Archives for October 2015

Gathering, cutting and splitting firewood for our woodstove is a daily chore. It is good exercise and it gives us a chance to walk slowly through the woods hunting for firewood. When gathering firewood we are constantly scanning the forest looking for dry, dead, wood that is lying or near
the ground. We often see grouse, red squirrels, mushrooms, and other interesting things that are often missed when we are walking down a portage trail and not looking carefully.
#wildernessyear #savetheBWCA #wilderness #onlyinMN #boundarywaters #BWCA

#Repost from our friends at @ducttapethenbeer who are capturing #WildernessYear on video
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A pristine repost from @arborealis on a DTTB mission with @mattvanbiene to shoot in the Boundary Waters Wilderness with Amy and Dave Freeman (@freemanexplore). This is White Iron Lake, home to Wintergreen Dogsled Lodge, which falls along the path of pollution of the proposed Twin Metals Mining sulfide-ore copper mining project. Just downstream from here lies the 1.2 million acre Boundary Waters Wilderness where Amy and Dave are one month into their Year in the Wilderness. #savethebwca

Splitting wood is one of our many daily chores. The sun is often setting as Dave processes wood that will heat our tent in the evening and take the chill of in the morning before we break camp. #wildernessyear #savetheBWCA #BWCA #BoundaryWaters #wilderness

Our days contain many beautifully simple tasks like gathering water from the Basswood River. Life in the Wilderness is full of chores and we remain active from dawn to dusk most days, but there is still time to slow down and watch the sunset, hear otters crunching on crayfish after dark along the waters edge outside our tent, and appreciating the radiant heat of the wood stove after stoking it with logs we gathered, cut, and split a few hours earlier. #wildernessyear #savethebwca #BWCA #boundarywaters #sunset #simplelife #water

The Basswood River spills over many ledges and squeezes through rock walls where it empties out of Basswood Lake. There is a mile long portage that bypasses the first mile an a half of river, where most of these rapids lie. Gazing up the river this morning from our campsite at the base of the rapids we longed to see what was around the next bend. It had been many years since I followed the river channel rather than taking the mile long portage. Amy had always taken the portage, never witnessing this stretch of the river. In reality, taking the portage is probably faster and easier than following the river, but we had time and we wanted to feel the pull of the river and hear all of its throbbing, boiling rapids. We spent several hours paddling, lining, and portaging past the many ledges and rapids. We didn’t see a soul all day, we had the river to ourselves.
We stopped for lunch at the top of the last rapids before Basswood Lake and watched the water course by, there is something so soothing about moving water. The Kawishiwi River flows into Basswood Lake and eventually flows over the rapids and through the rock walls we had just navigated. Water polluted by the Twin Metals mine would flow right past here, right through the heart of Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness on its way to Voyageurs National Park. The edge of our nation’ s most popular Wilderness isn’t an appropriate place to build a giant copper mine. Please share this, and help us @savetheBWCA . #wildernessyear #savethebwca #boundarywaters #BWCA #onlyinMN

Yesterday morning we said goodbye to our new friends from Patagonia. Four employees from the Patagonia stores in Saint Paul and Chicago paddled in to resupply us with much needed provisions. We camped together on Horse Lake and enjoyed swapping stories and laughter with them. Thursday was a picture perfect fall day, but yesterday was cold, windy, and rainy so they were able to experience the Wilderness in several moods. It was already drizzling when we woke up, so everyone gathered in our tent for coffee and oatmeal. Gathered around the woodstove we were warm and dry. Food, good company, and a warm dry place out of the rain, what more do you need? Before we knew it 10:30 rolled around and we were still laughing and visiting. It was fun to have house guests.

Patagonia has been an amazing partner for both Paddle to DC, and now A Year in the Wilderness. We are so grateful for all of the support they have given @savetheBWCA and are stoked they keep finding new and exciting ways to support our efforts to #savetheBWCA. Employees from the Chicago and St. Paul stores are assisting with several resupplies as part of their environmental internship program. We look forward to another @patagonia resupply in the spring! The @PatagoniaProvisions Tsampa Soup and wild salmon with couscous that Christy made for dinner was to die for. She set the bar high for the next resupply team.

Ely Outfitting Company loaned them a canoe, several local families put them up for the night before they entered the Wilderness, and our expedition manager, Levi, helped arrange all the details and paddled in with them. A Year in the Wilderness is really a group effort, something much larger than Amy and I. These resupplies are a wonderful reminder of the growing community of individuals, groups, and businesses that are all working together to protect the Boundary Waters Watershed from sulfide-ore mining and make A Year in the Wilderness possible.
#wildernessyear #savetheBWCA #friends #onlyinMN @patagonia @patagoniaprovisions @patagoniastpaul @patagoniachicago @savetheBWCA #boundarywaters #BWCA

After a month immersed in Wilderness, it is becoming easier to notice small windows into the natural word surrounding us that often go unnoticed. This morning I watched the sun’s early morning rays melt frost off these wild strawberry leaves. A few moments after the sunlight first illuminated the leaves, these tiny ice crystals were transformed into glistening droplets of water. Take a moment to slow down each day. Observe and appreciate the wonderful planet we live on and reflect on what you can do to leave the earth better than you found it. #wildernessyear #onlyinMN #MNcapture #boundarywaters #BWCA #savetheBWCA

Wilderness helps us realize that we are a part of something much greater and remember we are placed on earth for a instant in geologic time. What we do with our time and how we leave the earth is up to us. Gliding across the mirror smooth surface of Vera Lake as the setting sun’s golden glow engulfs the landscape all we could hear was the water dripping of our paddles between each rhythmic stroke and rapid wing beats of a loon as it flew overhead.
Moments like help strengthen our resolve. We must protect the Boundary Waters for future generations. We must speak loudly for this quiet place. The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is a national treasure like Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon; these public lands belong to all of us and its up to us to protect them for future generations.
The EPA considers hard rock mining to be the nation’s most polluting industry. Foreign mining companies want to build giant copper mines in a sulfide-ore body on the edge of the Boundary Waters, our nation’s most popular Wilderness area. A mine of this type has never been build anywhere in the world without causing significant surface or ground water pollution. Please like @savethebwca , sign the petition, make a donation, and help protect this national treasure. #wildernessyear #savetheBWCA #wilderness #BWCA #BoundaryWaters #keepitwild

After 28 days in the Wilderness we have fallen into a routine. Many of the tasks that we do everyday are very repetitive. One of the tasks we do over and over again is portaging. On short canoe trips we usually try to pack light so we can carry our canoe and all of our food and equipment across a portage in one trip. On a year long journey, fast and light didn’t seem like the best recipe. We are hear to experience, document, and share the wilderness. We are often carrying more than 10 days worth of food with us and we have a few extra creature comforts along. Sure our Helinox chairs add a couple pounds and our Sea to Summit pillows, portable shower, and comfy sleeping pads add a few extra ounces, but they make life so much more comfortable and they are well worth the extra weight.
We are content to carry two loads across each portage. One benefit is we get to walk back across each portage without a load on our back to retrieve our second load. We often spot grouse hiding in the bushes, wolf tracks in the mud, and an assortment of interesting mushrooms on our return trip. Sure it takes us a little longer to get from point A to point B, but in many ways being in the Wilderness is as much about the journey, as it is the destination.
Please help us protect the Boundary Waters from sulfide-ore mines that are being proposed on the edge of our nation’s most popular Wilderness. Learn more and sign the Petition at http://ift.tt/1x2erSX! @savethebwca @seatosummitgear @helinox

After several days on Newfound Lake it felt good take down our tent, load the canoe, and move. It was warm, sunny, and relatively calm all day, perfect paddling weather. We paddled down Moose Lake and floated out in the middle recording water quality data. It was a perfect day to be in the Boundary Waters, yet we had Moose Lake, the busiest entry point in the Boundary Waters, all to ourself. During the summer canoes and motorboats are a common sight on Moose and in the winter skiers, snowshoers, and dogsledders often trek up Moose Lake heading into the Wilderness.

As the sun set we unloaded out canoe on a campsite with a panoramic few of the lake. As we cooked dinner a flock of geese landed in the bay across from our campsite. They are all headed South for the winter. We will miss them and will anxiously await their return in the Spring. #wildernessyear #savetheBWCA #sunset #onlyinMN #boundarywaters #bwca #wilderness