Twenty-nine years ago, my wife and I canoed the Boundary Waters (titanic, pristine lake area bordering Minnesota-Canada). We repeated it with our three children 14 years ago. We just got back with our kids and their significant others from our third voyage.
When I speak to others about these trips, I term it a “transformational experience.” There is nothing else like it I have done in my life. And, there is nothing to compare it to.
Why is it transformational? You can figure that out once you go there, but that’s the only way to completely understand.
I will try give the sensations, feelings, views, treks, challenges, smells and sights justice through words, so stay with me. In short, you are transformed through the trip.
Launching the first day makes you nervous. You face the unknown. What’s out there? Will bears get our food? Can we carry the packs and canoes through the portages? Will anyone sprain an ankle? What happens if the food runs out? If a moose charges us, what should we do?
You wonder how explorers did what they did. Sailing across from Europe. The pioneers heading west. Lewis and Clark canoeing the rivers to the Pacific Northwest. No maps.
Excitement abounds as well. Getting away from modern-day life. Isolating from the stresses of our jobs, commuting and the non-stop nature of news. Breathing fresh air with no scent of automobile exhaust.
Transformation comes slowly. Listening to the sounds of nature – loons, fish splashing, chipmunks and squirrels chittering, raccoons foraging your campsite like thieves. The accomplishment of paddling hard hour after hour, carrying 60-pound packs on your back and canoes through unbelievably pristine portages near streams that gurgle and moss that sends your senses soaring.
You don’t see any buildings. You rarely see people. There are no cars. There is no Internet. You don’t have a washer or dryer. Your bed no longer exists.
Removing the elements of modern life transforms you and brings you back to core survival. Cook food and clean up. Find water and fill your bottle for drinking, cooking and rinsing. Create your shelter (pitching tents) each evening and take it down again the next day before pushing off.
It’s easy to forget humans are mammals. We have that very basic need to eat, sleep and drink to get through a day without our bodies deteriorating. The Boundary Waters experience teaches you this, and transforms you through the process.
My older brother has a buddy who has often related a story about how our current society would be much better off if we all got back to the basics of hunting, fishing and farming our own food. We’d be worn out from all the work, stop complaining and criticizing, and crash in our sleeping quarters each evening exhausted from all the effort.
The Boundary Waters is like that. It forces you to quickly adapt to the conditions you face. Your body and mind must react to survive. These are not complicated changes, but they are primal.
Total silence during a sunrise. You watch this at 5 a.m., wondering the last time you heard nothing. Wind whips through trees miles away and you hear it, but it is so quiet nearby, you see no limbs or trees bending anywhere in your visual sphere. A loon calls, and you watch it come into for landing, and you HEAR its wings piercing that air. That’s silence.
That’s the transformational experience of the Boundary Waters -- bringing you back to your day-to-day life upon return – a centered feeling of being more at one with all of nature, and knowledge that you survived and accomplished something worthwhile. It is one of the best feelings in the world.
When I speak to others about these trips, I term it a “transformational experience.” There is nothing else like it I have done in my life. And, there is nothing to compare it to.
Why is it transformational? You can figure that out once you go there, but that’s the only way to completely understand.
I will try give the sensations, feelings, views, treks, challenges, smells and sights justice through words, so stay with me. In short, you are transformed through the trip.
Launching the first day makes you nervous. You face the unknown. What’s out there? Will bears get our food? Can we carry the packs and canoes through the portages? Will anyone sprain an ankle? What happens if the food runs out? If a moose charges us, what should we do?
You wonder how explorers did what they did. Sailing across from Europe. The pioneers heading west. Lewis and Clark canoeing the rivers to the Pacific Northwest. No maps.
Excitement abounds as well. Getting away from modern-day life. Isolating from the stresses of our jobs, commuting and the non-stop nature of news. Breathing fresh air with no scent of automobile exhaust.
Transformation comes slowly. Listening to the sounds of nature – loons, fish splashing, chipmunks and squirrels chittering, raccoons foraging your campsite like thieves. The accomplishment of paddling hard hour after hour, carrying 60-pound packs on your back and canoes through unbelievably pristine portages near streams that gurgle and moss that sends your senses soaring.
You don’t see any buildings. You rarely see people. There are no cars. There is no Internet. You don’t have a washer or dryer. Your bed no longer exists.
Removing the elements of modern life transforms you and brings you back to core survival. Cook food and clean up. Find water and fill your bottle for drinking, cooking and rinsing. Create your shelter (pitching tents) each evening and take it down again the next day before pushing off.
It’s easy to forget humans are mammals. We have that very basic need to eat, sleep and drink to get through a day without our bodies deteriorating. The Boundary Waters experience teaches you this, and transforms you through the process.
My older brother has a buddy who has often related a story about how our current society would be much better off if we all got back to the basics of hunting, fishing and farming our own food. We’d be worn out from all the work, stop complaining and criticizing, and crash in our sleeping quarters each evening exhausted from all the effort.
The Boundary Waters is like that. It forces you to quickly adapt to the conditions you face. Your body and mind must react to survive. These are not complicated changes, but they are primal.
Total silence during a sunrise. You watch this at 5 a.m., wondering the last time you heard nothing. Wind whips through trees miles away and you hear it, but it is so quiet nearby, you see no limbs or trees bending anywhere in your visual sphere. A loon calls, and you watch it come into for landing, and you HEAR its wings piercing that air. That’s silence.
That’s the transformational experience of the Boundary Waters -- bringing you back to your day-to-day life upon return – a centered feeling of being more at one with all of nature, and knowledge that you survived and accomplished something worthwhile. It is one of the best feelings in the world.