Voyageur Experiences

I have wanted to go canoeing in the Boundary Waters for most of my life. The timing was never right. In July 2004 I finally had my chance and I signed up for a women's trip. I had two goals...one of course was to canoe the waters, the other was to photograph a moose. As I was pulling onto the drive that would lead me to VCO I happened to look to my left and saw a moose standing in the field grazing. My camera was packed in my suitcase so I would have to dig it out when I stopped. When I arrived our group turned out to be two other women from Indiana and our guide. I was supposed to have a friend a long as well, but she fell sick before the trip. Our guide had noticed the moose as well and said we could stop and photograph it before we stopped at a local cafe for pizza and planning. Unfortunately, the moose was gone when we left. At our planning meeting over the best pizza ever our guide told us that easiest meals to take on the canoe were cold ones. So she suggested we do a cold pack. Since she had been doing this for 30 years we figured she knew best. Our first day out was fabulous. The weather was great, the wind very low, and wild life easily spotted. We camped our first night on Englishman Island. We arrived there right around lunch time. I unpacked the food and read the menu for our lunch....trail mix, peanut butter and jelly on crackers, and water from the lake. One of the other women asked what was on the menu for supper. I looked and read, "trail mix, peanut butter and jelly on crackers, and lake water." She looked at me and asked, "What are we having for the next two days?" I checked again....trail mix, some days were pb and j on crackers and others were squeeze cheese on crackers and power bars. Oh, and one night was smores. Needless to say, our meals were not going to be what we were expecting. It was fun though, laughing about the trail mix, the power bars that looked like bear scat and tasted like grandma's fruitcake, and how we devoured all the smores just to have something we liked. Thank God for the coffee in the morning....although we had to go scavenge another campsite for matches. :) Our last night on the water our guide had to leave us to make a wedding and we were okay with that. To make up for the trail mix meals she paddled back to the little cafe with the great pizza and paddled us back a large one before she left us for good. You have never seen three women eat through a pizza as fast as we did. I bet we looked like starved cavemen. I love my time that I spent up there and I hope one day to do it all again. And when I do, you can bet I'm going through VCO again!

Name: Carol
City: Toledo
State: Iowa
Voyage: Boundary Waters Canoe Trip