A true fall paddle

A friend from Puerto Rico was in town yesterday and remarked, "It was like Puerto Rico here Monday; today its Minnesota". A fairly violent line of thunderstorms came through and the 86F high on Monday turned into a 63F high yesterday. Which is excellent news in my book. I loathe hot weather. I went grouse hunting on Sunday with the VOR's dad and it looked like fall, smelled like fall, grouse were flushing (none were harmed in this particular trip however), but we were in our shirt sleeves and it was 85F. Glen, being the resourceful woodsman that he is, quickly converted his long sleeve shirt to short sleeves and we pressed on, sweating the whole time.



That should not be the case this weekend. Five of us are heading to Voyageur National Park, up on the Canadian border, for a 4 day paddle. Highs in the low 60's and lows possibly below freezing. I paddled there once before on one of our annual post Labor Day kayak trips and its a marvelous place. It is a multi use park and you can encounter house boats, fishermen, other kayakers, and lots of wildlife. This time of year the houseboats are pretty much gone and only the die hard fishermen are out on the big waters of Rainy, Namakan, Kabetogama, and Crane Lakes. Our fall group circumnavigated the Kabetogama Peninsula but nothing that ambitious is in store for this trip. We unsucessfully attempted to get rooms at the Kettle Falls Hotel for Saturday night and were told it was the last day they were open for the season. We will be stopping for a beer or two at the famous Tiltin' Hilton bar. The floor is warped beyond belief and the system used to level the pool table is pretty unique. Our hope is that the fall colors are peaking, the temps on the cool side, and that the snow holds off for another week or so at least.

Multitasking weekend

Weekend plans were thrown awry with the passing of RudyA, the 82 year old father of our four Croatian buddies who provide unlimited entertainment, head scratching, and superb camaraderie at the hunting camp. PR was one of my roommates in college and I've known him and his brothers for over 30 years. Older brother, DrSteve is the primary landowner and owns the camp itself at the prestigious Reefer Creek Hunt Club. Rudy was a WWII marine on Okinawa, a Great Lakes commercial sailor, city clerk, and postmaster of Ashland, WI. There are a huge number of Rudy stories, a couple of which are printable. While we were in college Rudy stayed at our skanky apartment while attending a postal meeting. When he went to use the bathroom in the morning he inadvertently opened the wrong door and discovered one of our roommates vigorously testing his waterbed with his girlfriend. Rudy closed the door, turned to us in the kitchen and announced in a deadpan, "Chuck's up". In another classic incident, our buddy Woody strolled into camp after losing about 60 pounds over the summer. We all congratulated him and told him how good he was looking. Rudy checks him out for a minute and asks, "What did you name the kid?" He was a guy who said what he thought and there are fewer and fewer of those around. He will be greatly missed by us all.

The original plan was to attend the St Johns football game in Collegeville, MN with the VOR, her two sons GalwayGuy and GuitarMatt, and her mom and dad. I attended Rudy's visitation at Our Lady of the Lakes in Ashland, talked to about 40 people, and hit the road for Collegeville. By the time I arrived the score was 35-7 Johnnies. Coach Gagliardi is the winningest coach in college football history and has some unique philosophies like no hitting in practice, not being called coach, and allowing anyone who wants to come out for the team to do so. He has been as SJU since 1953 and show little signs of slowing down, winning his most recent national championship in 2003. The team also plays in the most beautiful campus stadiums I've ever been in. After the lopsided Johnnie win in Clemens Stadium we headed for Lake 'Sag' on campus to grill some brats and illicitly consume some fermented malt beverages. As you can see in the photo, we were caught!


Note the VOR attempting to talk her way out of this alcohol violation while her mom studiously avoids looking at the cop. We escaped with a stern warning and did not even have to dump out our beer. Since we were next to a lake (and just happened to have the kayaks!), GalwayGuy and I decided to end the day by working on our angel rolls. He has it down pat and I managed to hit 3 in a row in the Ore Freighter so we were both well satisfied. Voyageurs National Park next weekend with many of the the usual suspects; I'm counting the days.......

Another update, BWCAW Redneck Rampage

The Lake County MN DA's office finally charged the group of five rednecks from Ely with a total of 79 felony and misdemeanor counts for verbally and physically harassing and making terroristic threats to several campers in the BWCAW back in August. In a former life I was a member of a DA's office in Wisconsin and was a bit worried about all the time it took to file charges on this case. Sweep it under the rug, bad for tourism, local councilman's son type of deal. Apparently in this case it was due to diligent and thorough work by the Lake Co sherriff's and DA's offices to charge the crimes properly and make sure all elements are proveable in court. We can only hope that is indeed the case and that these morons will be hearing, "You shore got a purty mouth" for many years to come at the Oak Park Heights Correctional Facility. This may help drive home the meaning of just exactly what a terroristic threat is with these jerks. It will be a bit different than telling a family camping in a wilderness area, "Maybe if you make us smores for an hour we won't f**king kill you". And these are just the state charges; the Feds and the Canadians have not weighed in yet. Here is the link to the Duluth News Tribune article but I had to reprint some of the most egregious stuff here on the blog:

According to the complaint, at one site where seven children were present, the suspects came to shore to swim, refusing to leave when asked numerous times, swearing at the campers and stating that they owned the land.

“No, we came to skinny dip and plan to, you can watch if you want to,” the complaint quoted the suspects as saying.

“Then screaming drunken, broken phrases, two of them took their clothes off and ran around in the water,” the complaint said.

On two occasions, the complaint said, the suspects poured gas on the lake water and set it aflame. They also caused nearly $1,400 in damage to a water gauging station by wrecking its antenna. One boat went into Canada and fired multiple shots. Twenty-one shell casings were recovered in Canada.

I guess I don't know what I would do in this type of situation. How do you know if they are 'for real' or bluffing? Minnesota is a Right to Carry state, what if one of the campers had been armed? Other than having to politely ask folks to leave designated camping areas that we had reserved, I guess my park camping experience has been pretty tame, positive, and non confrontational. A few of we usual suspects are off to Voyageurs National Park next weekend for a kind of farewell to the 2007 island camping season. This is a multiple use park (which I support) and, like the Apostle Islands, there will be motor boaters, sailors, and fisherman in the park. While the likelihood of an incident such as this happening is slim, I must admit somewhere in the back of my mind I will be a bit apprehensive if I hear an outboard after sunset. I guess in that way these ignorant slugs have impacted us all a little bit.

Wedding in Duluth

When my hunting buddies learned I would be attending a wedding on the opening weekend of Wisconsin's grouse and deer archery season openers, there was much laughter and needling. The only thing more humorous was when the PodMan learned shortly thereafter that his stepdaughter, daughter of the GurneyGranny, would be getting married the same weekend in his yard! Both brides were wise enough to schedule an outdoor wedding and the fall weather cooperated beautifully. The Voice of Reason's niece scheduled her wedding for Enger Park, a gem of a park overlooking Lake Superior on Skyline Drive. This actually was the perfect wedding because I was outdoors gazing at Gitchee Gumee, able to move around as the backup photographer, and got to squeeze a bit of paddling in as icing on the cake. Not to mention the partying with the VOR's family, who are a fun bunch of folks.


Duluth is a great town. Its 2,300 miles from the Atlantic Ocean and is the biggest port by volume in the Great Lakes at 40 million metric tons. The harbor itself is protected by a barrier island called Park Point. Its an island because toward the end of the 19th century they cut a ship canal through it and in the early part of the 20th century built the Aerial Lift Bridge. This is Duluth's signature landmark and features an excellent Corps of Engineers museum that sits right on the ship canal. They also have the schedule of inbound and outbound ships, both lakers and salties, so you can plan your ship watching. As luck would have it, the Queen of the Lakes, the Paul R. Tregurtha would be arriving in the afternooon. What better spot than Enger park, 600' above the lake, to set up the telephoto and get some shots?

Which is exactly what we did. A visit to Hawk Ridge....slow raptor day.........and a paddle near the Knife River rounded out the weekend. Usually we blow through Duluth on the way to camp or the North Shore or points east on the lake. I guess we need to slow down and take more time to check out Duluth.

The Tip of the Keweenaw

'Hangin' out there' is a pretty fair description of Keweenaw Point. You have about 100 miles of fetch in many directions, a dragons tooth lake bottom to rile things up, and an island 2 miles off the tip to make sure that any currents funnel through nicely to pick up speed. In other words, its one of the coolest spots on the lake. The geology is fantastic with sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rock all jumbled together and I think its the only non harbor area on the lake when you can easily see two lighthouses at the same time. We were windbound there or maybe sloth bound depending on your viewpoint. A semi unanimous decision was made to do nothing, drink more coffee, and talk smart, and by the time thoughts of a move entered our heads we had some building 5 footers raking across the point out of the NNW. This gave us more time for hiking, reading, lounging, and that new spectator sport, beer can crushing. The rock wielder is none other than TheCommish, long term fall kayak trip veteran and former owner of the Worst Hat in History. Generating the cans for the sport is a large part of the fun; we did notice however that enjoyment of the actual crushing seemed to be divided along gender lines.



Another member of the party, the allegedly retired but always too busy FrugalFisherman, was happy for the days respite because loading his boat, which loaded looks remarkably like the Beverly Hillbillies truck, is kind of an all morning operation. He is nicely recovered from an ankle that he managed to break the Saturday morning of this years Canoecopia, probably to get out of paying for my parking since it was his turn this year.




The Voice of Reason, who was enjoying Nevada Barr's, A Superior Death, was quick to give me The Look when I suggested that a guy really ought to put on the tuliq and go out an play in those waves since, after all, we were windbound. RangerMark and spouse The GreenThumbChef gave the VOR their tacit agreement which served to insure that I would suit up and give it a shot. It was great fun and now I know for sure that I can roll the Ore Freighter (Aquanaut HV) in some big water.



The next morning dawned cool with light winds so off we paddled down the south shore toward Bete Grise. About the only other craft we encountered was a dive boat diving on the wreck of the Coast Guard cutter, Mesquite. Since 1844 there have been 140 shipwrecks in the Keweenaw, 40 of which have been located. The Mesquite went down in 1989 so the area can still be nasty, even in the Loran and gps age. We met up with civilization again at the Montreal River Falls, the lower part of which drops directly into the lake. This is a kind of daytrip destination for kayakers, hikers, and their ill behaved dogs. If a strange dog runs up and attempts to take your savory beer stick, you have my permission to put a size 11 in its ribs; its a dog, not a person. The stretch to the long curving sand beach at Bete Grise Bay has some fine escarpments, sea arches, stacks, and other interesting features.

Mount Bohemia ski area, one of the few areas in the Midwest where thigh deep powder is fairly common (remember those average snowfalls of 270" of lake effect up here) is literially 10 minutes away from Bete Grise bay. Wonder if I should wax up those tele skis and get ahead of the game? We landed in Bete Grise and headed off to the Red Jacket Brewpub/Michigan House where we had an excellent meal and managed to catch the house pale ale on tap. The Oatmeal stout will have to wait until next trip, I guess. Now the only questions is where to go next fall....hmmmm..........