Tuscarora Lodge & Canoe Outfitters

Last weekend, I went to a funeral. My mom’s sister Kay died. Something about the day, something about the funeral, something about being in the 2nd row behind the immediate family, really touched me. I know it is all part of the cycle of life, but when I stop to reflect on it…well….the little details of the day fall off, and the big important things, and the significant people in my life slide into perspective.

All 12 cousins from that side of the family came…from California, Washington DC, Missouri, Minnesota, Wisconsin….

All the cliches flooded in. How is it that we all got so OLD? These cousins..how did it come to be that we’re all in our 40s?? When did that happen? We had some time to reminisce together, but I’ve been doing plenty of that myself this week. Those years….between birth and age 16…they really are larger than life. They have such an impact on who we become.

They’re brief, they’re short-lived, but they’re hugely important.

I’ve been looking at old photos of those days. My memories with my siblings and cousins—almost always outside, in the lake, in the woods, on the farm.

I never realized how LUCKY we were…to spend time together, and to spend time in the natural world. We were lucky that our parents planned it that way.

Was it because life was simpler then? I don’t really know if we were short on disposable income.? Is that why we always camped? It didn’t occur to me.

I just thought that’s what families did together. You went outside……you went where kids could run around without wrecking things.

Where we learned about the world. Where everything was funnier…freer….exciting…an adventure.

And maybe because our parents were young…the adults always played with us.

And these are the moments that I remember.

These are the memories that I want my kids to have.

The fleeting childhood years….they pass quickly if we don’t take time for that type of thing.
We have wonderful technological advances…all kinds of enriching activities…the competition for kids’ time is stiff.

But…..will anyone have larger than life memories of screen time? Will my kids and their future partners and peers have enough time for free play???
Will they have days where the open hours lay before them—when nothing is planned and the adventures unfold? How else will they get to know their siblings and cousins ? When they see them and they’re 40—will they still feel flooded with all of those stories?

We really want to make the transition to the BWCAW easy for busy families. Currently, the outfitters on the Gunflint Trail, along with the USFS are working on a program called Becoming A Boundary Waters Family.

As adults, we all know how imperative it is that kids grow up with first hand experience with the natural world….that the benefits are immense…and the family memories are priceless. Childhood is too important to miss those moments.

I just wish we had a camera that (or took the time to figure out how to make this camera) take night pictures…because the moon was so so bright the other night on the snowshoe trail behind the canoe yard. It was like a midnight storybook dream….a blue snow magic trail.

So here’s what we came up with—before and after the flash..

The John Beargrease sled dog marathon competitors traveled all the way to the Cross River this year. Andy and I took a shift on the Moosehorn Road crossing early Tuesday morning, and watched the sun come up over Gunflint Lake as we waited for the dog teams to cross the road.

Shelby skis for the Cook County Cross Country Team. This week she participated in the Pincushion Invitational Varisty Pursuit Race.

Andy, Daniel, Denali, and friends Bob, Erik and Roy trekked into Tuscarora for lake trout on Saturday….Daniel was the lucky jigger. He wishes that he would have put something in the photo to provide a scale for these fish—he thinks they look like they could be minnows. No evidence left for another photo—we ate the tastey guys on Saturday night.

When I was a kid, we used to vacation at Lutsen Mountain—I know it has always been a great resort. Now I realize that they are also very friendly neighbors, and they make it easy for locals to visit.

Shelby, our Grand Marais friend Lars and I decided to take on snowboarding last Saturday. We’re all pretty comfortable skiing, so we wondered–how hard can it be??

Lars was enthusiastically emailing us, reassuring us that the temperature was above zero and not too windy down by Lake Superior, so we bundled up, and headed down. (Incidentally, I’ve just discovered Underarmor long underwear. I don’t know who invented that magic stuff, but it feels like I’ve been shrink wrapped in an electric blanket. It REALLY works. Take it from me.)

My first realization: snowboarding isn’t anything like skiing. Lately I’ve been Telemark skiing, which is still a challenge for me, but basically the same skill. My friend Susan described snowboarding as stapling her feet to a plank and then trying to get up. I still haven’t learned how to get up right. I have to flip myself around and get up on my knees. I was hoping to look cool like all of the snowboarder dudes, but I lost that dream right out of the chute.

The Lutsen bunny hill has a dandy new invention that took us up the hill on a conveyor belt. Truly a blessing for me, (recently disabled by the plank). Heavy adults only slide back down a little bit near the top–not a problem after the initial panic.

We sweated away the cold cold day. It’s amazing the core body work-out that I got from falling (kind of scary with both feet stapled…to the plank) and then flopping around like an inchworm to position myself to get up. It was a lovely white and blue day at Lutsen, and it felt great to get out in the frigid sun. I was reminded again that life can be really fun. Too many indoor days, and I can forget that.

See the hills behind Shelby? The steep ones? Before I was disabled with the plank, I had no trouble with any hills. Now, the bunny hill was my new world…. I started looking at those hills with a sigh, like they were mountains. Did I mention that Shelby and Lars are actual talented athletes? Able to take visual information and quickly transform it into physical action. I was still trying to get up. Why couldn’t I just stand up from a sitting position???? I guess I could have taken a lesson, but what a waste of time it would have been for someone to stand there and give me hints on how to get up?
It didn’t help to have the 4 year olds scoot by me. And all those people snowboarding down the big hills. Did they start all out like me? Very humbling.

In the end, I did manage to shift my weight around and sort of carve my way down the hill. Maybe I’ll even brave the chairlift to Ullr with the kids next time. It’s a great thing to find a new skill —just out of my grasp, yet clearly within reach. It’s flow. It’s the best kind of fun, and we adults don’t take advantage of it nearly enough.

All three of us were smiling as we hobbled back to the car, and later to the town sauna/hot tub. We were grateful for Lutsen Mountain, for blue sky, for snow, for Lake Superior, and especially for snowboard helmets.

Questions keep coming at me….it’s just hard for people to imagine what we do in the middle of the woods at 45 below zero…when school is canceled two days in a row. No respite trips to Target, that’s for sure.

Some feel sorry for us. Andy’s folks worry about their grandchildren. My college roommate gets our local temperature on the weather channel of her phone…and writes me “Sheesh…what are you doing there?” emails.

When it is really 45 below we hunker in. But the last couple days our subzeros have moved up into the 20 below range…and yesterday maybe even a warmer.
So, I’ll detail our snowday yesterday…
Our bus driver Annette usually calls the night before. We’re one of the earliest pick ups…even though we also get an auto-email notice. The kids explain why she is the best bus driver ever: she keeps the climate just perfect, she doesn’t play the radio too loudly, she never speeds, but she gets to school on time always, she can get up any hill “Mom…last year on that icy day when we couldn’t get up the hill by Gunflint Lodge…Annette just kept gunning it somehow…we went up that hill. You can’t believe how she got that bus up the hill sideways……..”

School was cancelled= kids are always pleased. Daniel has been making some kind of artisan bread dough that waits in the refrigerator…something Justin the crew cook taught him last summer. So he started the morning making carmeled rolls (experimenting with some kind of mystery flour from the coop yesterday…more on the disaster pizza dough later). Our friends from down the road called…wondered if the kids wanted to come over…and if we wanted to get together for a snow day dinner.

I was heading into town for a meeting at the school anyway. Surprise! When it’s cold, we still drive! We don’t have a garage, but we do have a place to plug in the plow truck. And faithful Christine (the other truck) starts every day, she only complains with a little toot of her horn at the start when it is so cold. (not sure what that is about). We had sun, we didn’t have wind…it was 10 below-felt downright balmy.

So, I dropped the kids off on my way to town…the rule is that we always travel with enough emergency articles of clothing to cover all exposed flesh—just in case we need to hike down the road for some reason.

The four friends spent the sunny afternoon climbing “Mount Anna” somewhere near Hungry Jack Outfitters. A place with really deep snow and impossibly hidden windfalls and trippers. Good warm clothing, sun, a warm house for breaks…the cold wasn’t a problem.

I drove home as it was getting dark at 5:30….the snowpack on the Gunflint Trail doesn’t melt these days…and as I rounded one curve, a moose scared the bejeebers out of me. I didn’t actually come THAT close to hitting her, but it was really up to her to amble off the road, and my veins were coursing with adrenaline so my knees and elbows ached. I have a friend who claims it’s good to practice with adrenaline, to stay sharp…..my dose for the day! Whew.

Our families met back up here at Tuscarora for homemade pizza…with Daniel’s nasty bread crust. I imagine good chefs make learning mistakes like carpenters do…and this was one small snafu on the road to great chefdom. After polite dinner we played “Small Change” on the local Grand Marais radio station WTIP. It’s a goofy call-in trivia quiz show. People call in to compete for….nothing. Not even a score. Great fun.
Then, all eight of us went out to the snowshoe trail. Last week I had a magic storybook moonlight blue snow deep woods hike, and I was dying to share it. Only, last night– complete cloud cover, not even stars. The established trail was much trickier in the pitch blackness, but they were all good sports about it. Somehow the white snow reflected some light from somewhere…and we picked each other up again and again. Only a few partial group domino experiences. It’s almost impossible to stay standing when someone falls onto your snowshoes then on your legs. The snow was soft and deep, we had good hats and layers and scarves/gators.

Good to go….lucky snow day!