Row Your Boat!

By Billy

An excerpt from the journal of Tom, revised by Billy, censored by Stephanie:

Saturday, July 27

We left home at 9:15 am and arrived at our hotel in Minneapolis at 3:00. The boys went for a swim while Dad and Mom picked up Stephanie at the airport, where she was just returning from her trip to Mexico. We ate at a restaurant next door for supper, and I think most everyone enjoyed their food.

Sunday, July 28
It was cool this morning and in the mid-50s, a good sign that we were in Minnesota. We went to church in Minneapolis and it just happened to be Invite a Couple Weekend there so we got to see lots of people.

The last thing Mom and Stephanie saw before we headed off to Boundary Waters.

After church, we drove to Ely and finally checked in at Cliff Wold’s Outfitters at 7:30. We set up our tents at the Cliff Wold’s campground and stayed there for the night. Our tent of Tom, Brayden, Jonathan, and Justin went to bed at 10:30 and listened to the other tent of Dad, Billy, Travis, and Jesse struggle setting up their sleeping bags for the next hour. Hopefully they can get better at that as the week goes on.

Monday, July 29
We woke up at 4:00 am, packed up, and drove into Ely to eat breakfast at Britten’s Café, which opened at five. We would have been there at five but couldn’t find it and had to ask for directions. It was a great breakfast and everyone was stuffed…except Travis, who got one waffle and two pieces of bacon. He must not have been very hungry that morning.

The crew ready for the adventure to begin!

Dad began taking pictures as soon as we started out before he realized Jesse wasn't going to drive the canoe by himself.  Not many pictures of our paddling would follow.

We went back to the campground, where Cliff Wold’s came and picked us up at 6:30 and brought us to the beginning of our journey, Lake One. From there, we paddled through Lakes One, Two, Three, and Four, going through our first portage of thirty rods (1 rod=16.5 feet) and another forty rod portage. We ate lunch at a campsite on Lake Three at 10:30. Johnny and Brayden, our pro sandwich makers, made all of the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We also had ham and cheese sandwiches, lemonade, and MilkyWays. We made one wrong turn entering Lake Four but made good time and stopped at a campsite for the night at the end of Lake Four at 12:30. Everyone fished and Brayden caught two so we fried them up and ate them as an afternoon snack. Some of the boys and Dad went swimming. FREEZING!!!!!!! For supper, we had ribeye over the fire- which was awesome- along with hashbrowns, green beans, chocolate cookies, and fruit punch. We also had brownies over the fire for dessert. We sang three songs, read the Bible, and prayed together before Jesse went to bed at 8:00 and everyone else played cards in the other tent.

Tom's handywork to keep our food away from the bears.

Tuesday, July 30
We woke up at 6:30 to rain and Dad sawing wood, trying to start a fire. It was a bit of a scattered breakfast, but we had eggs, sausage, orange punch, and hot chocolate. We got packed up and it stopped raining. We paddled out and had two 10 rod, two 25 rod, and one 105 rod portages; the 105 rod was a killer! On one of the ten-rod portages, Johnny, Justin, and Travis all fell into the water, which was a lot deeper than we had thought. After the portages, we had meat and cheese, peanut butter and jelly, fruit punch, and Snickers for lunch. About a mile after lunch, we came to an island called “The Rock,” which is a popular jumping point about 20 feet high. So, everyone jumped off it, even Jesse. We came to camp after another mile on an awesome island on Lake Insula. The boys swam, fished, and explored and we ate ham, mashed potatoes, corn, dried fruit, and grape punch for supper. We had banana cake for dessert. After supper, the boys continued to swim and explore, spending a lot of time exploring the bottom of the lake in the freezing cold water. Everyone went to a huge rock on the other side of the island with an awesome view of the sunset. We even yelled across the lake and other people yelled back. We went to bed shortly afterwards, at about 9:00.

Working on getting a fire started.

Setting up camp Tuesday night.

The view from the other side of our camp on the island.

Tom doing the "Popcorn Shake" while a crowd anxiously awaits.

Wednesday, July 31

We woke up at 5:00 am and had bacon, pancakes, hot chocolate, and fruit punch for breakfast. We paddled out at 8:30 and came to the 180 rod portage, which almost killed us. Then, we had a 25 rod, 10 rod, 30 rod, 5 rod, 10 rod, and 50 rod portages with paddling in between. 

After the 180 rod portage...we were a little exhausted.

We had peanut butter and jelly for lunch once again, along with beef jerky, dried fruit, trail mix, punch, and M&M’s. Then, after a 50 rod portage, we went straight into some white caps. Dad was a little worried but Jesse thought it was great and told him, “Hey, look! We’re surfing, Dad!!!!!” as they were getting hammered into a rock along the shore. We pulled into camp at 3:30 with Dad exhausted from surfing. For supper we had beef and gravy, mashed potatoes, peas, and punch. It was good, even though it was dried beef and stool-looking gravy; the gravy reminded us of the “latrine” (toilet).

The famed latrine. This was one toilet that we didn't need a plunger for.

Tonight, we had the great idea of using our canoe for a dinner table, and that worked really well. It was almost like our suppers at home! We had brownies and popcorn in the evening and decided we should have gotten brownies every night. The boys went swimming and talked about the long day before lights-out at 9:30.

Thursday, August 1

Justin and Tom woke up at 5:00 am, and Brayden and Johnny said they’d sleep for another 10-15 minutes, but ended up sleeping until 6:30. That was a really long 15 minutes. We had dried scrambled eggs and bacon bits, hashbrowns, and punch for breakfast before paddling out at 9:00. It was another day of many portages with some paddling in between. There was a 5 rod portage into Jordan Lake, a 55 rod portage into Cattyman Lake, a 10 rod portage into Adventure Lake, and a 40 rod portage into Jitterbug Lake. Jitterbug Lake was nasty; it was covered with lily pads and one canoer from another group stepped into one foot of water and was up to his waist in muck! Then there was a 15 rod portage into Lake Ahsub and a 25 rod portage into Disappointment Lake. We now know why they call it Disappointment Lake because we checked all 9 campgrounds and all of them were full. We stopped on a rock in Disappointment for peanut butter and jelly, beef sticks, and Salty Nut Rolls. We went to another portage planning to go to Parent Lake, but people coming from there said that both campsites on the lake were full. So, we decided to take the 140 rod portage into Snowbank Lake. Wow. That took forever. We had to row 1 mile straight into the wind. We all hung out on a little cove on a big island in the middle of Snowbank Lake because we were exhausted and about ready to pack up and go home early. But the tough boys- Johnny, Brayden, Billy, and Tom- went to check out one last campsite at the northeast corner of the island to see if it was full. When we saw the campsite was empty, we all screamed in happiness at the top of our lungs because we didn't want to go home early. Billy and Tom went back to get the others and tell them the good news. We are planning to stay there two nights. Yippy Skippy!!!!! Dad was a little disappointed and was ready to go enjoy a Dairy Queen supper but then caught his second wind and he was fine. We had chicken and gravy on rice, peas, dried fruit, and punch for supper and ate on an upside down canoe for the second night in a row.

Our fancy dining quarters.

It started to rain shortly after supper, so we all hurried to do dishes and clean up the camp before heading to the tents. We hung out in the tents for the rest of the night, playing cards, Guess-the-Word game with flashlights, Brayden and Johnny doing old time movies, and telling stories.

Friday, August 2

Everybody slept in as late as they wanted: Tom 5:30, Brayden, Johnny, and Justin 7:30, and everyone else was up at 8. Tom tried to start a fire Dave Ertz style (using just wood and a shoestring, no matches) but failed miserably. We ate at 10:00 for brunch, which included 8 pieces of bacon per person (awesome), hot chocolate, unlimited French toast (some people had six), and punch. The boys went on a hike to the other campsite ¼ mile away through the trees. Some of it was trails but most of it they had to blaze their own trail. Then everyone went swimming. All of us except Dad rode the big waves in our life jackets. 

Johnny and Brayden enjoy a swim after a tough day of not paddling.

We had Kit Kats and string cheese for a snack in the afternoon, except Johnny had a beef stick that everyone was jealous over. Then, everyone but Dad went on a hike on the island and found some raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries, but no bears. The hike was about a mile and a half of very dense forest. We decided that no man has ever been to some of the places we were at. Everyone then whittled when we got back and thanks to the first aid kit, two kids tried to amputate their fingers. The boys had a spear throwing contest with the spears they had just whittled and Brayden won. Then, it was time for supper, which was beef stew (elbow macaroni, dried beef, stool gravy [again], and unidentifiable objects), punch, and banana nut bread for dessert. After supper, we had a wood splitting contest; Johnny “Big Jon” won the best intro with worst follow-through on the swing.

Johnny gets a 10 for style and 1 for skill.

Since we had a lot of butter that needed to get used up, we had popcorn swimming in butter for an evening snack and enjoyed a very awesome sunset. Since we were on a point in the island, we could see the sunrise and the sunset all from our campsite. Then the fireworks started, thanks to the beef stool. Both tents were lit up with stink bombs. As of writing this, 6 out of 8 have been affected with the terrible disease. Johnny said he felt like he was missing out because he wasn’t affected…until 10 minutes later he had them and then 7 out of 8 people were affected. We played a game of “I Doubt It” in the tent and then the fireworks slowed down and lights went out.

A beautiful sunset without the sun.

Dad, Jesse, Travis, and Billy's tent, ready to go to bed.

Tom, Brayden, Johnny, and Justin's tent. Still smiling after five days!

Saturday, August 3

We woke up around 5:30 am and packed everything up so we could reach our pick-up point by 9:00. Breakfast was yesterday’s lunch of peanut butter and jelly, hot chocolate, and lemonade; we didn’t have to do dishes that way. A few of us had our last visit to the latrine and Johnny had a very emotional goodbye with it. The latrine was such a beautiful place sitting on the throne with tall pine trees all around and blue skies above you. We paddled out around 7:45. As we paddled to our pick-up point, we could see we would be early so Brayden, Johnny, Justin, and Tom just laid back in their canoes feeling the warmth of the sun and the rocking of the waves. We steered just to keep us in the right direction and savored the last trip on the water. By the time we had pulled up the canoes and packs, it was 8:30, so we organized all our stuff so we could throw it on the trailer and go; we had packing up down to a science. The van pulled up at 8:50 with a young high school driver. We threw all of our stuff on the trailer in a couple minutes and hopped in the van. On the ride back, the last group had left peaches in the van, so we ate them. Tom ate four and could have eaten more, but he didn’t. 

The crew after the trip, looking pretty scraggly.

Hot showers never felt so good- Ooh La La!!!!! We lathered up our bodies and let the hot water wash our bodies clean. Then we went to Cliff Wold’s where we got our certificates of completion and some souvenirs for everyone. We left Cliff Wold’s at around 11:00 and were on the road again heading back to civilization. We stopped and ate at McDonald’s on the way to Minneapolis and met Mom at another McDonald’s in St. Paul where Tom and Brayden took her car home and our family went to Morris for baptisms.

The End.