Notebook Recollections
I was a guide in the Minnesota Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA ) as a young adult. I was a better family doctor because of that time I spent as a guide.
In the summer of 1968 I accompanied fifteen 13 year old Twin City boys out of a camp in McGregor, MN. Our gear and canoes were trucked up to a launch outside of Ely. We would load up the canoes and Hi-Ho it into the BWCA for 10 days.
My main goal was to get those boys 50 miles out into the wild and back safely. All fifteen of them! I counted the boys every day. 5 or 6 times a day, morning and evening!
Our days in the woods included swimming, hiking, eating and portaging our canoes. Portaging a canoe is carrying your canoe and gear packs between strips of land and the next body of water.
The only way I safely accomplished these north woods adventures was following my extensive reading, outlining and underlining the “North Star Guide’s Manual, Volume II, 1961.” This was written by famed outfitters, travelers and trapper-hunters George Leonard Herter and his brother, Jacques P. Herter, who hailed from the small town of Waseca, MN. Those Herter brothers were my “North Stars!” (Not the hockey players, bless them!)
The North Star Guide Manual was my bible.
A canoe trip takes an awful lot of thoughtful planning:
- Dehydrated foods
- Clean water
- A First Aid Kit
- Maps and a Compass
- Fire making essentials
- Tents and sleeping gear
- Mosquito fighting weapons
Did I mention mosquito fighting? Up north the mosquitoes are the size of small birds!
Here is some of the “how to do’s” I learned from the Herters Manual.
How to:
- make a campfire in the rain
- respectfully “toilet” in the woods
- Use a compass with a map
- Use a compass without a map (You can’t call home if you lose both the compass AND the map )
- bring a dozen male teenagers 50 miles into the Boundary Waters
- bring back those dozen male teenagers from the Boundary Waters
- lead the boys in campfire songs they would never admit to singing back in civilization
- live on rye krisp, cheese , soup and peanut butter for 10 days
- be able to swat mosquitos and paddle a canoe simultaneously
- know that a portage is measured in rods. A rod is 16.5 feet. A 110 rod portage is 1,715 feet
And , most importantly the essentials: Respect and be awe-inspired by Mother Nature. Savor, remember, record and enjoy the BWCA.
Next month in Part II, I will share some nature stories including meeting bears face-to-face!
I remain, your devoted North Woods guide (retired!)
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