Canadian Border: Seagull Lake

The potential for salvation lies where there is danger.

At least, so says the German romantic poet Hölderin. 

When I head to the BWCA, I'm not looking for salvation or danger, but perhaps Hölderin's remark explains why Seagull Lake is among my favorites. It offers danger of the most serene and attractive kind. 

Its broad expanse of open water, three or four miles across, is rendered even more beautiful on a calm sunny morning in July by the numerous islands sitting at odd distances both along the shore and out in the middle. An island you take to be large and distant turns out to be rather small and close by. And vise versa. It's impossible to tell when you're halfway across the lake, but when you're out in the middle there is an enormous amount of water around and underneath you, powerful and threatening if you can wrap your head around it, like a clutch of distant galaxies on a clear dark night, yet also clear and clean and shimmering silvery blue. Seagull Lake offers an enormous space into which the heart can expand, and it comes with a soundtrack: ten or fifteen gulls squawking and screeching as they twirl in the cool morning air around the lump of bare rock well out in the lake that they call home.

     

Paddling across such immensity for an hour or two, watching the configuration of islands shift and the far end of the lake take on body by infinitesimal degrees, gives you a truly joyous feeling.

When the wind comes up, not so much. Therein lies the danger. On a windy day the lake can be impossible to traverse. This is especially troublesome when you're at the southwest end and need to get back to the landing.

One of the many great things about the computer age is that you can sit at home, call up the hour-by-hour weather forecast for Seagull Lake, (or any part of the world) and see how strong the wind will be blowing, and in what direction, ten days from now. I wouldn't put too much stock in such a forecast, but it gives you slightly more confidence, having booked an entry permit,  that you'll have a good time when you get there.

On our recent visit, we did. The weather was mild the entire trip, with a thunderstorm each afternoon to add some spice and cool the air.

On our first morning we hit the water at 8 a.m. (having camped at Trail's End the night before) and negotiated the labyrinth of islands at the north end of the lake without difficulty. 

After passing the Palisades, we decided to cut behind Miles Island, which would make it easier to move down the west side of the lake. In the back of my mind, I was also thinking about a campsite on a rock shelf down around that corner. I'd passed it many times—it looked fabulous from a distance—but I'd never seen it close up because it had always been occupied.

This time it was vacant. It was fabulous. We took it.

We'd been on the water for half an hour.

Once we'd set up camp, we headed back out down the lake for a mile or two, just to be out in it. Recreational paddling. We examined a few vacant campsite for future reference and arrived back at camp at 10:30. Perfect.

Camp life is often simple. When you think of something to do, you usually go off and do it, without a great deal of logistical analysis. For example: "I think I'll go out and get some water." So you paddle well out into the bay, beyond the beaver thoroughfares, throw the plastic bucket over the side of the canoe, and haul up some water. Or: "I think I'll go get some firewood." And off you go into the woods with your green aluminum saw. But you haven't actually assembled the saw. There's precious little firewood to be found in the BWCA these days. You might not need it.

In any case, it doesn't matter. You do your cooking on a stove, and staring into a campfire tends to be less interesting during the long days of midsummer than watching night descend.

Such chores having been completed, you're free to immerse yourself in the changing patterns of color on the surface of the water, or go in for a swim, or pick a few blueberries—one of Hilary's specialties.

Sitting on coarse rock,

I splash my body with water.

They've known each other forever.

The clouds are a source of continual fascination. And there are a pair of eagles hanging around a large nest on the island just across the channel. Usually they're doing nothing, just like you. But they might do something soon. Just like you.

Nor is camp life quite so simple as it seems. As the sun moves across the sky, parts of the campsite that were in shade become bathed in sunlight. If you happen to be sitting in such a spot, you're going to have to move. Thus the day becomes a pageant of shifting locales and perspectives.  

Bright sun trying

to penetrate the white pine boughs

gentle breeze lends a hand

Two rangers stopped by to check our permit.

"Hey, we passed you two going the other way this morning amid the islands," I said.

"Yup. That was us." Discerning that we're experienced campers (or just OLD) one of them inquired if we'd been on the lake before.

"The first time I was on Seagull was 1964," I said.

"I was born in 1989, so you got me on that one," he replied with a wan smile. He had a long sandy beard that didn't look quite so Millennial out here in the brush.

"Do you mind if I go out and measure the depth of the latrine?" he said. (That line is always a good icebreaker, I have found.)

"By all means. Be my guest."

*   *   *

After a simple lunch of freeze-dried peanuts, some obscure hard Spanish goat cheese on coarse WasaBrot crackers, and Kool-aide, we settle in to do some reading. In Ernst Cassirer's An Essay on Man I almost immediately hit upon a pertinent passage.

In man we cannot describe recollection as a simple return of an event, as a faint image or copy of a former impression. It is not simply a repetition but a rebirth of the past; it implies a creative and a constructive process. It is not enough to pick up isolated data of our past experiences, we must really recollect them, we must organize and synthesize them, and assemble them into a focus of thought.

But this is a bit backward. We don't assemble memories into a focus of thought. Rather, we begin with a problem or issue, and comb our memories in an effort to illuminate or come to terms with it. That may explain why our humiliations tend to be more vivid in memory than our triumphs.

Often the constructive process Cassirer refers to results in a narrative—a story leading to a moral or an exclamation of wonderment. Or horror. If only we had time to tell it! If only anyone would listen!

The ranger had mentioned a shortage of campsites the previous night on Ogishkemuncie Lake, discomfitting four or five parties that had arrived at 5 p.m. hoping to camp there. I was reminded  of when I was a kid—the day we discovered Mueller Falls. I remember a shake-jar full of blueberries and the ominous, distant roar of we knew not what. Earlier in the afternoon, we had waded up the river, dragged our canoe over a short wide waterfalls and paddled around in the pool above it. Continuing upstream, we rounded a corner and there it was.

When we got back to camp, we told the adults excitedly about our discovery. "Oh, you found Mueller Falls," one of them said. They were amused, but not astounded. As a result, they became less godlike in my eyes.

Cassirer remarks that impressions have to be "ordered and located" and "referred to different points in time." This isn't exactly true, either. The older we get, the less solid the chronology of our memories becomes. If something happened three years ago or eight years ago is hard to recall. Often it doesn't matter. The memories have become narratives, then myths. Pleasant myths, if all has gone well.

Hilary and I have camped at ten different site on Seagull Lake over the years, maybe more. There was the supernova site, the gray jay site, the loon line site, the high wind site, the tiny island site, the spruce grouse site, and several others. I could point them out on a map and tell you the story that goes with each, though ti wouldn't be compelling. When were we at each site? I couldn't tell you.

*   *   *

I have noticed that sometimes the waterbugs cluster together, as if they're exchanging information, experiences, memories. At other times they skim across the water seemingly at random, widely dispersed ...

Dawn is great. It's the dawn of creation ... with granola and prunes and a second cup of coffee, very strong. It takes fifteen minutes to make, but we've got time. The wind is gentle, and it's at our back.

We'll cross the lake alright.