Some friends and I like to go to Quetico, Ontario, Canada. We like to go in early May, as soon as the Ice is off the water. Quetico is a wilderness area, no roads, no phones, no lights and when we go, few people. We are generally days away from the nearest ranger station. A bush plane flies us in, drops us, our gear and our canoes into Quetico and we spend the next 8 days canoeing back out. Paddling and fishing. We take safety very seriously. We bring full medical kits, sutures, anti-biotics, splints, the works. Julia is always uncomfortable when I go on this trip. But really, so long as you keep your head and focus on safety, it's a reasonable trip to take. Scouts often take trips to the US side in the Boundary Water Canoe Area.
On one trip with two friends, CK and Mike K., our course took us across Crooked Lake. We have crossed many lakes in many weather circumstances. Sometimes the lakes will be as calm as glass. But the weather can turn bad in minutes and a strong wind can make the lakes treacherous. Changing weather on a lake can be one of the most dangerous circumstances a paddler can face. Also, on this day, we had fallen into a condition of dehydration which took a week for us to recover from. The wind had been blowing extremely hard all day. We portaged through the woods and came upon 23 mile long Crooked Lake. A lake the size of Crooked Lake can be extremely turbulent. In this case, it was. The waves were rolling in and were a couple of feet high. The wave length was about 6 feet from crest to crest. The wind was blowing in our face. Where we had to cross, the lake was about 3 miles wide. We looked at the distant shore across this maelstrom of water, knowing we had to cross. CK and Mike wanted to skirt along the shore. I knew we couldn't do that, because to do so would turn the side of our canoe to the wind and waves. A formula to capsize in the icy cold water. This is not a place where you want to be frozen and without equipment. There is no one there to lend assistance. You have to rely on yourself. I said that we would see how it was when we got out of our bay before we decided whether to skirt the shore or go straight across. I knew already that we would have to go straight across. We loaded our canoe, which was extremely overloaded. CK and Mike both played college basketball, and both are well over 6 feet tall. At 200 pounds, I was the smallest of the three. We also carried all of the equipment with us that we needed to survive in the woods for more than a week (about 400 pounds of equipment.) Once in the canoe, we began to plow ahead. Canoes are made to ride the waves, but we were so heavy that we wallowed through the waves. As we broke out of the mouth of the bay and into the full force of the wind and waves, the conditions grew worse. CK and Mike both recognized that we couldn't turn broadside to the waves and keep our canoe. I was glad when they agreed to head straight across Crooked Lake even though it was into the teeth of the wind. The waves hit us so quickly that three waves rolled along the canoe at every moment. A canoe is a light vessel. The wind will cause you to "sail" which means that the wind tries to turn the boat sideways and makes it difficult to paddle directly into the wind. Our progress across the frigid waters was tortuously slow. We stroked with everything we had, putting all of our strength and energy into the fight across this tempestuous lake. Stroke, Stroke, Stroke.all three of us, as hard as we could push the canoe. More than an hour later, we were in the middle of the lake, half way to our destination, wind and waves still fighting us. Mike shouted out, "Hey the waves are coming into the canoe, is that supposed to happen?" "Yeah, Mike. Just like that. Now Row!" We kept up our efforts, knowing the danger that existed if we dumped into the water. We would be cold, would lose our equipment, there would be no help, and we were more than a mile from shore. We continued to stroke and bit by bit the far shore drew nearer. Finally, finally, we fell into the lee of the far shore and the waves grew more tolerable. When we got to the far shore, we fell out of the canoe and onto the shore, laid down and gasped for air. For the next 2 days we battled conditions like this. We couldn't stop, and we couldn't take a break. We had to move every day if we were to make it back to civilization on time. It's difficult to explain how circumstances like this breathe the exhilaration of life into your body, but it does. It challenges you, but from these challenges you gain.I don't know. Every time you prevail over a difficult circumstance, you become stronger. Don't shrink from challenges. That makes you less strong. Face them and Prevail!
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