Bye, Bye, Bemidji

When I was reading up on previous canoeing adventures, I came across a story about Lewis and Clark. On their exploration of the American west which up to that point was largely unknown to the young and growing America, they came across a stretch of river so hazardous that the Natives gathered along the banks to watch them die. Now I don’t consider myself a daredevil, I rather quiet like living too much, but as we battled the wind driven waves in the middle of Lake Bemidji I couldn’t help contemplate the finite nature of life.  With the temperature of air just above freezing and the water not much higher, tipping the canoe much more than a 5 minutes swim from shore would have spelled disaster.

Fighting waves in a canoe is a lot like a sultry dance, the salsa for example. There is lots of hip movements, gyrations and keen sense of how dumb you would look if you fail.  This is how we made our way across the Lake Bemidji,  fighting wind, waves and water as best we could, one hip bump and paddle stroke at a time. Our goal for the day was Lake Winnabagoshosh ( Lake Winnie for short as we thankfully found out..).  What lay between us and Lake Winnie was, you guessed it, more lakes, each larger than the last, each requiring it’s on special combination of paddling and dancing to get across.

We meandered through a lovely stretch of river, passing numerous fishermen along the way, I wondered what behooved them to stand out in the middle of a river, in the cold, alone, and waiting to catch an animal they probably wouldn’t eat. Then I thought they must think the same about us, paddling for no apparent important reason, I guess I’ll rest my case.  The scenic river turned into a lake, whose existence was owed by our first dam. Having to portage, we scouted our inlet. We found out that as soon as we stopped padding, we would begin to shiver violently from the cold. We warmed up quickly by heave-hoeing the canoe up a steep bank and down the other side. It started snowing and I looked up to the heavens quite bitterly, zipped my coat as tight as  I could, put on the undersized beanie I got at Wal-Mart, and then pushed off on our merry way.

It only got colder as we pushed toward Lake Cass, the last lake before Lake Winnie, we paddled harder to stay warm, but soon our arms were giving out because the wind was forcing us to only paddle on the right in order to stay true to course.  We knew that to cross Lake Cass would mean paddling dangerously close to dark. Our fatigue and hunger overrode our desire to press on. We have made camp here on an Island and have eaten a hearty me stir fry rice and hot dogs, quite filling if you’ve never tried it.  We have been lucky to have cell phone service, which means I can get this blog updated to you.  Tomorrow we hope to cross both Lake Cass and Lake Winnie.  We just hope it keeps getting warmer.  We hope to have enough places to charge our devices, so if we disappear for a while, that is why.