David Heiller
Tom pointed out the bare hills bordering Moose Lake shortly after we started
skiing down it on Saturday, February 23. They looked black and stony, as if a fire had burned them, but the
deforestation actually came from a wind storm.
The real magnitude of
that famous July 4, 1999 storm hit us a little later, as
we skied on a portage into Rice Lake. Three years ago, the portage was right
out of a Boundary Waters postcard. Big, beautiful birches and poplars lined the
ski trail.
But not now. About 90
percent of the trees were on the ground, or snapped off at right angles 15 feet
above the ground. They all lay in the same direction, as if a volcano had
erupted to the west.
David cooking on Little Puffer. |
“Look at all the new
growth,” Tom said when we stopped in the midst of the mess. He was right;
you couldn’t put your arm out without hitting a small tree. Fickle old Mother
Nature was fast at work, undoing the damage she had wrought.
And once we got to
Basswood Lake, the storm damage was gone. That was amazing too. How could the
wind mow down a whole forest like a scythe, and not touch a tree a mile away?
Those are the kinds of questions that winter ski trips bring out.
Once we hit the bay on
Basswood, we drilled holes and started fishing. This spot had yielded some big
northerns in
the past, and both Tom and I expected no less this time.
Then we pitched our tent on an island. Several huge
white pines still stood there untouched. They seemed like stout old friends to
me. Tom figured they were a couple hundred years old. It was good to see them
standing, although Tom noted that they were in poor health and would probably
fall down soon. Science teachers notice things like that.
Tom put Little Puffer in the middle of the tent. Little Puffer is a stove that he made
out of an old gas can, and it is a testimony to the importance of a stove in
winter camping that it is given a name.
We cut firewood and
watched for the flags on
our tip-ups to spring into action. Not more than an hour later, I had the first
northern on the ice, a four-pounder. Then Tom pulled in two more, a couple
pounds bigger than mine. They were dark and fat. “You just don’t see northerns
like that back home,” Tom marveled.
As darkness fell, a west wind
whipped across the bay. We foolishly ate our supper outside by the campfire. It was cold! But that changed after
we crawled into the tent and lit Little
Puffer. “What took you so long?”
the stove almost seemed to say as Tom struck a match to the birch bark
and twigs inside it. In just a few
minutes we were sitting on our sleeping pads and starting to shed our layers of
clothing.
We
lit two candle lanterns and hung them from the center pole. They cast a golden light. Our pads were on benches of
snow that conformed to our bodies better than the most expensive mattress. We
talked and read. Then I started
dozing off. It was getting late. I looked at my watch: 7:30 p.m.
If
there is a better recipe for sleep, I would like to find it: a cozy tent, a warm
sleeping bag. The sound of the wind
blowing through the friendly pines. A body that is tired from a seven-mile
ski.
Skiing till your head is clear. |
We
were both asleep by nine. I can’t remember the last time I slept that well.
The fish of the weekend hit Tom’s
tip-up the next morning. He set the
hook, and the fish didn’t give. It was like the cliché that fisherman
say: “I thought it was a snag,” although
Tom to his credit didn’t say that, because snags don’t tear line off a reel
like this one did. Then it shook its head and the line sliced into Tom’s little
finger, and it was gone. Tom pulled in the line with a mixed grin of
disappointment and admiration.
We will never know how big it was. That’s kind of fun to think about. Basswood Lake holds the state record for
northern pike, 45 pounds, 10 ounces. Maybe this
one was its grandson.
And that was the
peak of the fishing for us. That happens sometimes. After that, the fish quit
biting. They would take a line and run with the bait, then drop it. When it came time to set the hook, there would
be nothing to set. The storm system that was dumping a foot of snow on Pine
County was sending its signals all the way to the Canadian border, telling
those big dumb northerns not to eat any more smelt.
On Sunday afternoon,
I took a day trip and skied into Canada for several miles. I didn’t see another person, or any animals. But it was
still a fantastic time. The songs that were rattling around in my head finally
quieted down. That’s when I know I’ve reached
some inner peace, when my brain is empty,
and I can just think about the wind and the lake and my
skis gliding effortlessly over the snow like I could have skied forever, just
kept going.
“Did you catch any
fish?” I asked Tom when I got back to camp later that afternoon.
Hanging up stuff. |
“Look by the fire,” he said with a poker players
grin.
I walked over and saw five nice northerns on the
snow. Tom let me babble on for a bit, he told me that they were the fish we had
caught earlier. He had had to move them because a mink had discovered them and
was trying to eat them. Tom said he had to chase the animal away three times.
That night, before
we went to bed, we hung the fish in a pack from a tree, to make sure the mink
wouldn’t return.
We skied back on
Monday, after a morning of fruitless fishing. The seven mile ski back home
seemed easy. Just before we reached the landing on Moose Lake, two dog teams
sped past us. They were cruising. What a beautiful sight. They moved with such
ease and joy, and each musher gave us a wave as they rode past. The sight will
stick with me for a long time, a carefree memory from a successful winter
camping trip with the big fish that got away.
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