express' the entire time. And the Winter of 2012 allowed me the opportunity to follow through on that, so I did. On February 8 I boarded the Empire Builder in Tomah, and after twelve hours of drinking smuggled wine and reading and a quick nap, I arrived in Devils Lake, North Dakota. Ty was waiting for me in the pre-dawn darkness, truck idling. The Prairie.  I was wide awake and hungry.

We went out for breakfast, where I got the 'Cedar Sausage Breakfast' (which is one big sausage the size of a large brat, delicious, dippy eggs and potatoes, coffee and toast) - a good start to the trip. "This whole part of town is below the lake," Ty said as we drove to get bait, pointing out the 'lake level' markers on the street light poles, 12 to 15 feet off the ground. Huh. Devils Lake is filling up like a clogged bathtub, and when the water reaches the edge, they simply build a new levy and move the shoreline back. They can't let out as much as they are taking in, otherwise Fargo would flood downstream. So the shoreline of this lake is very odd... Roads just disappear into the lake... Old farms are now surrounded by ice and fishermen. Sunken timber from the old shoreline is found throughout the lake. This is all happening on a super-massive scale. Devils Lake is already well over 100,000 acres and it's growing every year, and from what Ty tells me, they don't really have a long-term plan. I was unsettled by this, just as I was unsettled to see lakes six feet below usual levels up north of Ely in October. On the one hand, I like things that cannot be tamed, but I don't like seeing big trees and street signs sticking out of the ice and I don't like seeing rocks exposed that have been submerged for centuries. For as much as I enjoy fishing and exploring waterways, I guess I'm uneasy about depths in the same way I am about gravity.

We had three full days of fishing until my return train's scheduled departure, and the first morning served up the best weather of the trip. The temperatures were mild by North Dakota February standards, and the wind was calm. But an hour after setting up camp the wind howled and the clouds moved in... some flurries appeared... the thermometer dropped into the single digits and exposed fingers quickly froze solid. Days two and three were sunny, but ultimately, even colder. Both of my big trips out of state this winter have reminded me what a real winter should feel like and I believe there is something inherently good in confronting frostbite.

I expected North Dakota to be more desolate, flatter, but in many ways it reminded me of large portions of Wisconsin - big snow-dusted fields rowed with scrub trees covered with the subtle pink light of winter, the deer are like our deer, the people, too. Other than the wind-chill and the insane size of the lake, the other main differences in the fishing is you get four lines per person, which is the most I've found. However, they don't allow any big live bait. If you want something bigger than a fathead, you must deploy deadbait, and in this role we cast Blue Herring from Puget Sound. This required some tweaks in rigs and strategy, but overall the pike seemed happy with our offerings. Also, the lake's food chain is all built around these tiny freshwater shrimp, which is why the famous Devils Lake perch get so fat. Which is also why the pike get so monstrous. Most tourist fishermen who visit Los Diablos (as I was calling it for some reason) chase these 'jumbo perch' but it's no secret I am only interested in the biggest fish in the lake so we basically set out as many big blue herring as possible the entire weekend, with one rod dedicated to jigging in the shanty.

Day two was pretty slow fishing and we only managed one fish iced with a few more nice pike lost to underwater snags (likely timber). Ty had something gigantic on that ran into some sort of tangle-den, so even the slow day had exciting moments. The first and third days, on the other hand, were simply excellent. We had lots of action despite the cold and the fish were all fat and healthy. Around noon on Saturday I was jigging a minnow head on a spoon and I caught a decent pike, the first one I ever caught jigging, and I screamed the entire time I was reeling it up (I usually don't have the patience for this tactic).

The highlight of the trip happened at the end of the first day, when we each caught our best fish of the year within a five minute window. Both pike were truly trophy fish, but the way we caught them made this a truly memorable five minutes. We had one hole that had already caught a few fish, and about a half hour after I caught a nice 30-incher nearby, that 'hot hole' went up and Ty caught a 35-incher with something huge in it's gut. As that fish was pulled on the ice, the line snapped, so after getting a picture and releasing the giant, we grabbed a nearby tip-up and stuck that in the hot hole. I started de-icing some other traps, but only minutes later I turned around and the hot hole was up again. I ran over and suddenly the entire trap jumped sideways in the hole. I knew that meant the line was snagged on the trap somehow, so I just grabbed the line and the fight was on. I had no way to give the fish more line so I basically had ten feet of line between my frozen hand and an angry, beast pike. Luckily the rig held and I caught my best fish of the winter - a ridiculous 37-incher. We couldn't believe what had just happened and I still can't... I've gone entire winters without a 35-inch fish, so to see one that big and an even bigger fish caught from the same hole within five minutes was simply mind-boggling.

So we fished during the day and at night we celebrated and I caught up with Ty and Mary and their cats and new dog, and it was a very good visit. I said how glad I was to have visited finally, and they agreed. I said how relieved I was that I didn't have to drive back. Too often, the looming drive back home seeps into the end of a visit... That thought takes time away from enjoying the company of friends you don't see enough, and without that thought lingering we just laughed right up 'til the end. And on Saturday night they drove me to the station and I hopped back on the Empire Builder... I think I said 'Au revoir' and did a dramatic wave before hopping aboard, or maybe I imagined I did. I finished whatever wine was left in my nalgene and watched the speckled lights of farms floating by on black waves. No stress. Bliss. When I awoke the sun was up and the Mississippi was wobbling by the big window to my left, bluffs of the driftless towering up beyond the windows on the right. It looked warm out again and the thought of spring trout streams tickled my neck. Did that all just really happen? My camera battery was dead. We crossed back into Wisconsin and then I was home and I slept for a long time.
 
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You can view more pictures and the official stats from the trip in my Wild Almanac logbook.

Urban Waters

Probably no, I'll never escape the gravity of the city. Some days I feel like it's the only place with light and some days it's a black hole, from which no light escapes. What am I doing out here? What am I doing in there?

Weightlessly I orbit, and once again I was pulled back into Madison on Friday night. I saw some old buddies, we had some drinks and went out dancing. It was electric. My buddies in the band had people over after the show and then the sun was up. The darnedest thing. I had come down here for some ice fishing on my former home waters, but how can you go to bed when you finally get in a room with your old bowling team and a barrel of beer? 

So we got a few hours of sleep and then we got some breakfast, and then we made our way through the traffic to the lake. And somehow the spot off the American flag was open, so we set our traps on the premium coordinates and got used to fishing with each other again. There I was, surrounded by houses and noise and incoming commercial air traffic with Fritz and Cheeto. There was no wind. It was maybe the finest February ice fishing weather I've ever experienced. Last year we had three good chances at a really big fish on this spot, and that's why we had come back here, and then at 4 the closest flag jumped, and Fritz caught the fish above. It was as if a long-term plan had finally been realized. We whooped it up and probably worried some of the neighbors.

Before dark Cheeto caught another pike, and then a third flag popped and it was my turn...

And I busted the pike badly, and I could tell right away it was not big, but was excited to get one on the ice anyways. I felt the fish running around the beam of light... fighting against the light... or maybe against the gravity of my pull... This was natural. It was how it always was.

I pulled the pike through the hole and looked it in the eye. Now you and I are the same on these urban waters, you poor wild one. Of course the fish was wounded. There was some sort of infection, something hurtful that had never healed properly. 

And I was disgusted by this, but why should I be? Weren't we both still following our instincts despite it all? I put the poor boy back into the lake, and we both weightlessly set back into orbit around these bright lights. 

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A good day for Brussels sprouts

After a long weekend up north the thought of any beer or meat or cheese was extremely unappealing. The fridge was close to empty so I paid a visit to my friendly grocer this morning, and was surprised to find some Wisconsin-grown "chop chop bok choy" and these Brussels sprouts. 

Haven't eaten Brussels sprouts in years, but for some reason they looked really tasty, so I put them in the cart. I had nothing in mind but figured I could find a use for them. When I got back home I jumped online and found a recipe for dijon-braised Brussels sprouts that I had bookmarked a while back. I was excited until I realized my kitchen didn't have half the ingredients (who drank all my white wine!?!).

It mattered not. I had to have Brussels sprouts for lunch. Now. 


So I improvised. Halved and sauteed the sprouts in butter, then added chicken broth, salt and pepper to taste, and some green onions. After letting that simmer for ten minutes I realized I didn't even have Dijon mustard! Drat! But there was no turning back now so I added some Zups Hot Mustard (which goes well with anything) and completed the dish. It was really good. I always remembered Brussels sprouts being terribly bitter but these were rich and sweet. 


Total cooking/prep time: 22 minutes.


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Bed of Thunderstorms

Winter camping has a way of turning the natural world upside-down. This has been something on my to-do list for a long, long time, and I finally had the chance to give it a try last week, returning to the park I spent seven months of 2011 exploring. And this was a good excuse to visit my good friends Erik and Tori, who are lucky enough to have each other and an off-grid cabin in the northcountry complete with a wood-burning sauna.

And what better way to see the Boundary Waters in winter than by dog-sled?

The reason Erik gets to stay up north year-round is he works as a dog-sledding guide in the winter months, and so we followed up a perfect fall trip into The Quetico with a two-night winter trip up to Knife and Ottertrack Lakes on the border-route. Myself, Erik and Tori were joined by fellow adventurers Ed and Nick, out of Duluth, and so five sleds and twenty-five doggies set out into the Park on Tuesday morning over a crisp two-inches of snow. My team, pictured above, featured a crazed yearling named Proby (top), lead dog Possum, Xena, Brillo and Cash.

Everyone else in the group had already run dogs before and as we harnessed and hooked up the teams, the lake access became a scene of organized chaos. I wasn't sure what to expect. I was definitely a bit intimidated, but was told Possum would follow the track automatically, and that I should use the brake as needed through portages, and then suddenly all sleds were cut loose and we were off into the frozen wild. In the moments before we turned the dogs loose they were all going crazy and yipping and howling and barking, but once the sleds were set free it was business time and the quieted huskies happily began churning out miles and miles of pristine borderlands. The cold froze in my beard and stung my face but the dogs simply loved it. You could tell. They ran with purpose. This was a paradise.

A twenty-mile day by canoe is a strong effort, but we quickly gobbled up nearly that much distance in just a few hours, and I only crashed my sled once along the way (but I didn't let go). We quickly found a wind-protected bay on Knife Lake and got the dogs all settled in and fed (frozen mink - yum!). Then we got to setting up camp and collecting a huge pile of wood, and finally Ed and I peppered the bay with traps. Although we didn't spend much time fishing we did pretty well during the trip, each catching a nice Lake Trout.

There is really no way to prepare yourself for spending three days in sub-zero temperatures without the benefit of permanent shelter. It's one thing to travel through The Quetico when it's around the freezing mark at night... quite another to travel through the northcountry when it's well below freezing the entire time. No matter how big a bonfire you build, things simply freeze and never thaw. Putting your contact lenses in upon waking becomes a hazard, assuming your contacts are not frozen solid. And although we had a big tent with a wood-stove, I was determined to earn my 'sleeping on the frozen lake' badge. I had my 15F bag stuffed inside a -60F bag, and the first night was very comfortable sleeping beneath the stars. The second night the lows dipped to 30-below and it was colder than that with the wind-chill. Weather radio warned against exposure... keep your pets inside, it cautioned, as our dogs slept on the snow nearby. The clouds and flurries of the day broke around midnight and as the stars twinkled above the lake really started to sing, seismic molecules whistling like whales from the deep.

As I snuggled into my sleeping bags, the ice shuddered and boomed, and I could not sleep on this bed of thunderstorms. Like everything with winter camping, the world was askew... the storm on the horizon was beneath us, and the only calm in the Milky Way overhead, vivid and steady.

In the morning we pointed the dogs west and our faces were burned by the wind. Like every trip to the northcountry it was over too soon. And you would think there would be comfort in a heated cabin, in a huge cheeseburger and good beers, in a sauna so hot it made breathing difficult... but there is nothing in life like the power of a thunderstorm, real or imagined. Already, I miss this frozen bed, and how I got there.

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For more information on dogsledding in the BWCA, visit White Wilderness.

The old-fashioned box trap

Something doesn't belong here...


I easily obsess. Ice fishing became much more than a hobby, for me, a long time ago. And let's call it what it is: Out there on the frozen lake, we are trapping wild beasts. I realize it's an odd way to spend so much time. The spread is this machine from my mind... It is a creative outlet... I construct from frozen water, this pattern... I feed it small fish and it brings me big fish, and I take their picture. I am very particular about my machine, but it is always organic, derived from the day, and so I never have complete control over it's design. I only want the best for my spread, so I take good care of my traps, the mechanisms of this device. Probably, I'd be better off directing that attention towards more important things, but will I ever? I wonder.


I have more traps than I need, but it's good to have a deep tool-box. And they all pretty much look the same and work the same way, when you get down to the moving pieces, and then there's this box trap I got my hands on. My buddy Tim stopped by for the weekend and he brought this old-fashioned gizmo from the roaring twenties. This old relic is the kind of trap my Grandpa Walter would have used back in the day. It's a beast of a contraption and awkward to use, and there's a reason they don't make them like that anymore, but Tim quickly explained that it did one job better than anything I was currently using.

The old-fashioned box trap, Tim noted, is perfect for running monster bait. The reason is the box keeps the hole from freezing up so often, which allows you to use a huge bobber to keep the monster bait under control.

Our foot-long friend Glen, pictured here, is such a bait. As I said before, when I put little fish into the machine, it produces big fish... So what happens when you put big fish into the machine? Aha! A-HAA!


Well at least that's the idea. Tim agreed to loan me the box trap and two jumbo suckers, Glen and Gary, since I live on the lake where the Wisconsin State Record Northern Pike was caught and this type of monstrous presentation seems appropriate for the setting. Nothing has happened yet, but I know this strategy requires great patience. 


And I am willing to be patient to get what I want... So I spend days and days sitting out there trapping, seeing, waiting for the biggest fish in the lake to wander by and think, Oh my, Mister Glen, you Handsome Devil... Why, I bet you are quite delicious! 

And I watch the other folks out there fishing with worms and catching little perch, smaller than our friend Glen, and I can't understand why there are people who don't want the biggest fish in the lake as badly as I do, and I wonder what kind of machine I am to think that way? Am I an old-fashioned box trap in this world? Do I not belong?


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