Why I Needed Laketrails

  For the past two summers I have spent my time working at Laketrails Base Camp; a canoeing camp for teenagers. It is a great camp in Northern Minnesota on Lake of the Woods that teaches teenagers life skills through five-day long canoeing trips. During their time at Laketrails, a camper signs up for a nine-day session. They hand over their phones the first day the make it to the island, and that is when the true magic starts. They plan and pack for their trips and then on the third day, guides lead trips of up to ten campers into the wilderness of Canada.
   Laketrails was a part of my childhood memories; visiting the island when I was around five years old. Even though I remember Base Camp well, I never got to experience what it was like to go to Laketrails as a camper. My first full experience of the "Laketrails Magic" came when I was 19. I got a call from my grandpa suggesting I should apply to be a guide, and that was the start of my journey into what Laketrails is and what it does.
   Having finished my second summer as a guide at Laketrails Base Camp, I look back on my time there and all that it had done for me. Both summers I have learned something new about myself and the world around me.
   To start, there is something calming and reflecting about being outdoors away from technology. Admittedly it was difficult this summer to be 'unplugged' with all the planning for my travels to South Korea. Last summer, however, it was a blessing. It can be difficult to put down your phone in this day and age, but when you are forced to spend time without it, it begins to feel like a blessing rather than a punishment.
   Additionally, I have been living in a city for the past two years and am about to move to an even larger city within the week. I like the noise and bustle of city life and I do enjoy the stimulation of a fast-paced world. As much as I also enjoy the outdoors, I did not expect to be entranced by it as much as I am. Returning to the lake and having the land around me be the same as it was last year was calming.
   What I most like about the landscape staying the same was that I didn't have to focus on it. Weird? To spend all summer outdoors and not want to focus on the beauty of nature around me? Not for me. I live in Oregon, with beautiful scenery and I spent my childhood growing up on that lake. While I can always see more of nature, explore more and find new beauties, I liked the familiarity. I felt that I was able to focus on those around me more and make new connections.
   When you are in the wilderness with a small group of people and no technology, the bonds and stories made are more captivating than the trees that surround you. After the hours spent in a canoe, I remember the stories and laughs I shared with campers more than I remember the number of bald eagles I saw. The look of success on a camper's face when the successfully light a fire for the first time is more memorable than that beaver I saw swimming by in that one place on the lake.
   With that, I am glad that I came to Laketrails as a guide. I often wonder what kind of camper I would have been, but knowing that is in the past and cannot be changed I reflect on our philosophy of "Be Here Now". Whatever I may have missed from being a camper lead me to be the guide that I am no.
   Not to say that I was a perfect guide either. I spent a lot of time learning, and if I go back again, I will learn more each time I guide. Sometimes I learn more about guiding, sometimes I learn more about life, and sometimes I simply learn more about myself.
   This summer the biggest trait I learned about myself is to go with the flow and to have patience. I still have not mastered either of these yet, but this summer I was able to show myself that I am capable of both these traits. I spend a lot of my time planning for what is next. This spring I was planning for Laketrails, while at Laketrails I was planning for South Korea; I also talked to my dad about my plans for grad school, for career option 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. My dad joked and made a comment about how I always have at least five plans for my future brewing in my head. And he is right. Even last year when I would plan for a trip, I would plan our route and at least two other back-up options. I was proud of myself for being able to plan my trip this summer and adjust as needed. I was able to have a more go with the flow attitude this summer.
   Walking away from this summer, what I am most grateful for is not all the hard skills I learned or even that proud moment of being able to live in the moment and not the future. What I am most grateful for is the connections Laketrails brings people. Every club, sports team or organization will tell you that they are like a family, but the 'Laketrails Family' is a unique one. This family spreads from all ages, all over the world. What I like most about the Laketrails family is not that my staff this summer is now my family, but any Laketrailer is my family. I now understand now that just the mention of Laketrails creates a bond between people that have never met before.
   I think this family comes from the stories that people are able to share. Some of the names of islands or lakes are different then they were years ago, but the trips are pretty much the same as when Laketrails started. The locations are the same, but I have a different story from each of the three times I have been to Mason and Reid. That same location holds a different story for everyone that has been there.
   I could spend days talking about my time at Laketrails and maybe be able to get you to understand the true magic of it, but what it holds for me is my own magic for me to cherish in my heart. I do not know when I will return to Laketrails again, I just know that I will.

Paddle Whisperers

   This passage is from the book Paddle Whispers; written by Douglas Wood. I wanted to share it on here because it is a beautifully written way to describe the canoeing adventures we take up at Laketrails.

The Forecast:

   There is a 95% chance today’s weather will be either too hot, too cold, too sunny, too rainy, or too windy. -From a desktop sign, Quetico Park Visitor Center.

   In many ways a canoe trip is an endlessly repeated exercise in various modes of misery, each one a contrast — therefore, a relief, albeit temporary — to the misery preceding it. So there is always the illusion of looking forward to something that will most likely be... another misery.

   A canoe trip could in fact be described as paddling — paddling until arms ache, back hurts, skin is burned, legs are cramped, and butt falls asleep. Finally, a portage and a chance to stop paddling, stretch legs, and get out of the sun. Also a chance to deal with black flies, deer flies, and various other versions of evil incarnate; a chance to climb up and down hills with loads that would crush a burro, that strain neck, back, and hamstrings and threaten to drive shoulder blades through hips; a chance to wade through mud, muck, and other corruption, to climb over and under dead falls and trip over stuff and to figure that death will probably arrive — mercifully — before this infernal trail reaches a sight of blue, open, sunlit water. Where, of course, the cycle begins again.

   The great goal and end of this particular cycle is the evening camp, that blessed spot of rock and tree kissed by evening breezes and the last slanted rays of the sun. Having found the camp, at whatever stage of exhaustion seems appropriate to the lateness of the hour and rigors of the day, it is time to set up the tent, gather wood, gather water, start a fire, get out the food, cook the food, and... ahhh... eat. And drink. In a warm and happy trance of pure bliss and satisfaction. This lasts... some moments. With the arrival of the evening watch of mosquitoes, the cooking gear is up-gathered and washed, the food repacked; the pack hoisted and hung safe from bears, mini-bears (chipmunks), and micro-bears (mice); personal hygiene is attended to; the tent entered; tent-invading mosquitoes dispatched (except for three which are never found); the sleeping bag snuggled into and finally sleep. The sweet, dark, wonderful nothingness of... Rock. Root. Pinecone. These are nemeses that will be there, along with three renegade mosquitoes, all through the night. They will become intimate with back, sides, and stomach, with muscles, bones, and insides — and loom ever larger and sharper and more offensive in the imagination and the anatomy, until dawn cannot come too soon.

   And with the arrival of dawn — the pack is lowered (mini-bears found it anyways), breakfast cooked, dishes cleared, tent taken down, the canoe loaded, and — back to paddling once more.

The Backcast:

   So why... why go through it? Why even be here?

   The second answer is easy. Because “here” is where the beauty is. Here is where the sunsets are. Here is where the campsites and campfires are, and the clear, deep waters, and the loons, and the pines, and the islands. And yes, the storms and the big winds and the rapids. Here is where the journey is. 

   But why go through it? Why do I... Why do I go through it? I think because no one else can go through it for me. And because the modern city-world system uses people to get work done. Important work, supposedly. That’s the whole idea. That’s why we get paid. But here — here I’m using the work... to get myself done. What better work is there than that?

   Or maybe... maybe it’s enough to say that I am here, as another voyageur once put it, “to iron out the wrinkles in my soul.”

   And maybe it is only on the trail to nowhere-in-particular that you find the most important thing of all.

   Yourself.