By Derek Benson and Matt McCrady
On the 27th of February, eight brave, strong Mini-School men set forward on a winter camping trip to the Boundary Waters. This outstanding group was composed of: Aaron Vick, Matt McCrady, “Bonzai” Scott MacKinnan, Heather “Growler” Holste, Derek “Hopkins” Benson, Chris “Odie” O’Dell, Rob “Stundy” Stundahl, and Doug Berg.
We left Minnetonka at 8:30 a.m., all piled into Doug’s van. We drove for 2 hours, hit Tobie’s in Hinckley, ate lunch and stretched our legs. After lunch we piled into the vehicle and were off again. We drove through beautiful country until Duluth.
In Duluth a funny thing happened. Doug had his small canoe on top of his van because a guy in Grand Marais was going to make a cover for it while we were on the trip. As Doug drove through Duluth, he was pulled over by a cop. He couldn’t figure it out, as he wasn’t speeding or anything. The cop walked over to the van asked for Doug’s driver’s license and what he was doing. Doug told the cop about the trip and what he wanted to know. Then the cop asked about the canoe on top of the van, which everyone had forgotten about. Doug told him why it was there and asked why he’d been stopped for carrying a canoe. The cop said that the lakes were pretty hard this time of year and there had been several break-ins at nearby cabins where canoes had been stolen, so a canoe on a van in February was suspicious. Doug showed him the registration that proved the canoe was his, we all had a good laugh about it, and took off again.
Our next stop was Grand Marais and the East Bay Hotel, an old hotel where we would spend this night before getting into the woods. At the hotel the main attraction was the hot tub. For dinner we walked to a nearby restaurant called Sven & Ole’s where we had pizza and subs.
The next morning Doug got us up at 5:30 and we hit the Blue Water Cafe at 6:00 for breakfast. We all ate as if it were our last meal.
After filling up, we drove out the Gunflint Trail for an hour to the Kekekabic Trail. We packed up and started trekking in on skis and snowshoes. It was a super day– about 25°, bright sunshine, an inch of new snow on the trail. We had a lot of trouble with sleds breaking. This slowed us down. Also, the snow on the lakes was deep, with slush under it, which made for slow going. Doug and Chris were first at the campsite on Bing Schick Lake and they returned several times to help us slower ones. After Derek and Aaron arrived about 4:00, half-way dead, we were all there. After a short rest we shoveled out the fire area, the food storage area, got wood, made a fire, fixed Mac ‘n Cheese, set up tents and crashed.
On Thursday, March 1st, we woke up, ate, and split into groups to make quinzhees (snow shelters). The groups were: McCrady and Heath, Rob and Chris, and Scott, Derek and Vick. It got hot today–up to 50°–not the best for quinzhee building. We did it anyway and had success, except for Derek. After making a huge pile of snow, Derek started digging it out. When he was into it about 5 feet, it collapsed on him, so he kicked his way out. He was pretty upset about it. We could tell by his language.
By then it was getting dark so we set up dinner. We hauled in many dead trees for Stundy and Doug to chop up for our wood supply. After dinner we sat around the fire, talked, looked at the stars, and drank hot chocolate.
On Friday we got up to a -22° morning. After breakfast we gathered our cross-country skis and set out on the “Berg-a-beiner.” Over, around, and through snowdrifts, brush, trees, and lakes. Berg led us on an 8-mile adventure up to Jap Lake and through various swamps. I’m glad he knew where he was going. That night we finished our quinzhees, ate chicken noodle dinner with mashed potatoes and bread, howled like wolves and tried to get wolves to howl back at us, and crashed.
On Saturday, Doug set us out on solos around 10:00 a.m. It was an experience that was different for everyone. Doug explained that the purpose of the solo was to get back in touch with nature and ourselves. He said that in our world today few people are ever really alone, away from traffic noise, radio, TV, books, other people and only in touch with the earth, which keeps us alive. It was kinda cool to think about it, and after people figured out how to stay warm, it was neat to get into it.
Around noon, the people soloing near the lake saw 4 people snowshoeing, looking at the scenery. We saw them, but they didn’t see us. Doug talked to them and found that they are part of a group that hike and maintain the Kekekabic Trail every year. The trail is not maintained by the State anymore, but these people love the trail so much that they take care of it.
We all came back from our solos around 1:00 and had the standard Mini-School trail lunch of Marlene Berg’s flapjacks, salami, cheese, peanut butter, jelly and chocolate bar. After lunch some of us put the finishing touches on our quinzhees, some cut wood, Rob and Odie went fishing (no luck.) Around 4:30, visitors Dawn Norton, Mini-School Science teacher, and Jerry Wilkes (MHS Science teacher who works with Dawn in mainstream) arrived and got settled in–Jerry in the “back 40” quinzhee with McCrady, and Dawn in the lakeview quinzhee with Derek, Vick and Scott. Doug and Jerry spent late afternoon skiing, but skiing was lousy– really icy–since the warm weather.
We had mushroom pasta with peas in it for dinner. Then Doug led us in some activities that made us think about our values. Jerry told some great stories, we all laughed at McCrady a lot, and turned in. It was a cold night.
Doug got us up the next morning to an excellent pancake breakfast with sausage, syrup and all the trimmings prepared by Doug. Then we helped Dawn and Jerry get packed up and sent them on their way. Shortly after that we embarked on Doug’s snowshoe “boonie bushin” expedition. No trails this time. Right through the swamps and into the woods. No hill too steep, no snow too deep, no woods too thick. We saw moose tracks and wolf tracks and shortly after that we found ourselves on an uncharted lake. The cries of “Are we lost, Berg?” echoed through the forest every once in a while, but we found our way. After our long trek, back to camp, we had a fettuccini dinner, a very good one at that, I might add. We all turned in pretty early because the temperature was really dropping fast. It got down.to -21° that night.
It was Monday, our last day in the woods. Mixed feelings. We were all anxious to get going because we were heading back to civilization. But on the other hand, it was a bum because it was so beautiful and peaceful up there. We made it back to the van in two hours because of the super trail that was packed down by now. But we were “trackin'” the whole way out! Then we drove back to the East Bay Hotel, got cleaned up, and went out for dinner. We came back to the hotel and all of us crashed out in front of the TV.
On Tuesday we got up, got packed, and got going. We saw quite a few deer along Lake Superior and had a terrific breakfast at Miller’s Cafe in Two Harbors. It was a drag coming back to the city, but we had to do it sometime.
All in all, we had a great trip and we all hope for the opportunity to go winter camping in the Boundary Waters again.