Boreal Access

If you’ve ever been out in a boat with Bearskin’s fishing guide, Curtis Blake, you can now say that you took fishing lessons from a master fisherman. Curtis, along with his teammate Jon Dircks, took first place in a Cabela’s Masters Walleye Circuit fishing tournament on August 22nd .   Curtis and Jon “brought a monster 19.70-pound basket to the scale,” according to the Cabela’s press release, to win the “walleye fest” at the Cabela’s Masters Walleye Circuit’s Western Division stop on Devils Lake.  More info at: http://www.masterswalleyecircuit.com/  and http://www.walleyecentral.com/articles/?a=2475

 The contest offered an $11,000 first place check, so Curtis is understandably pleased about the outcome.  It’s going to be much tougher to expect him to work for peanuts now at Bearskin. @@

Picture courtesy of http://www.masterswalleyecircuit.com/

Summer is drawing to a close and we have yet to blog about our wonderful 2010 staff.  As many of them  head back to college this week and we say goodbye , it’s time to recognize the great job they’ve done for Bearskin guests this year.     

This has been the “no drama” group of summer employees.   (This is not theater camp, so we like that.) They simply get along.  There was no better demonstration of their healthy attitude than the Saturday early in the summer when — surprise, surprise — our full-time teacher/naturalist abruptly quit because the job was too much work.  We were shocked. Young people blowing off jobs are common occurrences at other resorts, but Bearskin hires very carefully.  This never happens here.  Panic set in.     

Our worries lasted about 10 minutes.  All our staff members who’d been scrubbing toilets and hauling wood viewed that naturalist job as a pretty cushy gig.  We have an extraordinarily well – educated crew.  Within a few minutes we put together a new naturalist program, using our staff’s many unique skills and talents.  They’ve done a great job. As a group they pulled together to help solve a problem. No tears, no drama, no funny stuff, just a job well done all summer.  That is what we will remember about this group. Ask us for a job reference for any of these young Bearskin employees and we will be pleased to tell you they are all the type of employees who just quietly go about getting their jobs accomplished.     

Dixie

Dixie, from Lake Park, MN attends college at Minnesota State University Moorhead.  Dixie plans to be a social worker someday. Dixie was the first to head back to college last week, along with Millie, her pet rat.  Dixie practiced gunnel pumping early in the summer for the Gunflint canoe races, but on the day of the race she opted for backwards paddling with Ryan instead.     

Emily

Emily is about to graduate from Bethel College in St. Paul.   This fall she will be doing an editing/publishing internship with Coffee House Press.  Emily, paddling with Kaitlin, came in 2nd in the women’s  sprint paddle  at the Gunflint Canoe races; for a while that combo even looked like they might win it.     

Laura

Laura is a senior at Oberlin College in Ohio.  Her long career as a pole vaulter has been of minimal use at Bearskin.  Laura turned down a job catching prairie dogs this summer in order to work at Bearskin. Laura, along with her sister Kate, came in first in the women’s sprint paddle during the July canoe races.  She survived remarkably long in the gunnel pumping event, also.     

Kaitlin

Kaitlin is in grad school at Indiana University, studying Chinese in the East Asian studies department.  We would have hired Kaitlin even if she didn’t happen to be our daughter, but her organizational ability is what kept our naturalist program on track this summer. She & Emily came in 2nd in the women’s short paddle in the canoe races, and she & Ryan made a great team in the broken paddle race.     

Ryan with Dixie at the canoe races

Ryan is this summer’s all-purpose guy – he cooks dinners, bakes pies, takes care of boats, and helps with front desk.  Ryan returned to this area after a stint in Montana.  His family lives on Hungry Jack Lake. Ryan is game to try almost anything, as evidenced by this post-gunnel pumping photo from the canoe races.     

Tim

 Tim is a seminary graduate with a long history of working as a maintenance man in the Chicago area, although he is relatively new to Minnesota.  Tim stays in a cheerful mood no matter how often  we call him on the radio to do jobs he’s already done dozens of times in a day’s work.     

Kate -- minus the Newfie dog that she will probably have following her around next time you see her at Bearskin.

Kate worked at Bearskin for two summers, before deciding to stay in the north woods awhile after she graduated from Columbia University in 2009.  “Sternin’ Vernon” has become an accomplished canoeist, an excellent cross country skier, and a master lettuce grower during her stint at Bearskin. She won the women’s sprint paddle at the canoe races for the 3rd year in a row, each year with a different paddling partner. The secret must actually be the experienced ”sternin’.”     

Andy unloading new canoes this spring

Andy has been with us at Bearskin for almost as long as we’ve owned the resort.  He has become the most familiar face at the front desk and the most recognizable voice on the phone.  Andy is indispensable, not only for his knowledge of the Gunflint Trail area but also for his value as a target to be teased. We don’t tell Andy how much we appreciate him nearly often enough.     

Quinn

Quinn is our son and is the guy who takes the most guff from us.  For the second year in a row, this spring  Quinn coached the Girl’s Minnesota State High School Ultimate Frisbee champions. Quinn is happiest when he’s in a canoe; he won the men’s solo race at the Gunflint Canoe races this summer, which made him very happy.  “Bearskin Wilderness Outfitters,” Bearskin’s new BWCA canoe outfitting business, is actually Quinn’s project. 

Read more about our staff at the Gunflint Trail Canoe races in Quinn’s blog at http://bearskinoutfitters.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/gunflint-canoe-races/

Good question. Obviously, certain areas of the Boundary Waters would be overly crowded if there weren’t some limits on where and when paddlers could enter each lake. But there’s another really good reason to enter at the correct place, one that matters even more to your family and friends – if you fail to return on time and your panicked family starts worrying about you, when you have entered at the correct entry point the people who search for you will at least know where to look.

The wildly windy conditions of the past few days meant that many paddlers were windbound, frequently just biding their time at a campsite until the turbulent weather subsided. Whenever you head out on a BWCA trip, you should plan for this possibility. Forewarn your family members that in case of a delay during blustery weather, it’s more probable that you are waiting out the wind than that you have perished at the bottom of a windy wilderness lake.

Still, sometimes family members are determined to worry. Maybe they will even call the outfitters who rented you the canoe. And the forest service. And the Cook County sheriff. And everybody else they can think of, because they really, really care that you are safe. In that case, it’s vitally important that you went into the BWCA where your permit said you were going to enter.

During the windy conditions of the past few days, we were all worried about many paddlers. Dave Seaton, of Hungry Jack Outfitters, was especially concerned about a late returning father and two sons whose permit said they entered on our lake, East Bearskin. At one point Dave borrowed the largest Bearskin motor boat to head out through the gusty wind and white-capped waves in search of this family of paddlers, with no success. When they hadn’t returned by the next morning, Quinn took the boat out again to look for them, as well as for a young couple who’d rented paddles from us to go out on a day trip and didn’t return. No luck. (The couple did show up later that day, and their story is a great one!) The forest service called, asking to borrow a boat to search for the family.

All day we watched for the family to return, getting excited every time we spotted a canoe that might have 3 people in it. We asked every paddler who came back if they had seen the family—many canoeists could give us an accounting of all the paddlers they’d passed, but nobody matched the description of the missing family.

As it turned out, there was a good reason nobody found the group. They weren’t there. They took a permit for entry point #64, but went in to the BWCA elsewhere.

Nobody plans to be the focus of a BWCA search. Nobody expects to be greatly delayed on their canoe trip. Nobody intends to make other people worry. But in the vast wilderness surrounding the Gunflint Trail and the Boundary Waters, there are no guarantees that everything will go as planned. As tempting as it might be to enter the BWCA where ever you wish to go in, remember that if things go wrong, many other people may be involved in the search for you. It is selfish and thoughtless to create a situation where other people might end up hunting for you in the wrong place.

“Is it necessary to enter the BWCAW at the entry point and date shown on your permit?”  That’s not just an annoying first question on the BWCA permit test. “Yes! Entry points regulate visitor distribution and support solitude,” is what the test form answers. But it’s not just about rules to limit the density of people on your  favorite BWCA lake – going in at the right entry point just might keep you, and the people who might go out looking for you, a little safer in a wilderness environment.

Strong winds left many canoeists windbound over the past few days all over this area of the BWCA.  As the winds subsided this morning and paddlers began to make it back to the lodge, many adventurous tales were shared. 

One of the more interesting stories came from a couple who waited out the wind on Crocodile Lake.  Since early July, when the Lyzhoft family took this moose picture on the north arm of East Bearskin Lake, our guests have been reporting sightings of a moose cow and two calves.  The moose family was first regularly spotted on the BWCA end of East Bearskin Lake; more recent reports were that they were living closer to Crocodile Lake.  (Of course, these could be 2 different moose families, but the trend in sightings seemed to indicate gradual movement towards Crocodile.)

Yesterday, while waiting out the wind on Croc, a couple saw a moose cow and two calves being chased by a pack of wolves.  A large black wolf was in the lead, with two other wolves following.  Using binoculars, they could see that the wolves had already come close to catching one of the calves.  There was a large red gash on the rump of one of them.  The moose family ran along the shoreline on Crocodile with the wolves in hot pursuit.  It was quite memorable, and a bit disturbing, to watch.  Fortunately, it appeared that the moose family escaped – or at least everyone hopes that’s how it really turned out.  We’re eager for somebody to return from Crocodile soon with a photo of a moose cow and her two safe calves.