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Canoeing Minnesota’s Boundary Waters With Three Generations By Jim Umhoefer
Back when my camping clothes fit more loosely, I measured the success of an outing in Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) by the distance covered. The more miles paddled in a day somehow added to the value of the trip. That was pre-kid and grandkid thinking. Canoeing with family and friends in the BWCAW is about quality, not quantity, my wife reminded me before I shoved off on a five-day, four-night adventure with one grandpa, three dads and five young men.
"You're there to enjoy yourselves, Jim, not to see how far you can go."
When the kids were hungry, we fired up our gas stove for a first-night meal of chicken, peas and potatoes. We devised teams for kitchen patrol duty for the duration of the trip. This meant when each team's turn came, it cooked and cleaned up for all of one day's meals. In the end, time was the essence of our wilderness jaunt — time made for family, friends and fun in a place where time didn't matter. As it turned out, the miles covered didn't matter either. When the kids asked if we could do this again some other time, I knew that was what mattered most.
My wife said: "You're there to enjoy yourselves, Jim, not to see how far you can go. If that means staying in one site for a couple of days to let the kids play in the lake, then that is more important than covering a set distance." We pushed off on our adventure of discovery in three canoes. We rotated paddlers so everyone had a chance to lounge like a lizard amid the gear in the middle of the canoe. Usually, it didn't matter that a couple of our canoes zigzagged across a lake, powered by inexperienced paddlers. When the sky threatened or the wind howled, we made haste to a nearby shore. After a first-day storm faded, the broad sky over Pipestone Bay opened into a vault of warm blue. We selected a shady, spacious campsite under the pines by 2 p.m. By getting an early paddling start, we reasoned, we'd get the pick of campsites by early afternoon.
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NOVEMBER 2024
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