September 03, 2016 at 08:42AM

There is a primal enchantment aroused when you wake to a blanket of mist covering your temporary home on the edge the water deep in the Wilderness. I often find myself fiddling with dials and switches, trying in vane to capture the moment with my camera. Maybe it’s best that the camera can’t capture the cool moist air soothing trail-worn muscles or the silence broken by swans skimming the tree tops overhead and disappearing into the fog as they glide towards the water’s surface.

This is the real world– wild, free and untrammeled. We don’t find it on our phones or computer screens, TVs or radios no matter how many times we surf the web or change the channel. We have to put all that noise away and make pilgrimages into wild places to remind ourselves what is real and what is important. We have to slow down, unplug, and just be.

Today is the 346th day of our #wildernessyear to @savetheBWCA. Three weeks from today we will paddle out of the Wilderness. It feels like we are uncontrollably hurtling towards the end of a journey that has made us see the world in a new way. I just hope that we can find ways to bring the Wilderness with us and share it with others for years to come in meaningful ways.

#wilderness #wildernessyear #savetheBWCA #BoundaryWaters #BWCA #onlyinMN #CaptureMN #getoutstayout #birds #beautiful