WCB: Passing It On

At the end of May, I made my way up to Wilderness Canoe Base to volunteer for 3 weeks. After spending the past 6 summers working there, it was a natural place for me to kick off the summer. While the staff worked hard to get in all of the requisite training, I managed to find myself incredibly busy setting up the beautiful new Trailshack for the summer season. Trailshack is the outfitting building, home to lots of camping gear and dehydrated foods. The old TS was one of the many victims in the 2007 Ham Lake Wildfire. For two summers, it has been operating out of a tiny, insufficient building, but as of this spring it has a beautiful new home on the beach. It truly is gorgeous.
View of Trailshack from Canoe Beach Dock.

The grand finale of staff training is always the staff trip: 4 nights out in the Boundary Waters with a handful of fellow staff members. I jumped for joy when I was invited to tag along. It was a new role for me to not be the guide of the trip, but I enjoyed the trip immensely. Our route was familiar: Kek, Cherry, Sag, Seagull. Highlights of the trip were spending nearly 16 hours straight in our sleeping bags on a particularly cold and rainy day, witnessing an ungraceful duck fly into a hole in a tree, countless fits of giggling, learning that dehydrated veggies are not a good addition to trail pizza, and visiting a favorite place of mine - Benny Ambrose's site on the Ottertrack.
Typical June weather on staff trip.

Right before departing, I witnessed the first camper groups of the summer head out on trail. It was hard to digest the thought of not canoe guiding for the summer, and even more difficult to acknowledge that my chapter as a staff member has ended. But, I also have found joy in the thought and act of passing on my love for the place. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to share what my summers there have taught me with the staff and volunteers who find themselves there now.

Grandpa Onkka, the day before his 87th birthday, made the trek up to WCB with mom and dad to pick me up.

Summer 2008: Canoe Guide

I thought I should sum up (briefly) my summer since I think this blog will serve as a way of documenting my post-gradutation wanderings :)

The day after graduation, I headed north for my 6th summer at Wilderness Canoe Base (Boundary Waters, Grand Marais side, northern MN). It was my second summer guiding and I was lucky to guide six canoe trips.

Trip 1: Guiding a staff trip was quite an honor and incredibly enjoyable. In four nights we covered good territory and endured torrential downpours and extreme winds: Ottertrack, Kek, Gabi ("it looks like the ocean!"), Jap. The group of staff was phenomenal.

Trip 2: My second trip was an all-girls trip from a Twin Cities org, Treehouse, that reaches out to at-risk youth. Not experienced with camping, we did an easy Red Rock loop in 4 days. It was the loudest group I've ever heard, to say the least.

Trip 3: With a group from Gustavus Adolphus Church (twin cities?), we did work projects on base for 2 days and then went on a short trip for 2 nights. The group was excellent. Highlights included convincing them that boreal monkeys exist and doing the Grandpa portage, which was a big challenge for them.

Trip 4: This was by far the easiest trip to guide. The group was very experienced camping and, to top it off, I had two swampers. We were incredibly efficient on portages and so just flew. The route was mostly new to me as well (Ogish, Little Sag, Tusc, Long Island, pick up on Ham). Definitely a beautiful route! Highlights were the Tusc portage (over a mile) and just enjoying the beauty of a canoe trip where you aren't nagging kids to do things all the time.




Trip 5: An enthusiastic group of 8th and 9th graders from Calvary. In three nights, we went up to Sag, then down the Granite river and got a pick up at Larch Creek. Once again, it was exciting for me to do a less typical route. The kids were inexperienced, but full of joy and wonder. Highlights included our last day of "adventure!" (which really means "obstacle"). We trudged through mud and muck, walked up deep rapids, and crossed many beaver dams.

Trip 6: The reason I love canoe guiding! This group was from PYC (Plymouth Youth Center - an alternative high school from North Mpls). I was a bit nervous going into the trip because it was my third trip in a row without a day off and also because it had been a while since I had worked with urban kids. With absolutely no camping experience, the group had a rough start to the week. By the end, however, we saw quite a turn-around. I have never laughed so much on a canoe trip before. I've also never seen jump-roping while hanging a bear pack or had the soulja boy dance done in a tent! It was fabulous. It affirmed my desire to work with urban kids.

Overall the summer went well. Each of my trips brought new challenges and new joys. I left base a few days early to go home and pack for INDIA!!!!