Crossing Cass

When paddling for hours on end, one falls into type of meditative rhythm.  Each stroke you take, pushing the paddle back with one hand and pulling it with the other, the splash that the paddle makes as it enters and exits the water, is made into one fluid and repetitive action, hour after hour. It becomes as natural as breathing or walking. You never think about every breath or step you take, you just do it. We have been on the boat long enough that even when we lay in our sleeping bags, we feel as if the ground is rocking back and forth like the waves of the river.

For four days we have been saying the weather will be better tomorrow and for days we have woken up to a bitterly grey sky and seemingly angry wind, bent on halting our progress forward. Crossing Lake Cass this morning felt like trying to crawl a marathon.  Our arms burning with each paddle stroke. Three hours later we finally found the inlet to the channel that connects to Lake Winnie, after taking a misguided “detour” one hour before. However, there was something strange.  As we got closer, we saw that the water fell about a foot from our level. We didn’t see on our map, nor were there signs that the lake was dammed. The dam essentially was an elevated concrete platform which the water flowed over, which then dropped about a foot into the channel.  We saw this about 100 feet from going over.

“Bito, look at that!”, “Look at what?” “ It drops off!..”  “How much?”  “Not  sure.” “ Wanna risk it?:” “ Yup”. , so went our extent of debating the risk.

Paddling as fast we could we aimed our nose straight ahead, we rushed to try and traverse the concrete platform. Unfortunately, the water was too shallow and we bottomed out. As much as we tried to heave hoe in the canoe, we couldn’t budge.

There was a group of old men on the shore, probably fishing, watching us.  I wondered what they thought of this debacle.  If my grandfather Wilbur were watching he’d have something witty to say. I guess any Beitzel worth their salt would.  It was soon apparent that we would have to get our feet wet. As I untied my laces and peeled off my warm socks, I winced as the cold air bit my bare feet, knowing the water will bite them harder.  I stepped in and focused on pushing the canoe and toby over the ledge nose first. The concrete was a slick as ice when I tried to push, causing me to pull instead.  Immediately the currant caught the boat, pushing us toward the 1 foot drop, not nose first, but sideways.  I don’t have to explain that canoeing should absolutely not be traveling sideways down anything.  I realized that either I needed to be in the canoe and go down with toby, or be out and be stuck standing barefoot on a dam and watch toby go down himself.  I quickly jumped in my seat.

Before we went over, all I could think was that this was going to get really cold, really fast. Since we were falling to the starboard side toby and I put all our weight to the port side. We hit the water with a thud and immediately leaned hard to port, getting our left sides soaked.  I was quite relieved we didn’t tip, although annoyed, we were now wet and cold again. I looked back to the men on the shore and they were all shaking their heads.  I lifted my fist in the air and pumped it, the universal male signal for victory; I got 5 fists back from the shore.

We warmed up by padding hard through the channel to Lake Winnie hoping to find a decent place to camp. At the mouth we stopped at a dock to see a rather large fisherman working on his boat beneath a cluster of building that sat on above on the bank.  Talking to him, we found out that the building right above had pizza and coffee for sale, there was no hesitation when we heard this. Walking in the camp office we got a few perplexed looking, then a few shocked looks when we explained our adventure. More old men shuffled in and out, giving us their two cents about the river, the journey and various types of fish found in the lake, while I appreciated this, we were just as content with getting feeling back into our feet.  We both managed to down a pizza to ourselves and have spent this time charging our phones and batteries, waiting for the long haul tomorrow.  

We currently are camping in Chippewa National Forest, there are signs talking about the wolf and bald eagle population. I have seen plenty of eagles but no wolves. Not sure if I should be looking or not. Tomorrow should be our longest open water crossing so we are hoping for favorable wind conditions. If it is too wavy, it could easily turn into 2 days of following the shoreline.