Chapter 7
There are many beautiful places on this earth, I’m sure, but none more beautiful than the place I call home.
When we set out for our entry point into the Boundary Waters, it was a glorious morning, promising in every way.
The sky was clear, the sun lighting the eastern horizon with amber and gold, the air fresh and fragrant with the scent of all the wondrous growing things the Creator had imagined for the North Country of Minnesota—spruce and pines and tamarack and leatherleaf and bog rosemary and early-blooming flowers, bloodroot and wild strawberries.
My heart was fine. More than fine. I felt as if I could live forever.
The weather forecast said there was a chance of an overnight shower, but dealing with rain is often a part of the Boundary Waters experience, so I wasn’t particularly worried.
I led the way in my Expedition with Mal and Luke and Stephen.
Daniel followed in his pickup with Waaboo riding shotgun.
Our entry point was a fair distance from Aurora, one that not many people used.
I liked it for that reason. Our first lake wasn’t visible from the dirt road.
We’d have to carry our gear and our canoes a significant distance from where we parked, something I figured would deter those of fainter heart.
The path through the woods was marshy, also one of the reasons this wasn’t a popular entry point.
I was surprised to find that there was already a vehicle and canoe trailer in the small parking area, which was really just a wide spot off the side of the road.
I was even more surprised to see that on the driver’s side door was printed BOREALIS OUTFITTERS.
Cordell Bishop and his three city folks had entered the Boundary Waters the same way I’d planned.
What were the chances? As a cop, I’d learned never to trust coincidence.
On the other hand, I knew that the Great Mystery operated in ways and for reasons that defied human explanation.
I’d neglected to ask Babs when Cordell and his group had taken off, but I figured they’d come at least a day before.
If Cordell intended to guide them along the same route I was planning to take, it would be a loop, and since they were already ahead of us, we’d probably never see them.
We unloaded and carried our canoes and gear to the lake.
That’s when I found the first evidence of the kind of people Cordell was dealing with—a wrapper from a Snickers bar, crumpled up and dropped carelessly on the shoreline.
For city people used to seeing litter in street gutters, this might not seem like a big deal.
But one of the primary rules of the Boundary Waters is this: What you carry in and don’t eat, you haul out.
Nothing gets left behind. Especially a damn candy bar wrapper.
I felt the first faint stirrings of resentment.
I was of two minds. On the one hand, I didn’t want to see anybody else during our outing.
The Boundary Waters is a place to lose yourself in magnificent solitude.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t have minded running into the group and giving those soft-handed city slickers a piece of my mind.
I was certain that if Cordell had been aware of that wrapper, he would himself have delivered to his charges a strong message about respecting the sanctity of the wilderness.
That he had missed the dropped wrapper probably meant he had his hands full.
I picked up the wrapper and stuffed it in one of the pockets of my cargo pants.
We loaded the three canoes and split up, a father and son to each canoe—Stephen and I in one, Daniel and Waaboo in another, and Mal and Luke in the third.
I wasn’t sure about putting Mal and Luke, the least experienced among us, in the same canoe, but it was what Mal wanted.
Although he’d never done the Boundary Waters or camped much at all, he’d canoed and kayaked a good deal on Lake Michigan, so he knew how to handle a paddle.
The mosquitoes and blackflies had been bothersome while we got ourselves organized on the shore, but once we were out on the water, we left them behind us.
The Ojibwe called the lake Makade, mashkikikwaaboo, meaning “black medicine water.” Which is another way of saying “coffee,” the name you’ll find on maps—Coffee Lake.
The sun was just mounting the treetops along the eastern shoreline, and the air was still.
The surface of the lake in front of us was a mirror reflecting a fired sky.
I sat in the stern of my canoe, and the other two fathers were the stern paddlers in theirs.
If you don’t canoe, here’s something you should know: In tandem canoes, stern paddlers are responsible for keeping the craft on course, using a variety of strokes and pitching the paddle blade.
Bow paddlers supply power or help as best they can in that regard.
You keep your paddles on opposite sides of the canoe.
In the stern, you take your cue from the bow paddler.
The bow paddler tires and switches sides, the stern paddler switches to the opposite side.
It keeps the canoe balanced and moving smoothly.
The spiritual magic of the wilderness touched us almost immediately, and we didn’t talk.
The only sounds were the dips of the paddles, the calls of the birds among the trees along the shoreline, and far to the left, a pair of loons, probably mates, making no sound but diving now and again for a fish breakfast.
I’ve canoed the Boundary Waters all my life, and still it affects me in remarkable ways.
It quiets my mind. Although it can be physically challenging, it relaxes me.
It feels like medicine for my spirit. Not everyone may be affected in this way, but I believe that for those who open themselves and embrace the spirit that is all around them, even the most wounded of souls can be healed here.
In the Boundary Waters, the path you hike between lakes is called a portage.
Carrying your canoe and gear is called portaging.
The profound sense of beauty I’d felt when we entered the wilderness took a blow on our first portage.
It was a short hike, only a few rods. (A rod is an archaic measure of distance used by the early voyageurs and still used by many who canoe to the Boundary Waters.
It’s the equivalent of five and a half yards, or sixteen and a half feet.
I’ve honestly never investigated why that’s the length, but I suspect it goes back to land measurement in ancient Europe.) Halfway along the portage, I spotted something silver glinting in a patch of sunlight just off the trail.
I finished portaging my canoe, left the Duluth pack I was carrying, and went back to investigate.
I discovered the foil wrapping of a stick of gum. I could tell it hadn’t been there long.
City folk, I thought and felt my heart harden. Which was the last thing I wanted to feel.
I grabbed the wrapper and rejoined the others at the end of the path, which opened onto our second lake, called Miskwa Ginebig—Red Snake—by the Ojibwe.
On official BWCAW maps, you’ll find it marked with the English translation.
The reason for the snake part of the name is obvious.
It’s a long, slender, crooked body of water.
The water also has a crimson cast, the result of bog seepage full of tannin.
I held up the foil wrapper. “Man is in the forest,” I said.
“That’s from Bambi,” Waaboo said with delight. He loved Disney movies, the old animated ones especially. My influence, I like to think.
“Cordell’s group?” Daniel asked.
“That’s my guess.”
“Baa-baa.” Waaboo bent, fished among the reeds, and came up holding a half-smoked cigar with a plastic tip.
I took it and studied it. “White Owl.”
“How do you know that?” Mal asked.
“He was a cop most of his life,” Daniel pointed out.
“And the band is still on it.” I held up the cigar remnant for all to see. “I hate these guys. And I admit, I’m disappointed in Cordell.”
I shoved the garbage into the same pocket where I’d stuffed the Snickers wrapper, and as we headed off on Miskwa Ginebig, I tried to let go of the anger building inside me.
I hoped the others, particularly Mal and Luke, weren’t being as negatively affected as I was.
For me, it was like walking into a church and seeing that someone had crapped on the altar.
I kept going over and over in my mind how a man as experienced in the Boundary Waters and whose love of it rivaled my own could let these yahoos despoil the sanctity of this wilderness.
I’d planned a long day of paddling, probably longer than I should have considering that Mal and Luke weren’t particularly experienced in all the required portaging.
But I wanted to reach Shrike Lake, a good-size body of water, before we set up camp for the night.
I recalled that there was a lovely campsite on a point that would give us a perfect view of both the sunset and the sunrise.
The location had the added advantage of being open to all the breezes that might blow across the water, which would help keep the flying insects from being too prolific.
So we continued on until very late in the afternoon—four lakes, three portages, the last nearly eighty rods long.
By the time we set our canoes on Shrike, I could tell I’d pushed things too far.
Both Mal and Luke were clearly pretty beat.
I tried to cheer them with “Only a half mile to our campsite. Then we’ll fish for our supper.
” Which bounced Luke back up but didn’t do a lot for Mal.
The sun was low on the horizon when we reached the point.
We disembarked and headed up the slope to check out the campsite.
What greeted us was disappointing. Garbage had been left behind by the last people who’d camped there—a couple of empty ziplock bags that had probably contained dehydrated food, several granola bar wrappers, and three plastic-tipped cigar butts.
“Not Cordell’s group,” Daniel said. “He would never have allowed this. Somebody else must’ve got here before him.”
“I think those cigar butts tell a different story,” I said.
“Then how do you explain this”—Daniel swept his hand across the scene—“this mess.”
“I don’t have a good explanation. But next time I see Cordell, I’ll get one. Come on,” I said to the others. “We’ve got work to do.”
First thing was to clean the campsite, gather up all the litter left behind by those who’d come before us.
Then we unloaded the canoes and set ourselves up.
We’d brought three small tents—Eureka Mountain Pass 2s—a father and son to each tent.
When the tents were erected, we broke out the fishing rods and tackle box.
Daniel, Waaboo, Mal, and Luke headed down to the lake to test their luck.
Stephen and I stayed at the campsite to get everything ready to rustle up some supper.
That would be fish, if the men and boys were successful. Dehydrated chili mac if they weren’t.
There were still some campsite details to be taken care of, locating a secure place for our BearVaults among them.
I gave that chore to Stephen while I went hunting firewood.
I never collect wood near a campsite or the shoreline or a portage trail.
I don’t want to despoil these areas. So I usually bushwhack several hundred yards into the woods, my folding saw in hand.
I found a small area of deadfall, gathered an armful, and returned to camp.
Stephen was waiting for me with a perplexed look on his face.
“Something I think you should see, Dad.”
He led me about thirty yards from the campsite to where he’d set one of the BearVault canisters next to the trunk of a tall jack pine. He’d brought along some rope to secure the BV to the tree trunk. The rope sat beside the canister. I looked at the tree, the canister, the rope, then Stephen.
“What?” I asked.
“Check the trunk.”
He knelt and ran his finger along a white line where the bark had been rubbed away, probably by a length of rope.
“Somebody else has used this tree to secure their BearVault,” I said.
“I don’t think it was a BearVault,” Stephen said. He moved to the other side of the tree. “Look here.”
I followed. Then I saw what so concerned him. Below the white line the rope had etched around the trunk, a broad area of bark had been scraped away, exposing the soft white wood beneath. That wood was stained dark red.
“Dried blood,” Stephen said.
It was hard to believe what Stephen was suggesting. “A person?”
“I think so.”
I studied the wounding of that trunk, then walked back around to the front of the tree.
The soft ground at the base still bore an indentation that was clearly not from a canister.
Someone’s butt had been planted there for quite a while.
I knelt and checked the soil. There was a darkened area around the indentation, which could have been from a soaking of blood.
I stood up, walked back to the other side of the tree, and once again studied the larger scraping of bark.
“If there was someone bound to this tree, I’m guessing their hands were tied in back,” I said. “Whatever happened to them, they bled a good deal. And they worked hard trying to get themselves free.”
“Why would someone do this?”
“God only knows, Stephen.”
“Do you think whoever was tied there was successful in getting free?”
“I hope so.”
Stephen looked away from me, across the broad body of Shrike Lake. “The people who did this, where do you think they went?”
“Hard to say.”
“Cordell Bishop’s group? They were here, we know that.”
“I can’t tell how old that blood might be. This could’ve happened before they camped here.”
“Should we let someone know? We’ve got the satphone.”
“And tell them what exactly? There’s nothing here now and no way of knowing what really went down.”
As Stephen had just done, I scanned that big lake, so blue and serene beneath the cloudless sky, with wilderness edging it on every side. I’d always thought of the Boundary Waters as a beautifully empty place. Suddenly, it seemed way too crowded.