BWCA

Last weekend I got the chance to go on a very short-notice trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which takes up a decent part of the northern Minnesota boundary with Canada (it extends into Canada as Quentico National Park). I've been several times before, but the last time I went was just before the beginning of my senior year at Carleton, which was the fall of 2001.

I consider the BWCA to be one of the most beautiful places on Earth, and this trip reminded me just how correct I am in that assessment. I went with my good friend Dustin Allebach and two other guys. We entered through Brule Lake, camped one night (in a bit of rain), then did five portages the next day (totaling 324 rods) to Winchell Lake, where we stayed for two days. Though we fished for most of the weekend, only one fish was caught out of a canoe, a 2 lbs. sucker that was hurriedly thrown back.

However, the guy who had set up the trip (Dan McCarthy by name), had the practice of throwing out smelt on a hook at each campsite, letting it sit on the bottom and wedging the fishing pole into a position on shore such that we would hear the drag going out if there was a hit. Well, I didn't hear the drag, but I did see the rod bending after we arrived and set up camp on Winchell. After about 7 minutes of fighting, I managed to land an 8 pound northern, which I'm pretty sure is the biggest fish I've ever personally caught. It was turned into Saturday night's main course, which was good because we figured we'd catch enough fish for at least one meal. Unfortunately, other than these two incidents the fish were conspicuous by their absence during the weekend.

On Sunday we bushwhacked to the top of a cliff on the south side of the lake, where we saw rain go by off to the north of us, giving us a rare double rainbow effect. Even more rare was the fact that the brighter rainbow split at its apex into a second color spectrum, so we kind of had three. We then proceeded to take the steepest route down the cliff that didn't involve jumping into the lake. No one was hurt.

A fantastic trip. I'm glad I was able to go.