Trip Tales: Summer Memories On the Winter Solstice
Happy Winter Solstice! On this, the shortest day of the year, it’s tempting to get out our Boundary Waters trip journal, wrap up at the fire and remember our summer trips of the past. To dream of warm summer days with cool nights, loons calling across the lake, fresh walleye dinners, star-filled night skies and the silence. Oh, the silence. Even when I step outside here at home in a relatively quiet suburban neighborhood, there’s always the hum of fa- away traffic, the neighbor’s dog barking (and ours barking at his), or our own cacophony of devices and electronic toys and music and TV and so on. Oh, the silence.
This past summer’s family trip was perhaps one of the best. It was the first time my spouse and I were able to get our three kids (and our two dogs) into the Wilderness for more than just a day trip. Our youngest, Eddie, finally graduated from diapers - we weren’t doing the “bag of death” packing out dirty diapers! We started on Snowbank Lake after the Ely Fourth of July Parade, made it to a spot on Disappointment Lake, packed up in the morning and six portages later found our five-star campsite for the week on Ima Lake. An exciting development: our two oldest, Donnie (6) and Elsie (8), each carried their own packs and doubled back on most portages to help carry some smaller items the first trip didn’t get. Helpful and they felt part of the team!
But what made this trip most memorable was watching the experience through our kiddos eyes. Kids don’t need toys in the Wilderness; they certainly don’t need screens. Rocks and pinecones can be thrown into the lake for hours. Fishing from the campsite to catch small pan fish and bass is thrilling. Marching off into the woods (with a safety whistle!) to explore and find secret spots, or drag small dead branches back for the fire, or find a stream in which to play “pooh sticks” (if you know, you know) can fill hours - sometimes even long enough for mommy and daddy to take care of camp and have spare time to sit and - oh my goodness: read a book!
Enjoying memories from this past trip flood back on this cold winter night like its own comforting warm blanket.
Most poignantly, perhaps, on this trip was a moment with Elsie during one of the portages out. We stopped mid portage on a tough 80-rod path up a steep hill and then down again. At the top were more fresh blueberries than we could eat - and how we tried! As we stuffed our faces, she paused and looked as if she was saying something that would insult me but resolutely said, “You know, Daddy, this is the longest you haven’t checked your phone.” A mixture of sadness and pride hit me: for what our current technologic-driven lives are doing to our relationships especially as parents; but also that she noticed the importance of and appreciated our specific focus on her and her brothers this trip.
As always, when we exit the Wilderness, the “Adult World” comes back: demands of our jobs, bills, schedules, traffic, noise, news, distraction. But we had that week. We worked and played as a team. We struggled pulling the canoe through a mucky approach to a portage. We got comfortable pushing the limits of swimming in increasingly deeper water. We started fires, we avoided the mosquito swarm after sundown, we caught (small) fish, we explored the woods and marked “secret blueberry patches” on our map and took in a stunning sunset that looked like the American flag.
Parents and kids need this place to unplug. We need it as a respite from the noise - both for silence but also the from the noise of our day-to-day routines. We need to be forced into a situation where you have to look for something to do -- not have your day delivered to you in a calendar full of regimented blocks of time. And when you emerge from the woods with a renewed appreciation for life in general, we know this place is worth fighting for.
The experiences my kids have had in the Boundary Waters have inspired them to want to protect it like I do. Last week at daycare, Eddie asked of Santa, “Please save the Boundary Waters.” The announcement of the lease denial and application for withdrawal certainly fits that ask. Thank you to everyone who helped make that happen … with perhaps a little intervention from the North Pole!
State Director Alex Falconer has been with the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters for two years. Alex has been in the outdoors, northwoods, northshore, Boundary Waters and beyond since before he could walk. He has the extreme pleasure of now introducing his children to the Boundary Waters and watching them dip their paddles, drink from a lake, and listen to the loons and wolves. Alex has worked on electoral, grassroots and issue advocacy campaigns for the past decade and looks forward to dedicating all his time and attention outside of his family to preserving the Boundary Waters for generations to come.
