Its Not What You Said, It's How You Said it

              The phone finally began to ring after the third time I tried calling, the previous attempts being only met with a busy signal. I was calling the free portage service which would take us across town where the dam finally ends.  “Hello?” said the deep hollow voice,  sounding like either he was either too bored or too busy to be picking up the phone.  “Umm, uh, hi, we are at Pokegama dam and would like to be portaged across town. “ Pokegama dam eh? Well someone will be there shortly.”  “Great! Sounds good, thanks!”  I said, expecting to hang up the phone. “One more thing”, said the man, “ It’s pronounced Po- Kehg-ahma, not Po-ke-ga-ma.” “Oh well thanks” I said, slightly irritated at such nitpicking, especially regarding Indian names I’ve never heard.

                The truck was already at our canoe when I returned from retrieving our charging cell phones. Toby and the man were busy loading our supplies in the bed of truck when I walked up.  As  I got closer,  I noticed there was something different about the man wearing  the yellow  vest and fire retardant clothes. Well, the primary difference being he was actually a she.  This was how we met motor mouth Margret.  You would think one could only fit certain amount of words in a two mile drive, but Margret defies such expectations.  

                Motor mouth Margaret gave the first impression of being a hearty and strong woman, like a burly Russian babushka who could milk full grown yak with one hand while building a log cabin with the other. In reality, as we soon found out, she worked at the power plant; the power plant, along with the paper mill, being the primary employers in this town.  Since the power company blocks the river, they are obligated to provide this service to canoes, motor mouth Margret was our chauffeur.  Before we even reached the center town, we learned the relationship between the mill and plant, the supply of wood and how long it will last, the relationship between the various unions and of course why the power plant is the best job in town. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good conversation, but I can only process so much. It didn't help either that motor mouth Margaret didn't just motor her mouth but also thought it necessary to both drive and point out the various local landmarks which included…you guessed, the power plant and paper mill. 

                As I found out, pronunciation is strange in these parts; Ah or Aa’s , Eh’s or Ee’s.  I asked if the grocery store was Oogels, like google without the g, or Oh-gels. It’s Oh-gels if you’re curious.  This made me remember to ask about a local stand we passed on our walk yesterday selling “pasties,"  which were advertised as “So good you’ll ‘Finnish’ them.”  We knew what a different kind of pasties were, which were definitely not food, but were too perplexed to ask until now.  “Oh yea!, we were wondering what those pasties things were,” I said, confident I had the pronunciation correct.  With smirk and laugh, she immediately replied, “Pasties are things strippers put on their nipples,”  as she acted out where they go, as if I had no idea where exactly a nipple was.  Regardless, such a pronunciation faux pas was hilarious and we all laughed. PAST-TEEs, are a cross between a perogie and a moon pie, far different than nipple décor.

                We mentioned to motor mouth Margaret that we needed to stock up on supplies, and she said work was slow and she wanted a break anyways, so she kindly drove us to the grocery store, commenting on everything from the corporate yard at the paper company to why the grocery store uniforms are so weird looking.  We quickly went into the store, thankful for ride, and entertained by the earful.  Our cart filled with a week’s worth of bacon, eggs, rice, beans, and plenty of bananas, we said our thanks to motor mouth Margaret and finally packed the boat. After  quick breakfast at a nearby Burger King, we finally pushed off.

                It was on the verge of cold, and the sky was grey and getting darker.  Houses were evenly spread out initially, but as we left town, they became few and far between. The woods grew thicker, and soon, our friend called rain came tumbling out of the sky. We donned our rain gear, which amounts to rain jackets and placing and spare shopping bags over our boots, and kept paddling. Just as soon as the rain stopped and our thin outdoors pants would dry out, the rain would pour again.

 We gave up hope that we would end this day dry. Instead of your standard rain, a fine and constant mist began to fall, making everything seem more soaked than it already was. We found a campsite about 5 miles short of our goal of Jacobson, MN. No fire tonight, for that requires dry wood. We put up our tent as fast as we could and began to heat out some warm soup.  We have no data coverage here to you will read this a day after. Tomorrow we hope to make it half way to the town of Atkin.

    

Through The Endless Wood

                People have been telling us to take a lot of pictures. However, they must understand that usually, there are two basic scenes, more woods and more river.  As we slowly move past the banks, with a seemingly endless forest hemming us in, I begin to wonder what the world is like on the other side. We have been in back country for a few days now, sighting a house is exciting, and seeing a road is noteworthy for comment. Such is life on the river. 

                We awoke to a heavy fog that had settled over the woods and water. The night before it had rained hard, and if I recall, we even had a thunderstorm skirt by us.  We got an early start, knowing we wanted to make at least 45 miles to an Army Corps of Engineer’s camp ground. Since we only average 4-5 miles per hour, we knew this would take up most of our day. Before long, the fog had lifted and the sun was out and rising. We found ourselves paddling down river barefoot and shirtless.  The river began to change from dark, coffee like color, to a brownish copper, slit and mud clouding it thoroughly.  As I watched the trees pass by I couldn't help but imagine how the forest looked centuries ago.

                I’ve recently learned that up until the beginning of last century, chestnut trees dominated the American woods. Almost one in four trees was a chestnut.  If you look at many old photos, such massive trees could be seen from Iowa to main. What happened? Well, a fungus hitchhiked from Asia to America, a fungus which these trees had no defense. With a 100% mortality, North America lost the great chestnut tree. Within 30 years, the north American woods lost some 40 billion trees to the fungus.

                The closer we got to camp, food overcame fungi as what entertained my mind. We saw the sign for the camp ground. Unfortunately, as Toby expected, we would have to paddle upstream to a dam to reach the sight. As hard as we paddled, we were working twice has hard for half as much. Realizing that to paddle up there, with no guarantee for a landing was too risky to our tired bodies and minds.  We pushed off in the fog at 8, and had not stepped off the canoe for 10 hours.  We saw that there was a campsite 4 miles downriver and set our sights, and appetites on that goal.  So here we are are, on a little bank overlooking the river, seemingly endless forest around us. We hope to take a half day tomorrow, aiming for the town of palisade.  We have filled ourselves with more rice and baked beans than anyone should and feel exhausted. I've never felt so happy to go to bed so early. Stay tuned!