Part One: Stories From Quetico Provincial Park

My friend Sherri walked up to the old rusted red Subaru Brat overburdened with a 16-foot canoe strapped to its roof and said, "Sweet, how early are we leaving?" I knew right then she would be a friend for life. That little old car was fussy. You could barely see it under the canoe. It looked like a boat with wheels driving down the road, which got a lot of laughs from passing travelers as we drove north up toward Quetico Provincial Park in Canada - the northern, Canadian extension of The Boundary Waters Park in Minnesota.

We pulled off at a rest area somewhere in Illinois. It was Sherri's turn to drive, and she could not get that thing in reverse. The gears would grind, groan, and argue, but nothing she did would pop it into reverse. At all. Ever. No matter how many times she tried to shove the gear shift into R, that Brat would not let her go backward. She started parking at odd angles whenever we stopped so she could just put the thing in Drive and go. It was a sign of how she would live her life: put it in Drive and go.

That was the same year the border guards figured anyone driving a car that beat up must be hippies hiding drugs. They made us pull off to the side of the entry gate behind some other unfortunate long-haired border crossers. They emptied the Brat Sherri and I were riding in, and the blue Volkwagon carrying my husband at the time - Mark, my dad Chuck, Jerry, and our friend Cary. We packed for two weeks in the wilderness. There wasn't room to slide a piece of paper between our stuff and the ceiling in those cars. The guards pulled out every last backpack, box of supplies, duffel bag of clothing, paper bag of groceries onto the ground and rifled through all of it. Graham crackers, beef jerky, ramen noodles, shirts, a bra, tighty-whities, maps, pants, rains coats, all lay strewn across the black asphalt. We stood gutted and powerless, grieving the two solid days of packing it took to get everything organized and in the right place for the journey.

The border guards threatened to tear off the dashboard and the inside of the door panels looking for illicit substances they were sure we were transporting into their straight-as-a-board country. Of course, they didn't find what they were looking for, and they left us to clean up their mess and repack our goods. The tall Canadian male guard walked away, leaving the female guard to deal with our exasperated gestures and pissed-off expressions, "When you pick up all your belongings, you may leave through the northeast exit. The folks ahead of you will be here a while. You'll have to back up and go around them."

Sherri looked at me with the blood draining from her face, "You drive."

Welcome to Canada.

It was worth what it took to get there. The sun was shining on a warm, cheerful day when we launched the boats on Pickeral Lake. The two canoes we hauled north with us and an aluminum rental boat we got from an outfitter near the park carried all we needed to live for two weeks. There is something liberating about leaving a house full of stuff behind and carrying everything you need to survive and be happy in a pack. Or, in this case, several packs tightly wedged in our canoes.

A calm, soothing sensation poured through my body when my hands gripped the paddle, pulling it through water, gliding the boat across the liquid surface. A meditation of rhythm, movement, and the sound only water makes dissolved any stress, creating an altered state of being. I love that feeling. It's why we drove canoes a thousand miles north to paddle those lakes.

The first few portages were the toughest. Mainly because our carrying muscles were still soft, and the food packs were the heaviest they would be the entire trip. One of the longest portages threaded us through epic mud holes that would suck a laced hiking boot off your foot if you didn't pay attention. Clouds of mosquitoes hovered above thick underbrush along the trail, poofing up into the air when our legs disturbed the Labrador Tea and Blueberry bushes. Those bugs found a juicy meal on our arms, bare legs below our shorts, and the worst; the exposed side of the rib cage while our hands were above our heads holding upside-down canoes on our shoulders. Towards the end of that beastly trail, the heavy aluminum canoe gouged the tops of my shoulders, and every muscle in my body burned. I saw water through the trees and knew the end was close. I cheered myself on, "You're close, a few more steps, then you can put this thing down. It's the hardest portage, and you're almost there!"

I came around a small bend to a large tree down across the trail. It was too high to climb over and too low to scoot under with a canoe on your back. I set the back tip of the boat on the ground, taking half the weight off my torso, allowing me a full view of the roadblock. This sucks. Mark, then Chuck came up behind me, and I broke the news to them. One by one, we set our stuff on the ground. Two people climbed across the tree, and the rest of us handed canoes and packs up and over the horizontal trunk. Once the canoe rested on my shoulders again, I continued down the trail, knowing the water was near. The path hooked to the right. I plodded around the corner and looked ahead of me, nearly bursting into tears. The portage dropped straight down a long steep hill to the lakeshore far below. I was exhausted, dripping blood from the mosquito ambush, and in no mood to see this hell-trail continue.

I lost my cool.

My hands clutched the side rails of the aluminum vessel, lifting it high above my head, then I chucked the thing down the mountain, yelling, "It's a rental!!! I don't care anymore!!!!" That boat careened down the hill bouncing off rocks, white pines, and cedar trees like a ping pong ball, then miraculously hit the surface of the lake upright and shot out into the bay like a cannonball. The immediate satisfaction of throwing a temper tantrum and relieving the aching weight on my body was pure joy, followed by the terror that I may have just ruined the very vessel that was my only way out of those god-forsaken woods. I watched the boat from above shoot across the water and out of my sight, yelling, "Oh no!! Oh shit, I can't believe I did that! You guys, help!!!!"

My crew came around the bend, worried I got hurt or something. Sherri was behind me the whole time carrying a pack and saw my stunt. I had no idea she was that close. Sherri turned around when those guys came into view, "It's okay, she just lost it. I mean, she really lost it. She threw the canoe down the mountain."

Mark sounded incredulous, "She what????"

The guys put down the packs and boats and looked down the hill. Jerry piped up, "Where? I don't see it."

Sherri pointed her finger through the trees, "It's out there. Across the lake."

I often wonder if my father shook his head and said, "Wow," because he understood what made me heave that thing, or if he was wondering how I could possibly be related to him. Either way, we all made it to the bottom. Jerry and Mark paddled their boat out with a rope to retrieve the rogue canoe. It had some righteous dents and scratches, which I chalked up to battle scars. It floated. That was the only thing that mattered. That boat went home with stories to tell.

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It's A Rental!

Part One: Stories From Quetico Provincial Park