Boundary Waters, Part V

Day 5 - July 31

This day passed much the same as that immediately preceding it; in lazy, relaxing recreation. It was our last full say in the Boundary Waters, and we celebrated by doing as little as possible. Perhaps it is now time to discuss wider aspects of the trip, that did not fall on any particular day. One of the most striking and beautiful aspects of the Boundary Waters is the rock. There's just SO MUCH of it.

The Boundary Waters is on the "Canadian Shield," an enormous piece of rock, stretching from northern Wisconsin and Minnesota to Greenland in the north and New York in the east. Although it covers only a fraction of the United States, it covers almost half of Canada. It is covered by only a relatively thin layer of topsoil in most places; thus it is not a center of agriculture; its only serious resources are minerals, and it is sparsely populated. So, long story short, there are truly massive rocks in the Boundary Water Canoe Area Wilderness, most splinters of the gigantic Shield, but some part of it themselves. By massive, I mean thousand-ton, lichen-covered behemoths.

Something we puzzled on throughout our trip was a strange plant we found in our second campsite, on Baskatong Lake. It was composed of about fifteen greyish-white stalks with blackish flowers on top, set very close together. We at first thought it might was a Fungus, not a plant at all, for several reasons: (1) it was near some mushrooms--Fungi stick together because sometimes they are all connected underground, and because their spores, wind-spread, usually stay close; (2) It wasn't green--as most of you know, chlorophyll makes plants green--so it couldn't have chlorophyll or perform photosynthesis, 99.9% of plants' way of obtaining energy; and (3) it didn't LOOK like a plant. This odd speciment became even more zany when we saw that it was covered with bumblebees--at least two at ALL TIMES. Bees wouldn't be on a fungus, we though--would they?

Another long story short, when we were in Ely, MN on the way home, we bought two excellently-illustrated and informative books, one about the plants of the North Shore/BW area, and one about the Fungi in the same area. It didn't take us long to find what we wanted: It was, in fact, a plant called Indian Pipe. We learned that it was in a parasitic relationship with a certain Fungus (explaining the mushrooms around it); and the fungus itself is parasitic on the roots of the fir and pine trees! I recall saying, "That is SO COOL!" at least five times in the car after learning that ;).

Falling Asleep

As the silent weight of darkness falls,
And the birds of night their sweet haunting calls
And the leaves laugh sleepily in the nocturnal breeze,
We shut our eyes and lie with ease.

After a long day spent under the sun,
My being calls for sleep with every ion.
Whether little or much I've done in a day
The press to attain unconsciousness happens in much the same way.

Head centered on pillow, body prostrate on bed
My mind down the long tunnel of sleep is led
But before I follow, I think and muse
About the day's thoughts, fears, conversations, news.

Finally sleep carries me gently down
And thoughts leave my head as if I'm abdicating a crown.
I journey through the long dark hall
'Til I hear sweet morning's loud clarion call.

Boundary Waters, Part IV

[Sorry this one didn't follow the one-a-day theme. Thirty-hour workweeks are no fun. Enjoy!]

Day 4 - July 30

The most exciting thing that happened on this fourth day of our sojourn deep into enemy territory in the way between Man and Nature was the weather. We awoke to soporofic, pillowy clouds, which saw fit to dump some fairly mild, scattered rain on us throughout the day. Later, the clouds fractured and by dusk were confined to the edges of the horizon, so we were treated to a fiery last rally of the sun, unencumbered by cloud for virtually the first time that day before it sunk behind the tall, beautiful firs on the far shore.

Out here, we all took particular note of the weather. In our modern lives, the weather has a lessened effect on us. But when you're out in it, it's a different story. The above description of a day in weather isn't even all that exciting, but it's what we all noticed. You can see alot more sky in the BWCA than you can with a roof over your head, and so it's inevitable that you pay more attention to it and its subtle moods and changes.

As for us, we oozed around the campsite and our lake, blissfully wiling away the lazy hours, conscious of the beauty of this wilderness lake. We voyaged to see the beaver dam, so permanent a fixture of the landscape that it had quite a sizable pine growing out of it, that held this lake at its present water level. A solitary camper took the other campsite on this lake, but he made no noise at all and we only saw him flitting about the lake in his one-man canoe. It is funny that all of us seem to lower our voices naturally here. At night it is quieter than my bedroom at home; no wind, no train whistles, only the otherworldly, beautiful song of the loons and the soft slop of the water against the rocks. We are provisioned like kinds in the wilderness. After a majority of our trip has been taken, our food supply seems quite undented. The freeze-dried food exceeded expectations, but was inconvenient because one package was not enough, while two packages was much too much. We didn't even eat supper on the 30th, because of a very late lunch and the urge to get the food out of the camp, so that nighttime marauders wouldn't bother us. We made up for it the next morning with an enormous breakfast that lasted till 11. In conclusion, an immensely lazy but immensely fulfilling day.

The Book

Many's the time I've beheld a book
Just begging to be taken and read in some nook.
A book is a suitcase for story;
Of mirth, of magic, of glory.

It transports me to some far distant shore,
Where I'll watch Frodo and Sam making their way to Mordor.
Or I'll feel the salt spray on H.M.S. Surprise's bow,
And I'll see Beanstalk Jack being traded a few beans for a cow.

The best books are portals into another dimension;
To the perils of Leonidas, to D'arcy's condescencion.
The list goes far on, for there are many more,
the legends, the sagas, the myths and the lore.

As I open the book, my troubles meet relief.
From Saul's defeat to David's humble belief.
Like the Road to Damascus, and the one to perdition,
The best books are stories without termination.

Boundary Waters, Section III

We saw fit to sleep in luxuriantly, and dined less extravagantly on lukewarm instant oatmeal. The people in the campsite next to us left at some ungodly early hour, so we saw fit to bring up the average a bit by dawdling around. The rain had left our tents in an advanced state of soppiness, which made them almost TOO MUCH fun to take down--not. In the end, however, we managed it, and canoes safely loaded we set out.

The first checkpoint was a river at the end of our lake--Kawishiwi--Gesundheit!, which we found with no trouble even though the lake was shaped like an especially gnarled, island-dotted lower intestine. Paddling into the river was like entering a dream--a dream of sun and water and mud; trees and plants and above all, acres of verdant water lilies. Perhaps not exerting our imagination to the fullest, we dubbed this passage "Waterlily Alley."

There was a narrow passage through the lilies, so we didn't have to run over them, although I doubt they would have suffered much damage. That, anyway, was the theory. Yours Truly's navigational skills were not quite up to the task, and our canoe frequently strayed out of the lily-free avenue. The excursions onto the shoulder probably did nothing to increase Mom's confidence in my driving skills. But I was not entirely to blame. Whoever heard of a canoe with a keel? Isn't that what separates canoes from other boats? But our venerable plastic--yes, plastic--canoe was equipped with one, and it made the simplest turn into a hard effort. The canoe Dan and Abe had, by contrast, was as I could tell, graceful and supple in the water. It was Kevlar and cost $3000, which may have something to do with it.

Waterlily Alley ended quite abruptly in an excellently situated beaver dam.. We portaged it with a little less effort than it took to build Mt. Rushmore, and found ourselves in a narrow, angry bay filled with rocks and mud which led to a narrow, angry lake dotted with zit-like rocks. It was called Square Lake. Mom and I set off along the shore, in search of the lake's two campsites, while Dan and Abe, by prior agreement, set off across the lake to a portage, to see if the preferable sites in the next lake over were open. Without a map, finding the campsites wasn't that easy, especially since we were fighting sixty-mph winds and a ten-foot swell. I may be understating it just a bit. Mom and I did find an empty campsite, and settled down on a rather hospitable little island with view across the lake to the portage where Dan and Abe had disappeared through, waiting for the yay or nay signal. Dan and Abe returned and waved us over. At another time, perhaps, I will tell you how much fun it is to carry three Cuisinarts over a rocky, 1/4 mile portage. We found a palatial woodland bower of a campsite, where Dan had stayed before, and found ourselves at ease. The bugs stayed well clear for a while, because of some gusty, lusty winds, but soon returned in swarming vengeance. Some more rain fell as we drifted off into satisfied sleep in our tents, bastions against the heathen mosquito hordes.

Water

The vast, glistening expanse
Locked in eternal, rhythmic dance.
Sky's beautiful, fickle daughter
Not gas, not solid, but water.

The life-giving liquid of sorrow and joy;
Its changing mood and caprices play with us like a toy.
An unfirm foundation to our insignificant lives,
From St. Ives all the way to Maldives.

Titanic, Fitzgerald, how many thousands more
Driven and riven by sea on the shoals of death's door?
Yes how many battles, heights of human endeavor
Have been lost and won on the sea, in the past and forever?

Great Atlantic cries.
Sweet Gitchi-Gumi sighs.
Trackless Pacific shakes and moans.
Mediterranean makes kings, Baikal moans.
Water.

Many, Many Musings to Mention

It's been a slow blog week--partly because of work and numerous friend activities, and partly because we're leaving for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area tomorrow! Yes, the Hanson/Bratrud conflagration corporation is heading to the Great Watery North.

I've had a revelation of sorts; as you know, I've gone a month and a half without discussing the political stage on this blog. Shocking, really, when you think that up until that point this blog had been politics first and everything else secondary. But anyway, the revelation is that I rather enjoy not discussing politics. Politics is down-and-dirty, spontaneous, easy. If I'm under mental pressure to post about something, anything, politics immediately floats to the top because it's so easy. Everything in politics is either outrageous or pitiful or hateful or laughable--or all of the above. I don't hate politics, as the people who simply don't understand it say they do, but I have no illusions about what it is. I can't deny that it's necessary, either, but this blog attains a higher intellectual level by discussing politics, but discussing the cultural, religious, and societal trends that forge the political scene. Take, for example, the issue of the Anglican split, and deeper than that the confrontation between religious liberalism and religious conservatism. The Liberals are the Pacific plate, the Conservatives are the North American plate, and politics forms the San Andreas fault between them.

So, in the future, politics will be kept at a minimum at Mosings. This kills two birds with one stone, in fact. Many of my faithful readers profess to "hate" politics and to be bored out of their skulls when I write about it on this august pixelated faux-intellectual late-capitalist ex-literary collection of random coding known as a blog. So, I no longer have to ford the muddy river of politics to achieve the nirvana of blogging success, and I no longer have to bore and disappoint my audience!

Important Reader's Note: By "politics" I generally and non-bindingly mean the 2008 elections, and the lowest battleground of politics. Campaigns, political speeches, and that sort of thing. I will still be discussing important issues that have been unfortunate enough to have been deemed "political" but are, in fact, part of the plates rather than part of the fault.

Speaking of religious conservatism and religious liberalism, Abe and I have been watching episodes of the strangely addictive eighties British sitcom (I can think of no words more repellent to your average Simpson's fan than "eighties British sitcom") "Yes, Minister," and its sequel "Yes, Prime Minister" on YouTube. It's incredibly interesting and humorous to see Jim Hacker, MP (Paul Eddington) being held at the mercy of his Civil-Service advisor, Permanent Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby (Nigel Hawthorne), while his rather hapless Private Secretary Bernard Woolley (Derek Fowlds--how's that for a Welsh name?) is caught in the middle. It's mixture of G-rated tongue-in-cheek humor, political satire and intrigue, with fairly veiled political commentary is, to me and Abe, addicting. I can't explain it.

But anyway. One of the episodes we watched today was called "The Bishop's Gambit." In this episode, the Church of England forwards the customary two names to the Prime Minister so that he can pick one to reccomend to Her Majesty for a new Bishop of something or other. It's quintessentially British to leave the choosing of Bishop's names to forward to secular politicians. It leads to some frank conversation about the degenerate state of the Anglican Church. The Church official who briefs Prime Minister Hacker has already made up his mind, and tells him that so-and-so is a "Modernist." Sir Humphrey later tells Hacker that "Modernist" is key for "athiest," which indeed it is. The episode later descends into political shenanigans, but I winced at the smiling-on-the-surface-but-quite-barbed-underneath critique of the Church. Eddington (a devout Quaker) played Hacker's blindly altruistic secular caution about religious matters perfectly, and the great lines build up: (I paraphrase) Hacker: "Surely it's alright for a Bishop in the Church of England to believe in God?" Sir Humphrey: "Oh, you'd be surprised Prime Minister."

The whole "seperation of church and state" idea is carried much too far. But some people (David Limbaugh and his book "Persecution" come to mind) think that all our problems would be solved if all our leaders were at least outwardly Christian. Say hello to religious fascism. When sinful man and religion and the church (as opposed to Christ's Religion and Christ's Church) and government get mixed up, the result is either puritanism or resolute indifference for both parties. In Britain in the centuries following Henry VIII's self-serving break from Rome, the church has become steadily more indifferent to real Religion, so that it is now acceptable, as Hacker finds out, for a complete unbeliever to become a Bishop--as long as everyone knows but nobody tells the churchgoers (less and less every year in England--wonder why?). It is so pervasive, in fact, that true Christians are "extremists." But I'm walking on treaded ground--I've already covered the sad state of the Anglican church.

In other news, I've found plucky Kiwi blogger Poneke's post about one of the original Global Warming toadies renouncing it completely.

In still other news, I'm reading Marcus Tanner's Last of the Celts. Expect a post or series of posts about the state of the Celtic nations--as well as a trip log of our BWCA trip!--when we return.