Northern Tier Canoe Base Expedition

July 10 - July 20, 2002

Wednesday, July 17, 2002
We Declare "National No-Paddle Day"

Our layover day! No paddling, no portages, no moose muck, and no wet feet! We spent the whole day relaxing, talking, fishing, sun bathing, napping, swimming, and generally doing nothing. During the day another crew came through and visited with us for awhile. They were a troop from Minnesota, and we found out that they had arranged to have the floatplane drop them and their canoes directly onto the Bloodvein River in order to avoid having to deal with the Death Swap series of portages. Doing so had increased the cost of their trek by quite a bit, and though we would have gladly paid it ourselves on the first two days we were all secretly pretty proud that we'd made it through the Swamp. In fact, we would have to navigate it a second time on our final day on the water in order to return to Scout Lake. Every meal we had on our layover day was wonderful. Breakfast consisted of a concoction of eggs (powdered), cheese, something that resembled SPAM, and hash browns. It was nearly noon before we finished it all. Mid-afternoon we cooked some doughnuts. We deep fried globs of dough in hot oil over the backpacking stove and then rolled the cooked dough in brown sugar. Were they ever good! One of the highlights of the day was getting to sit around, talk, and get to know each other better. Funny how the physical demands on the crew had been chipping away at the boundaries between age groups, cliques, and even between scouts and adults. We had all become crew mates first, and the other distinctions weren't important. We talked with Ryan about what it was like to go out on trek after trek with green crew after green crew all summer long. He said that his only regret was that he spent all summer long making close friends with people, only to lose contact with them at the end of each trek. Later that afternoon we decided to go for a swim, and it was great. On the downstream side of the island there was a large rock ledge that was perfect for jumping off of into the deep water right next to the shore. We donned our boots and life jackets then we proceeded to take advantage of the ledge for a goodly part of the afternoon. When the cameras came out, so did the antics. We had a great time mugging for the camera on the way down and some of the photos were hilarious while others were amazing. One photo in particular caught a scout just at the instant his feet had broken the surface of the water but had not yet gone below the surface. It looked like he was standing on the surface of the river. After the swimming session ended some of the guys took a canoe out to try to break the record for the number of people simultaneously standing on the gunwales of the same canoe. The spent a good amount of time on the water with a second canoe nearby for safety, and were finally able to establish a new record of five people standing. In that and in the other attempts the guys also had lots of opportunities to practice recovering a swamped canoe making use of a second canoe. My camera that had fallen victim to the unintentional swamping earlier in the week finally dried out and started working again, so I was able to photograph the various record attempts. By the time the guys came back to camp it was time to start thinking seriously about dinner. The meal again was delicious. It was a combination of sliced potatoes, ham, and cheese. Afterwards we made up a vanilla pudding mix and at the last minute decided to try to flavor it with a portion of a strawberry drink mix. The resulting pinkish orange glop was pretty strange looking, but actually wasn't half bad. The mosquitoes either weren't too bad or we were getting used to them, but at any rate we all stayed up until a little past dark continuing the fellowship of the day. On most nights during the trek we'd been holding a crew chat session called Thorns and Roses, where everyone in the crew would voice both something unpleasant (a thorn) and something good (a rose) that on their mind. On this night the rose that I shared with the crew was my observation regarding how the various barriers between people had vanished resulting in a new level of cooperation and acceptance. We all seemed reluctant to go to bed that night and several of us stayed up for quite awhile, trying to photograph the beautiful moon over the trees and just generally enjoying the wilderness, the sound of the water. Though no one said so out loud, I think that we were all aware that our trip was coming to a close and though we were ready to see home and family we also didn't want the trip to end. The next day we'd travel back to the canoe cache on Scout Lake and our paddling and portaging would be over. I was aware that we'd all grown in various ways during the experience.