Voyageurs: One By Sea?

Voyageurs National Park...accessible only by watercraft! Naive Mike rolls up to the Kabetogama River Visitor Center to find one thing...closed! It was a Monday and due to the sequester, the park couldn't afford to staff the visitor centers on Mondays. The sequester strikes again. Grrr.

A rogue Ranger walked past me and asked if he could help the very obviously lost me. I told him I had ambitions of camping in the park and all I had to get me to the sites was my little blue one person kayak. When he finished laughing at me he suggested I'd better test my luck down at the Ash River portion of the park. So...I did.

Long story short, I loaded up the kayak with the most minimal amount of gear required for a few days on the water (not to include my camera. Sorry folks...all phone pictures below). Luckily I had the presence of mind to put on my rain gear before shoving off and to put my bag's rain cover in the most accessible part of the bag. A decision that quickly became one of my better ones since setting off on 28 July. The skies opened up....but I was dry...and so was my gear.

Running out of day light and growing hungry, time was running out for me to find a place to call home for the night. Being the only person on the waterways without a speed boat, I started to see why the Ranger laughed at my expense. So much for doing things the old fashioned way...the way the Voyageurs of yore did it.

As my hope started to fade, I floated up to a lone motorboat stocked with a crew that was having the same type of luck finding fish. It was a family who I approached, hoping to glean some intel on the site situation down river. Not long after my inquisition, and without prompting, they cruised down a few miles to only then return with news that all the nearby sites were taken. Perhaps it was pity or just the infectious good nature the parks bring out in people, but what happened next changed my Voyageurs experience markedly.

The family offered to pick me out of the water and allow me to make camp on their site....8 miles down river!! A kindness I could only hope to one day return. A hot meal, hilarious conversations, mind-reading (September birthday - they'll get it), ominous hikes, star gazing, Hearts, falls, and birthday smores only describes a portion of the events of the following 48 hours. I will never forget their kindness and hospitality to a total stranger (without danger - so they'd would find out)...thanks to Debbie, Jessica, Elizabeth, Laura, and Alex.

P.S. Sorry for all the selfies haha

My Plan B Home

My Island...

On my island...its mine.

Isle Royale: Day 5 - A Six...er...Seven Hour Tour

The final day on the island. The Tobin Harbor Midnight Dock Crew (details to follow later...) said our farewells at the loading of the Voyageur II (what happened to Voyageur I,  you ask? I don't know if I want to know). Jordyn and Sarah were amazing and fast friends and I will miss sharing a hut with them...and the ominous...BOOK OF QUESTIONS!!!

Don, Andy, and myself boarded the vessel and embarked on a 6-7 hour trip back to Grand Portage, Minnesota. More friends were made aboard the ship and luckily no one got sea sick or scurvy! I had the pleasure of getting to know a father and his son, Al, who just hiked along the Greenstone Ridge Trail. I also a had a chance to get to know a girl named Catherine (spelling?) who was tied to a group of young ladies charged with helping out a friend gather data for a research project concerning the in-island lakes. Catherine and I also had the pleasure of getting to know the Voyageur II's firstmate on a more intense level...he was hands down the saltiest dude I've ever met. Fifteen or twenty years being tied to Lake Superior, that guy! "The lake giveth but it can just as quickly taketh away" (paraphrasing a bit).

Cutting to the end, the boys and I said our farewells back on land and assured each other that this wouldn't be the last adventure we had together...Yellowstone? This might not be the last we see of the Brothers Don and Andy...

Oh sorry for the order of the pictures. Some are out of sorts but you can probably figure out what goes where for yourselves.