An Early Winter Journey

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FROM THE BOUNDARY WATERS JOURNAL / WINTER 1989

man and nature

by C. Mark Sakry An Early Winter Journey

"It's a Beaver, not a Canadian plane," Michael Honer asserted while the distant aircraft approached our winter encampment on Bayley Bay of Basswood Lake. Indeed the plane had the deep thrumming drone distinctive of the American Beaver, nickname for the patrol aircraft of the U.S. Forest Service.
The three of us had expected a possible fly-by once we had reached our destination deep inside the Quetico, but we never reached it. Now, being so close to the U.S.-Canada border, we were not sure who it was that might actually be checking us out. Authorities on both sides must certainly have been aware of the perilous conditions winter travellers had been facing in the border-country wilderness.
Through my binoculars, I noted the distinctive marking of the American Beaver—white fuselage, red wingtips and tail. "Let's get moving," I said. "Let's get a signal out and let them know what's happening."

INTO THE COUNTRY
    Three days earlier, the day after Christmas, we embarked from the public landing on Moose Lake in the BWCAW. We had received reports two weeks earlier that the ice here remained impassable. This concerned us, of course, for our ten-day expedition into Quetico's interior had required a great deal of planning. More than that, we were anxious to experience, under the pristine cloak of winter, the same wilderness haunts we enjoyed in summer. Luckily, ensuing reports (along with some colder weather) convinced us that lake travel might be possible. Indeed, we found Moose Lake frozen solid and passable.
    We made Found Lake, our first destination, without incident. We traveled on skis and pulled pack sleds. The ice held firm. A scant three-inch cover of snow, blown clear by the wind, made travel even easier; especially for the dog, who pulled his own load. Spirits were high!
    Found Lake was our first lay-over before an assault through more than a mile of timber to Lake Manomin the next morning. This is a shortcut often used by winter anglers and trekkers who want to save time reaching Basswood and other remote areas to the north. The faint track of a solitary trekker already wound up the trail through the thin, patchy snow inside the forest—a welcome sight to anyone who must negotiate a little-used trail through unfamiliar forest; it is always much easier to follow someone else's track. This would save us some time.
    But, unfortunately, the same conditions that had made lake travel such a breeze the day before, now clobbered us in the timber. Lack of snow left spines, boulders and logs completely exposed to our equipment; both our gear and bodies suffered for it. Later that evening, Michael Honer would enter in his journal: "Trouble in paradise. The first portage gave our equipment a tough test—we got a D+. My sled poles were too light and everybody's grommets were pulling out. Great day for jerry-rigging …"
    I had to work double-duty to get my poor dog Tyke unsnagged, more than just a few times. I pushed and shoved his load over a sizable portion of trail. The worst was yet to come. Following Michael's previous journal entry, he scrawled: "Next (and more serious) problem, thin ice …"

INKLINGS OF PERIL
    We had broken through the timber to straddle a narrow, swampy stream with long amber puddles floating on top of the ice. We opted, as the trekker before us had, to wade instead through a dense leatherleaf sea adjacent to it. Tyke had trouble through this low brush—he kept plunging off track ahead of me—so I attached a brake line to his sled and tied it around my waist to restrain him.
    Soon we were skidding across the Manomin Lake proper to where a small stream dumps through the timber for a short ways into Basswood. Here is where each of us was starting to get inklings of real trouble.
    The sled track which Michael assayed from the lead took a sudden bee-line course toward the timber, far down shore from the stream mouth where the portage supposedly was. In this country—especially in winter—this does not generally reflect ignorance in the person who passed before you. It reflects good judgement. That meant, at least to our previous traveler, that stream travel was out of the question. And not only stream travel … but anywhere near the stream-mouth travel. We had many streams and stream-mouths to cross ahead of us.
    The track took a welcome jag toward the portage through a cattail bog along shore, and I managed to go through the ice. Everyone had passed before me without trouble. But, having removed my skis to better handle Tyke, I broke through with one leg to the knee.
    It was a minor accident—my foot came up caked with mud—and it did not bother me so much in itself. It was the feeling I'd had of being pinned down by my sled's pole harness, unable to jump quickly away from hazard, that got me. The thought of going through up to my neck was grossly unnerving. The faces of my companions were dead-pan. We had a long way to go.
    Then, gurgling water from the spruces near the portage. An intangible feeling of dread was starting to well in me.

BROAD WATERS
    Tyke's tail strummed the sled rope stretching behind him as we negotiated the barren portage. The sleds left soft blue streaks along the stones where their plastic bottoms scraped across them. The trail-side stream tumbled down into a vast whirling pool and disappeared under a thin rim of ice that extended endlessly across Bayley Bay. After reaching the end of the portage, we traversed the shoreline for a ways, then headed onto the ice.
    "Well, it's black ice alright," Mike Hondl stated sardonically, referring to the early season ice conditions we faced—and the first of two large expanses of ice we had to cross. Big bodies of water, such as Bayley and North Bay of Basswood Lake, are the last to freeze up. The middle is usually the last to give out … and that's where we were going; the middle.
    Squeak-squeak, squeak-squeak … Michael Honer's ski poles crept along beside him, producing the agonizing twitter characteristic of thin ice. His pace slowed. Mike Hondl's twittering slowed twenty yards behind Michael's. Mine slowed twenty yards behind his, the brake line on Tyke's sled pulling taught around my waist where I had tied it with a quick-release knot at hand's reach: "Back, back
    We slowed but never stopped moving. I wore skis now, not just for easier travel but to better distribute my weight. I felt as though we might all be engulfed at any moment. This was not the sound ice we had experienced on smaller lakes behind us.
    Soon we approached a small island far out from shore. Michael side-stepped over to it and poked around the ice off a rocky shoal with his ski pole. A single lunge and … through! With a quick recoil, he basketed enough ice cubes for afternoon cocktails. He sidestepped quickly back and away. "Yikes, it's thin!" he exclaimed.
    Yet, upon boring through nearby lake ice with an auger, we found its thickness to be five inches. Respectable … except that we were not even one-tenth of the full distance across the bay—and the middle was a long, long way from the nearest point of land. Each of us was beginning to have serious misgivings about this entire project, but still no second thoughts about continuing the journey. To simply retreat to shoreline travel would multiply our distance formidably.
    Michael dug in his fanny pack for a coil of rope. Tying one end snuggly around his waist, he coiled the rest and stuffed it loosely into the side pocket of his parka.
    "Grab this when the time comes, eh?"
    We got the message.
    Taking the lead, Michael assayed the bay with great caution, scrutinizing the ice closely for signs of thinness. It showed many cracks but no wide fissures or seepage. Occasionally, one of us would stoop to measure up a crack's breadth. Never less than two or three inches, thankfully … even two miles from shore.
    Finally, we basked in relief on the sand beach where Michael and I had first camped together more than twenty years earlier during a Quetico canoe trip. This is where the portage leaves Bayley Bay to Burke Lake. We munched trail mix and drank much-needed fluids. Tyke sniffed around some fresh wolf tracks.

OTTER SIGNS
    Crossing Burke Lake proved to be no less perilous. We were hard put to maneuver past numerous escape holes, maintained by otters, where the ice was unquestionably weaker. We would pass as much as thirty yards from one of the apertures, and the water would swell and bob to the rhythm of our movements, sometimes spilling over onto the ice.
    Squeak-squeak, squeak-squeak … that agonizing twitter again. But this time we had slush to go with it. Skiing through slush, as any seasoned trekker will tell you, is like skiing with lead boots on. The combined effort of dealing with this and veering off our otherwise straight course to avoid wet spots near otter holes was starting to wear on us. We would have to make camp within the next hour or two.
    Again, gurgling water. Following the good judgement of our wayward "companion," whose faint sled track we had left behind hours ago, we steered clear of the stream mouth near the portage and left Burke Lake without incident.
    Then it happened … what each of us had quietly dreaded since we left Manomin. Beyond the modest spillway near the end of the portage the flowage spread wide and long, a full quarter-mile of open stream hedged by dense timber on either side: Impassable!
    Dread turned slowly to grief. There was absolutely no way that we could ski with pack sleds along the bouldered edge or crash through the forest above it. There simply wasn't enough snow. Our poor equipment had suffered enough.
    Our hopes were dashed. We would never reach the interior of Quetico now. We had reached the ultimate winter impasse: open water.
    Someone grumbled something about making camp, and we all went silently about the business of settling-in for the night. We decided to retreat to Bayley Bay the following day.
    The next morning we headed on foot along the open stream to get a glimpse of North Bay. An otter basked on a fragile ice mass jutting from shore. We crossed the portage near the end of the stream and walked out onto the lake for a long bitter-sweet view. On our way back, Mike Hondl plunged through the ice five feet from shore.
    Fortunately, once again, it was only knee-deep. We needed no further convincing that retreat was our best alternative. We made it back to a sheltered bivouac on the northeastern shore of Bayley Bay by mid-afternoon.
    At 5:28 p.m. Michael Honer wrote in his journal:
    "Sitting by the fire watching Mark make spaghetti … the wind is really starting to howl through the pines. The disappointment of not being able to make our destination is starting to wane … accepting the cards dealt."
    The cold moved in fast. Two days later it would snow. NewYear's Day it would be 20 below zero, and the wind would make it feel like 70 below zero. This night would be long-remembered, and it would make all these other events pale by comparison. Listen …

DEEP THUNDER
    The wind howls through the pines. The dying embers of an abandoned fire are fanned to a soft glow. The fly of the tent flutters steadily against the blow—then thunder. Inside, a faint whimper, then the consoling voice of a man: "Hush, Tyke," and more thunder. The thunder does not come from above but booms and crashes from the ice mass beyond … booms and cracks and rumbles and snaps across the vast expanse of the lake. Throughout the night it resounds and echoes from Green Island to Norway Point, from Sunday to Wind Bay—booming and reverberating without light, crackling and thundering until dawn.
    Finally, dawn's light stills the tempest and it grows quiet. A faint grumbling from the dying storm below, and a new day emerges on a breath of wind.
    Somewhere—the distant drone of a solitary aircraft on patrol. There is a low murmur of voices inside the forest … then the figure of a man and a dog walking onto the ice from the shore where a single column of smoke rises through the pines. The man places logs on the ice—the figure LL—then stands behind it facing the lake with one arm pointing straight upward toward the sky. The aircraft tips its wings in affirmative response to the message below:
    "LL—All's well."

SIDEBAR:
Danger: Thin Ice!