By Julie Maynard
Our trip to the north woods was great. It was probably the ultimate in anything I have ever done in my whole life! The people who went were Eric Child, Chris Child, Tom Zipf, Rebo (Gary Johnson), Scott McPherson, Kevin Schierman, Rick Geyen, Kelly Martin, Doug, Randy, Spot, and I.
We left school about 6:30 Sunday the 14th of November (in the morn). Rick Geyen, Kevin Schierman, Eric Child, and I drove with Kevin, and everyone else drove up with Doug. We spent the night at the end of the Gunflint Trail, at the very last campsite. Then we started the next day, early, and left Rick and Kevin at the end of the trail. After walking a while, I began to notice slight pains in my back, which gradually made its way down to my legs. By noon, I could hardly walk. Great! This was only the first day! Lunch was delicious! I don’t think I’ve ever been so hungry in my life. Got into camp about 3:30 or 4:00, set up camp, and ate macaroni and cheese. We went to bed early the first night. Wednesday: I guess I didn’t write anything about Tuesday because as I look back at my journal, I was “too tired, in too much pain,” and too mad to move a muscle because all the smoke from the fire always came to me. But as I remember, everyone was stiff!
We pushed about 15 miles Tuesday in about 6 or so hours, and it was really hard. Everyone was sore, especially me. Don’t ever wear new boots on a 40 mile hiking trip. We finally got to camp about 4:15, set up camp, and ate, then went to bed. Thinking about what I had gotten myself into the past weekend, I started staring into space. When you’re way up there, space is everywhere. At night, it’s so dark that we could see the seven sisters perfectly, not to mention the whole north arm of the Milky Way. The smallest star helped to light up the whole sky. We could hear the cracking of the ice, and the echo of a howling wolf through the whole forest. While drinking crystal clear water from a fresh water lake, I started wondering what it would be like to live here all the time. I thought about all the places I’d seen today, and wished I could build a log cabin and stay forever.
Wednesday morning was funny. Everyone was moaning and groaning. Who was gonna get up first and build the fire was always a funny subject! We started hiking early after breakfast. Everyone was ahead of Eric and I, as we were taking it easy because we knew it was gonna be our last day and night on the trail. By lunch, we met Rick and Kevin, and walked a few more hours to camp. That night we sat around the fire, and everyone started talking about chain saw massacre, and the huge mountains that Kevin and Rick said we’d be climbing up tomorrow. Didn’t get to bed till late this night.
Thursday: woke up, ate oatmeal, started hiking. Our last day. My left leg felt like it was broken. I kept thinking about how nice it would have been if I had prepared my body before this. Wishing we had more time to hang around this wonderful place, we took off for the end of the trail. After about 3 or 4 hours, we started seeing blood on the trail and slide marks from hunters carrying deer. Then trail markers, then Berg’s truck and Schierman’s car. Scott, Rebo, and Rick were already there. We packed up the trailer, and took off for town. By the way, we were now in Ely, Mn. We had 2 hours in town to answer these questions any way we could…
1) When was the Kekekabic trail established?
2) What was it originally for?
3) What was it used for over the years?
4) What does Kekekabic mean?
5) What was mined at Paulson’s mine?
6) and what was Paulson’s first name?
Here is what we found… The Kekekabic trail was established in the early 1900’s. Paulson’s mine was there before the trail was finished. It was built as an access to the fire tower which was located on the Kekekabic Lake which is about half way on the trail. The trail was made basically for people to put up towers to watch for forest fires. There used to be a telephone line also that ran from one end of the trail to the other connecting at the watch tower sites. Towers are no longer used, as planes now do as good a job if not better, of watching for forest fires. So around the late 50’s and early 60’s, the trail was closed, and the natural growth covered the trail making it no longer of any use. Around the mid 60’s, the trail was reopened, because backpacking began to come into popularity. People were starting to appreciate the feeling of well being and the gift of challenge. From now on, the trail is brushed every 4 years.
Paulson’s mine was an old iron mine. Donkeys and horse sleds were used to transport the iron. We couldn’t find his first name anywhere, but Doug told us it was Sam.
The word Kekekabic was probably the most exciting answer we got. Actually, I got the answer from a little old man in the bakery in the town of Ely.
The word Kekek means sparrow hawk. And the word Kabic means passing by, or coming by.
It could be that the Indians figured that there were lots of sparrow hawks flying by a lake, which happened to be the Kekekabic Lake. Therefore, we get the word Kekekabic! Sparrow hawk passing by!