Myrtle's Hole

After a short march to the dead end of the road, I walked around the orange snow fencing and entered the woods. A faint track led through the pines, past a deer carcass that was nothing but hair, likely ditched by a hunter last fall. Small pieces of white flagging reassured that I was on the right path. Soon a deep gash opened on the land, leading down to a small creek. A thin veneer of grasses and roots did their best to hold the sandy soil in place, though once punctured, usually due to human activity – ATV’s horseback riding, foot travel all concentrated in a narrow area – the land quickly eroded. This particular gash was deeper than I was tall.

A slow, steady balancing act across a fallen tree led me to the other side of the creek. On top of the next hill a power line cut a wide swath through the forest. I followed the two-track under the wires for a few hundred yards before the track veered off. The track followed the upper edge of a river valley – the south fork of the Eau Claire River flowed silently in the distance, the trees still devoid of leaves in the early spring. Another gash opened off the plateau plunging towards the flood plain below. I followed. The telltale marks of an ATV gave clue to the culprit of the scar.

The understory of the flood plain was mostly open, allowing easy maneuvering between the hardy maples. Pockets of prickly ash were the only limits to my roaming. A few hundred feet from the river, I noticed the sign of high water – grasses and other non-woody vegetation lay flat all pointing in the same direction. Pockets of water and mini sand dunes were scattered in depressions and behind the protective shelter of trees.

Finally the swiftly flowing river revealed itself, safely within its banks. Flotsam trapped high in branches gave note to a mighty torrent that had coursed wide, over and beyond the banks. Last year’s clamshells protruded from the sandy bottom like ducks bobbing for a bite to eat. I walked out onto a gravel bar, my shoes leaving watery indents. It was quiet. The river was in a hurry, but didn’t have much to say. Small ripples began forming on the water from a passing rain shower. I retreated to shore and continued my saunter up river.

The sand deposited from previous floods was smooth and without imperfections, save for the deer tracks and, now, my foot prints. A few birds flitted about, a handful of spring beauties were thinking about opening up, and the florescent green of new shoots gave the only sign of a spring in the waiting.

The sandy bottom and lack of obstacles kept the river quiet. A snort and a flash of white broke the silence as a deer fled, dissatisfied with my presence. A ring of red and white pine marked the top edge of the river valley, trees better suited to the dry soils of the uplands than the periodic flooding of the bottomlands.

There it was in the distance, the faint sound of rushing water. My destination was close. I followed the sound and soon my path burst into the open and below me the river navigated a series of short cataracts. It was an abrupt change from the sand. Quartzite bedrock with streaks of red granite jutted out from steep banks. I sat down on a boulder next to the river as the drizzle turned into a heavier rain. A buzz grew louder from above. The power company had decided that the best place for a large transmission line was directly over Myrtle's Hole. I disagreed. After the river descended through the boulders, it formed a large, deep pool, a well-known fishing hole among the locals. With the rain still falling, I rose and headed home.

Why I love the Boundary Waters

“We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope."  - Wallace Stegner

What does the Boundary Waters mean to me? The West Coast has Yosemite, Olympic and the Redwoods, the Rockies have Yellowstone, the southwest has the Grand Canyon, Zion and Arches, the southeast has the Everglades and the Smokies, the northeast has Acadia and Niagara Falls. But what does the Midwest have? Sure we have our local favorites, but what resonates on a national level? Isle Royale is one of the least visited National Parks; the Apostle Islands had their moment of fame when the Ice Caves went viral in 2014. Their brethren on either coast overshadow even the two National Scenic Trails in the Midwest. What we do have though, is the most visited Wilderness area in the country.

Mother Nature is an afterthought in most civilized countries except for the errant storm. Hell, we build domed stadiums to better control the weather so not to affect our sports. We’re afraid of what we cannot control, but we are our most free when we have no control.

I love the Boundary Waters because all that my dad asked for when graduating high school was to spend a couple weeks in the Wilderness. I love it because he trekked up there for over 20 years in a row. I love it because my dad knew Dorothy Moeller, the Root Beer Lady, and she wanted to hire him to be a guide. I love it because my first trip involved my dad AND getting out of my 7^th grade finals. I love it because every season brings a new perspective (and mode of travel). I love it because I can travel for days and not see anyone. I love it because every whiff of spruce imbued in the wind reminds me of the words of Sigurd Olson. I love it because you don’t need top of the line equipment to enjoy it. I love it because it’s easy to enjoy, yet difficult to understand. I love it because of the joy on my face and in my soul when I pass the sign letting me know I’m not in civilization any more. I love it because it’s bigger than my lifetime. I love it because I’ve taken three trips there…in January. I love it because of the Rose Lake cliffs and the North Hegman pictographs. I love it because the portages, the paths between lakes, are measured in rods (which are 16.5 feet). I love it because I’m from Wisconsin and it’s my Yellowstone, my Yosemite, my Smoky Mountains, my place of worship.

Rose Lake Cliffs

We all have special places we hold in our hearts. The place where every time we return to is like a Peter Pan experience – a return to a time when we weren’t so cynical and easier to please. We spend too much time being serious. Running data, writing reports, paying bills, doing laundry, being adults, that we forget how to have fun, let go and revert to simpler times.

I haven’t devoted myself to much in my life. I’m not a fighter. I’ve never fought for anything. I am fighting for the Boundary Waters. 

Boats & Bluegrass 2015

Driving home from Boats and Bluegrass, a music festival held along the banks of the Mississippi in Winona, Minnesota, the hills of the Driftless Area sucked me in. Twisting and turning along the roller coaster back roads, rows of corn alternating with beans or alfalfa hung onto the uneven terrain with quiet farms breaking up the landscape. The steepest areas and most of the ridge tops were covered in trees, seemingly capping the hillsides and valleys. The trees holding firm in land unfit for the plow. The farm fields turned to harvest brown, waiting for the combine to take what they have worked so hard to grow since May. The forests were showing the first signs of autumn with muted greens and a spectrum of yellow dotting their leaves.

My car hugged the corners of the country roads as a smile crept across my face. My mind wandered back to the music, the people, the good times. The festival. It was the 11^th Boats and Bluegrass and my 6^th year of attending. The first year I went I was doing a bluegrass radio show in Eau Claire and the folks running the festival were trying to get the word out. The crowd was small, but music great. Since then, Boats has grown to a sold out experience. The campground fills early on Thursday, as everyone clamors to get back to a weekend they look forward to all year.

Over the years, I’ve reconnected with old friends and met new ones, slowly growing into a community of folks to party with. This year, though, I was a little ambivalent heading into the weekend, time on the road and my lack of enthusiasm for the bands on the festival poster dampened my excitement. Once I arrived at the campground, all my worries drifted away and I basked in the good vibe and great music.

But no matter how fantastic the music is, it is the people that make the festival.

The friends I camped with this year were all people I met through my friend Greg whom I met at a wedding in Mexico (obviously). I see most of those folks only once a year at Boats, but I feel so wholesome, so perfect when we embrace at first sight. Stephie and Alison and Eric and Ben and Amy and Brittany and Moonbeam. All fantastic people I am honored to know. I aspire to be as health and earth conscious as they are. (Judging by Boats, I have a long way to go…)

Greg showing off on the slack line at the 2014 festival

A major component of Boats and Bluegrass is the boats part. Five years of attending the festival and five years of only partaking in the bluegrass portion. With a simple question this year, I ended that streak. My buddy Greg asked if anyone wanted to go paddle so I yelped out an affirmation. I brushed my teeth, grabbed beers and headed to the beach. I stood around his canoe, watching his dog Agate play on land and in the water. Soon enough two young women showed up (one with a ukulele) and we struck up awkward conversation (my forte). I then realized they were joining the canoe with Greg, Agate and I.

Greg showed up and we shoved off, with the ladies (and Agate) rolling low-rider in the middle. We began to paddle into the backwater sloughs, a shortcut to “the sandbar”. The pluck of the uke strings soon filled the air, followed by the flowing voices of the ladies (Agate sat this one out). The silver maples growing on the floodplain islands captured the sonorous float, reflecting the music back towards the river for us to further enjoy. (Seriously, how can you not relish lazily paddling along a river with a siren song floating up around you, encapsulating and filling the experience?) I liked what was forming - a musical barge.

We reached the back edge of the sandbar and piled out onto the warm sand, making sure to grab the cooler before heading to river side, where the party takes place. We were among the first festivalgoers to arrive, but soon more appeared in kayaks, canoes and in fishing boats (the band). Agate was excited at the opportunity to fetch branches, not little sticks, but 5-foot long branches the size of your forearm. If he had a limit, we did not reach it that day on the sandbar. Music floated by thanks to Sans Souci as I chatted with friends. With the beer supply running dangerously low, we loaded into the canoe and headed back.

Once on the mainland, I walked to the festival grounds, wanting to check out Joseph Huber, a former member of the .357 String Band and one of my favorites. He did not disappoint as I gulped down another beer.

The hard part of being at a festival is balancing drinking, music, and sustenance, especially in the evening. Which band(s) are you willing to miss to head back to camp and grab a bite to eat? The default is finding a band you’ve never heard of (the unknown is, well, unknown) and eating. After scouring the lineup, I waltzed back to camp, fired up the grill, had multiple beers and conversed with whomever was present.

Some people plan extravagant meals; others plan to just make it through the weekend. There is food available at Boats – good food at that – but it’s way more fun figuring out how to cook bacon in a cast iron skillet above a fire ring.

The odd thing about spending the afternoon drinking on the water and then folding it into an uninterrupted run of listening to music and manning the grill was that it resulted in me becoming wasted (didn’t see that coming). Rumors of my late night self floated through camp the next morning. Perhaps I should take it easier on Saturday.

Sans Souci playing at the sandbar

Saturday morning arrived. I wandered around the campground, slowly gaining sustenance from various friends. Bacon here, eggs there, jambalaya here. An eating vessel was scarce for the jambalaya until a red solo cup was spotted. Yeah, that would work. It did work perfect, especially when I happened into another camp and they offered to fill it with a Bloody Mary (so much for taking it easy). The bloody was just the beginning. On the way to my tent (for a well-intentioned nap), I ran into the uke-playing girl from the canoe ride the day before (apparently her name was, and still is, Abbie). She was heading out in a kayak and asked if I wanted to join. Ahhh, shit. Yep. Let’s do it. I packed up beers and headed out on the water.

The uke stayed at camp, but the lazy paddling did not. We paddled a bit and then let the river take us until we were in danger of colliding with a tree and even then barely managing to rescue the kayaks. It was an afternoon of laughs, never reaching the sandbar (although we came within sight of it).

With the frivolity of life on the water finished for the day, I reset my mind for a great evening. I was jacked for the music Saturday night – Hot Rize, Tin Can Gin, Horseshoes and Hand Grenades, the Last Revel and Los Lobos.

With the Mississippi River in the background, silently flowing south towards the Gulf of Mexico, Horseshoes and Hand Grenades played song after song with a heart anchored in the waters of Wisconsin. The songs evoked a feeling of John Hartford, whose songs plied the riverways for the past 40 plus years, croaking about steamboats, rivers and, well, a lot of steamboats. The best music is from the heart, with lyrics and music from the soul - what you know most deeply. The boys from Horseshoes head out to a lake or river any chance they get, casting their wares hoping to snag a big one, enjoying and believing in life on the water. The band is still stretching their songwriting chops, but it felt like the passing of a torch.

With the music of Horseshoes and Hand Grenades drifting downriver to greet the folks of La Crosse and Dubuque, the bellows of the Last Revel blew from the side tent. They were a band I “discovered” last year. Their hard-hitting, old-time stringband style kept my rapt attention. The band looks like they would be at home during the Civil War, but their music feels active and fresh.

With the weight of a weekend filled with booze and scant sleep; Los Lobos took the main stage to close out the festival. They were a band past their heyday and out of their element, but still brought moments of fire. I managed an hour of the set before I wafted off, searching for a campfire and familiar plucks of a banjo or strong pulls of a fiddle. The moon was high and sun close to the horizon before sleep settled in.

As the sun rose on Sunday morning, I took stock of a weekend filled with the best parts of life. Nary a moment passed without a smile, laugh or hug (or even a little love). We all have our happy places, the spots where we feel centered, whole, accepted. Boats and Bluegrass may only happen once a year, but its effect carries out for the rest of the year.

Water fits well with the lyrical nature of bluegrass and folk. The music passes smoothly from note to note, never lingering for long. Like the Mississippi, the river is always moving, even in the big pools formed by the locks and dams. Bluegrass is the same way, seemingly pausing on a note, yet the undercurrent is always flowing, pushing the song forward – to the next note, to next year.

The difficulty in planning a trip

How do you balance discovering new vistas and going back to further explore favorite haunts? I love the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness of Minnesota, having visited 9 times, finding wonder each trip. Yet when I visit somewhere other than the Boundary Waters, I am awed by new experiences, new beauty, providing me with a greater understanding of the world. Is it better to intimately know and understand a place than have a broad view of many things? A walleye only knows its lake. I guess the same could be said of humans, as we only know our little corner of the earth.

Deeply knowing an area creates a feeling of home, of belonging. Some of our “homes” range from an entire state, a forest, a mountain range or even the park next door. Understanding an area like the back of your hand gives you an opportunity to spread that love to others. How can you persuade others to tackle the same wilderness as yourself if you only possess a cursory knowledge?

Do we have an obligation to better understand our world? What’s the harm in, say, visiting all the lakes, rivers, and streams in the Boundary Waters but never straying far from its border? Intimacy creates passion.

Winter camping in the Boundary Waters is a joy - even at -35

Knowing the backwaters and coves provides a deeper understanding that only occurs from years and years of careful observation and study. How would you know where the moose shelter in the winter or where the walleye congregate in the summer if you only visit once or twice in your life? The subtle changes that affect a landscape are oblivious to the random tourist, but enlightening to the resident.

My appreciation for the Boundary Waters began from repeated visits, but strengthened from my trips afar. Traveling revealed the need to treasure nature’s gift close to home. Development is ever encroaching, but Wilderness is forever. I want visitors to the Boundary Water to experience the same feelings I did while hiking in the Cloud Peak or Indian Peak Wilderness for the first time - wonderment, awe, joyfulness that places like this exist.

The Indian Peak Wilderness is pretty nice too.

Truth be told, we need both kinds of people – the visitor and the devotee. The visitor pieces together the big picture, seeing the interlocking whole and able to advocate from a broader view. The devotee can campaign for their backyard, protecting and enhancing the stays for the visitors. The most rewarding conversations on a road trip happen with locals, those who have seen the best and worst a place has to offer, yet know those secret spots, hidden to the casual tourist. But in the end, broad support is needed to fully preserve an area.

Take those trips to revisit a favorite spot, but try and view it from new eyes, searching for an unfamiliar lake or vista. I’m heading up to the Boundary Waters this winter along with finding time to take a trip to an area I’ve never visited - that’s the best of both worlds.