Author: Sue Ahrendt

We left Friday afternoon with the Cook County Cross Country Team to the Milaca Mega Meet. It was a whirlwind of carpooling and people and races.

It’s a beautiful Sunday morning, but it’s also a work day today.
I left early, the kids were still sleeping.
Denali and I stopped for morning coffee on the way.

Then we continued our morning commute.

It was really good coffee this morning. It’s also a really good day to be alive in the northwoods.

1. First thing yesterday morning my mom and I were walking when Denali scared a cow moose out of the pond and up a hill. Prancing behind that cow was a bull with a monster rack. It was sort of comical that a guy that huge could move that sprightly. It had to be awfully hard on his neck. She grazed and wandered aloof. He strutted around ridiculously attentive. As he should be.

2. Andy, Denali, and I took the afternoon off . We paddled into a couple of lakes I hadn’t seen before. Bonus. I was so happy to be me yesterday. Photos don’t begin to capture the energy we pulled from the sun, the colors, the smells of fall.

We did have a little time to poke around and find artifacts from the former cabins-once on the beach of Tuscarora Lake—part of the resort before the Wilderness Act made them illegal.

Before we started asking people “Do you have any cans or glass bottles with you?” Andy loves that historical treasure hunting.

I was portaging the canoe when I heard Denali go ballistic and Andy started hollering at her, and telling me to get off the trail “Bull Moose!!” I didn’t see him charge Denali, but I did see the evidence of a stressed out stomping moose emptying a very large bladder, before he turned around and trotted away. We did proceed with caution, he was massive and unpredictable.

3. This morning, while chasing down the bus (our first chance to miss it this year….) up popped a big old bull–over the road, and down in the ditch again. Shelby squealed, but really, we weren’t even that close to clipping it. I could feel it, the truck had plenty of time to stop, he wasn’t going to charge us.

They’re big. They’re on the move, that’s for sure. And so go the seasons. And so goes the rut.

Every August we look at the long lists and the big piles…and we wonder, how will we get it done? Our lone contracted staffer Zach was also looking a little bleak back then—but we found him friends…or they found us…or something.

Sometime this summer, Rachel brought a group of young adults on a canoe trip. She was so refreshingly organized and competent…I asked her “Rachel, are you a former staff member?” When she said no, I asked her if she wanted to be a former staff member. It was my lucky day to be sort of kidding about that, because about a month later, she called. And now—well you should see her and her obsessive skills for organization. She very respectfully asks me….”Do you mind if we rearrange some things while we’re cleaning the Dining Hall? “or “I’m not claiming to be an expert with QuickBooks, but, do you mind if I show you something?” I am smart enough not to mind. Rachel was given a leave of absence because it isn’t high season in accounting, and her career in horticulture hasn’t yet begun. I was right about her.

Abbie came here to work with her buddy Zach. We happened to know her family but I hadn’t seen her since she was 18 months old….. there are so many connections with her….. just yesterday I found out that the dear friend of ours–the woman my children called “Margie” she called “the Gum Lady.” She’s travels in many circles— ELCA, St. O, WCB, OSLC, Holden, NOLS and she is completely groovy. Beyond all that, she’s got some kind of big giant charisma that draws everybody in. That and she can do the shipoopi. We lover her. Abbie belongs in the woods, she and Rachel and Zach are tackling the lists, and……..they have spiced up our September, that’s for sure.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned at Tuscarora, it’s that the work is never done. Case in point:

Much has been made of the things to be “finished” here at the end of the 2010 season, which included a stack of dirty tents as tall as me (5 feet 11 inches) and a list of dirty canoes that grew daily starting in August. For the better part of three workdays last week I diligently scrubbed canoes, averaging 15 minutes a boat and feeling proud of myself. I put the last Grumman back with a sense of accomplishment, knowing too well in the back of my head that of course I was not done. Clients have come in and out since then; I’ve cleaned about six canoes this week and there are seven more sitting out there. I get to them when I can, usually in between driving clients to and from drop-off points, which is my favorite part of the job.

For the record, I have enjoyed talking with you all. It sure beats cleaning gear. But I have been astonished at how interested in me everyone has been. People love to ask me about myself. But, you know, I can only be as honest as someone who is getting paid to help you can be, so I figure since everyone who came here this season got to learn a little bit about me, I would flip it around and tell all of you what I’ve learned about you. I’ve written it as an old-fashioned ode:

Ode to a variety of clients:

to my jealousy of all of your camping trips (even the rainy ones);

to people who had never sat in a canoe before this summer,

and to being asked which end is the front;

to the many people who thought I knew way more than I do (especially about fishing);

To all the groups that either departed from or arrived at the Windigo,

17 miles from Tuscarora and otherwise known as entry point number 47 –

driving with you was my pleasure.

Thank you.

To the groups that brightened my day;

to the groups we thought we would have to go looking for;

to the groups we did go looking for;

to the Boundary Waters Family, whatever it is (I’m still not sure);

to helplessly watching you struggle to take off of the Round Lake beach

on stupidly windy days;

to telling the story of the Ham Lake fire

800 times;

To the man who looked at the scorched and treeless hills on the Canadian side of Gunflint Lake and said, “Cutbacks?” –

that was probably the funniest thing anyone said to me this season;

to all of you

take it from someone who will have spent four months living and working on the edge of the BWCA and gotten to go camping one night at a time:

it is a privelege to experience this wilderness.

I hope you all had fun trips.

– Zach

Yesterday I took my camera with me. The day was something.

The water on Sag was as clear as the sky.

These plants—some relative of horsetails, or maybe just a form of horsetails without the bristles. When the kids were really little we used to take them apart and almost put them back together, like toys. I think somebody told me a common name for them was tinkertoys. Or we made that up, because it fits. They have silica in them–so they are a little like sandpaper–know the ones I mean?

The squirrels are so so busy. Denali feels the need to supervise….she keeps an eye on them at all times.

It looks like an apple, but it’s actually a fat rose hip.

For flowers–this time of year—we get purple asters. Not bad!

And then there are the pines.

And the enormous sky——it was a day.