 Greetings
fellow bow people. :-)
Another little story and some pics to share with you a day in the life
of a wilderness woman ...
It’s been a few years since I’ve been up to the Gunflint.
Even though I live north, near Minneapolis to be exact, the Gunflint Trail
is even more “north-er”, up on the Minnesota/Canadian border. The pines
and birch-studded hills and lowlands surround the long and narrow Gunflint
Lake. On the other side of this lake is Ontario.
Sarah wishes to walk across the lake, to be able to
say, “I’ve been to Canada.” She may get her wish this weekend, but for
now, she’ll have to enjoy the view of Canada from “our side.”
This is Sarah’s first time at a B.O.W. workshop. Sarah
has been mistaken for my younger sister, but she is actually my eldest
child, just a few months short of her 18th birthday, and she
is the youngest B.O.W. participant this weekend.
She is not that big into the outdoors, especially
in the wintertime, but I felt a date with my daughter for a weekend away
together would be a wonderful bonding experience, before she is too busy
with college and work and boys. When the weekend is over, we shall see.
The first evening we watched dozens of deer come
into the corn feeder outside the main lodge, where we were inside eating
our dinner. At first there were only does, but when 2 big racked bucks
(still sporting their headgear on Feb. 28th!), came in, they
chased/scared the females away, so they could claim the corn crib all to
themselves. Only one had the courage to attempt to eat at the crib with
the bucks, but did it ever so cautiously.
The deer would scatter when people walked by but
would always come back in short order with corn on their minds. I thought
I would try something… A game. As long as I was wearing my Mossy Oak camo
from head to toe, I would wait for a time when the deer would scatter,
then I’d go plant myself up against a tree and wait for them to come back.
I “became one with the tree,” so much so that deer would walk right by
me and not know I was there. I had past my test.
Later that evening, we took in a slide presentation
and short video on sled dog racing. Dan Bergerson was an excellent teacher,
as he has been in many sled dog races, including the Ididarod. He has since
retired and now trains dogs for races only.
I’ve known Dan for several years now, being that
I seem to be a permanent fixture at many of the seasonal B.O.W. workshops,
and he is often there teaching a class or two. I let Dan know that Sarah
had chosen Dog Sledding as a course to take while here, but the class filled
too quickly and she did not get in. He told Sarah that nonetheless, he
would give her a ride tomorrow. Maybe now she’d enjoy this winter stuff!
 The
next morning found Sarah attending a Polar Fleece class which she enjoyed
because she was able to stay inside where it was toasty warm. She also
got to sew, which is something she enjoys doing. And on this particular
occasion, it was even necessary, as she had lost one of her mittens before
our trip and could now make a new pair for herself.
My class of choice was called “Talk to the Animals”,
where we learned about moose calling in particular.A short video was also
shown on how to bring in moose. Bob Baker, the instructor, used his homemade
birch bark cone to make a cow moose call. We were impressed.
We grabbed a bunch of various calls off the table
and took them outside to hear how far the sound would travel. We proceeded
to rake shed antlers together; blow on owl, crow and goose calls; strike
on turkey slate calls and box calls too; make doe bleats, buck grunts and
my favorite --- the rabbit in distress call. After we split into 2 groups,
we all had a good time trying to “talk” with the other group, which was
about 100 yards down the road. Lots of laughter ensued.
The afternoon class of choice for me was “Trapping”.
This was actually the 3rd time I have taken this class at a
winter B.O.W. workshop simply because I find it exciting to watch a trapline
being hauled up out of the icy waters just to find a dead beaver on the
other end. This time there were 2 traplines set, one at the entrance to
the beaver lodge and the other a few yards away that was baited with one
of their favorite types of wood, poplar.
A very young beaver was pulled up near the lodge and
a bigger one, about 40#, was pulled up at the baited site.
Kevin Walsh the instructor skun it out right there,
while telling us about how he used to make wallets and belts out of beaver
tails, and how much money he used to bring in when selling a beavers dried
castors that were later used in expensive perfume, and how much work would
go into skinning and fleshing a beaver but the end result was a check from
the Canadian Fur Auction for his well cared for pelts.
This is an activity I feel I could enjoy if I lived
out in the country.
The wind picked up something brutal in the afternoon
and the snow began to fall. It was hard to see very far across the lake,
as at times, it looked like a white-out. Canada disappeared a few times,
but then would reappear into our sight.
I had planned on taking my truck and driving down
the Gunflint Trail that evening after dinner to go moose watching, as they
like to lick the salt off the snowy roads, but I decided against it, with
the wind and snow the way it was. There is no cell phone reception in these
parts. There’s not even radio reception! I decided to just snuggle into
our A-frame cabin at the Gunflint Pines campground with our roomies instead.
Our room-mates were from Iowa, but we wouldn’t hold
that against them.
One of them did make our evening exciting by lighting
a fire in the wood stove and having the ashes and smoke pour out of the
stove vents. The smoke in the air stung our eyes and made us cough… and
giggle. Especially when they said, “We’re not from Iowa, we’re just girls
from Wisconsin with Iowa plates.” I do so love the smell of wood smoke
in my hair anyways.
The next morning we woke up to –30º. Good thing
our Air-gun class was held INSIDE! Unfortunately, it took a little while
to get there, as my truck decided it was too cold to start. I’d turn the
key and it would only say “Un-uhh!” It took awhile, but it eventually turned-over,
which was a good thing. We didn’t want to walk the almost 2 miles up and
down hills to the main lodge and class in those temps. That was a bit too
much even for us hardy Minnesotans.
In the Air-gun class, there were 2 gals from Germany.
They said they were interested in the class because they are not really
allowed to shoot guns in Germany and thought it was neat that we could
here.
I think Sarah would like to take what she learned
from this class and be able to ping some pop cans (or critters) out in
the woods with one of our .22’s.
We were told by Dan to leave the air-gun class a
bit early and he would then let Sarah go for a sled dog ride on the frozen
lake. It was a good thing we were well bundled up in layers, as the temps
had only warmed up to about –20º. The sun was shining brightly but
the air was cold which made it was painful on bare skin,
She enjoyed the ride immensely and was glad she
got the chance. She was even on Canada’s side so now she can say that she
was there!
We both had made some new friends while there at the
B.O.W., we took pictures and exchanged e-mail addresses with some of the
ladies. Hopefully we’ll meet up with them again at some future B.O.W. event.
Sarah said she wants to go to the spring workshop in May when it’s much
warmer. Maybe she’ll turn out to be an outdoors woman after all!
~Tumbleweed |
