“It’s always better to embark on a wilderness canoe trip without expectations and enjoy the wonders as they’re encountered.”
(Keane, Leo. “Hiking With A Canoe.” The Boundary Waters Journal, Fall 2021, p. 58.)
I didn’t have many preconceived ideas or notions going into this week’s adventure. I did want to feel the pull of the current against my paddle, pitch my tent on a riverside bank, and do a little fishing in some deep bends and pools. Those seemed like simple enough goals; easily achieved given adequate time within a proper setting; tasks that would allow me the opportunity to wonder at the experiences and things around me. The fact that I experienced a plethora of wildlife and caught my biggest northern pike ever, didn’t do anything to diminish the journey.
I began the excursion Sunday afternoon once I had loaded all of my gear and lashed it down in the front of my aluminum Starcraft canoe. It’s a beast of a thing, but it’s what I have, and as I’ve mentioned before, my Dad found it for me at a garage sale for ten bucks. It’s been worth every cent of the investment, and I’m familiar with how to handle it in moving water despite the fact that it’s fifteen feet long and weighs one hundred pounds.
After floating out from the bank, I paddled the curving bends, occasionally stopping to fish any slower currents off the main channel. I did have a few strong strikes, but failed to make the connection needed to see what kind of a fish it was exactly. I reached my destination spot by 8:00 in the evening. I made a few last casts at that point, catching and releasing both a 24” and 25” pike. They were good looking, strong fish, and it was fun to see them scoot back into the depths of the water.
My First Pike Of The Trip - A 24" That I Released
That gave me little more than an hour to set up my tent and heat up a can of beef stew. To prepare dinner I used a small camp stove set up on the bottom side of the canoe that I had dragged and lurched up from the river; not an easy task by myself. I ate an apple while I waited for it to warm up. With the excess space provided by my canoe, I had the luxury of bringing along a camp chair, and I used it while I ate to watch the sun’s last rays sink into the horizon. I quickly cleaned off the plates down in the sand and moving water and placed my small cooler of food up under the canoe in lieu of hanging anything from a tree and away from varmints. For one, most of the nearby trees were entangled in poison ivy. Secondly it would take a fairly powerful raccoon to offset the canoe. And third, since I’d forgotten my headlamp, Mother Nature was dictating when and what I’d be doing with any available light, and at that time I had none, so shoving it under the aluminum Starcraft was the next best thing.
I didn’t sleep great even with temps dipping down into the 50’s because I couldn’t get comfortable still covered in sunscreen. Then there were the barred owls directly above me with their muffled hoots and raucous cackling that they are wont to do. Two different deer came up behind my tent through the grass and announced their displeasure with whistling snorts and hoof stomping, not to mention the wide array of birds that began staking out their territories at first light. In addition, a murder of crows literally pestered a pair of red tailed hawks and it’s fledgling for over an hour. It was a perfect night to lay in the tent and take in all of the wonders.
CLICK BELOW FOR A VIDEO OF THE THE BATTLE BETWEEN CROWS & HAWKS:
CLICK BELOW FOR A VIDEO OF THE MORNING BIRDS:
To watch the videos you may need to change the "view version"
at the bottom of the page.
I started Monday by reading. It helped set the tone. When I came out, the birds continued their ensemble, now to the steady breeze that was quickly pushing the fog off the water and drying the heavy dew. I grabbed my pole, attached a silver Red Eye spoon I had brought from my father-in-law’s tackle box, and headed for the river. On my third cast I hooked into a 26” pike. It wasn’t a strong hit, but it didn’t leave any doubt as to what it was. I elected to keep this one fish, and set about cleaning it on a nearby log that was under the shade of surrounding trees.
Breakfast & Dinner - A 26" Pike
A campfire felt obtrusive, and too warm, so I again used the small camp stove. I cooked half of the pike for breakfast in my cast iron skillet after coating the meat in Original Shore Lunch breading mix. My mouth watered, and it tasted delicious. I carefully placed the second slab of pike under the remaining ice in my cooler for dinner in the evening.
The afternoon was spent relaxing and doing various things around my camp. While my tent was in the sun, I set up my chair in the shallows of the water and read from a book that I’d bought back in the fall from a cool little bookstore in Waco, Texas where my daughter lives, called Fabled Bookshop and Cafe, and the book was entitled, John Muir: Wilderness Essays. I read for two hours, watching the minnows at my toes as well as other wonders of wildlife surrounding me.
When I read, I often underline quotes that resonate with me. In Muir’s selection entitled, “Discovery at Glacier Bay,” I like how he described his journey by saying, “though hardships were encountered, and a few dangers, the wild wonderland made compensation beyond our most extravagant hopes.” Here! Here! While my camping trip would probably be termed mild in comparison to Muir’s trip to Alaska, I was still out by myself - on a solo mission far from others, and so I worked hard at taking precautions and thinking ahead to avoid having too many unexpected catastrophes. For instance, I always wear my life preserver when I’m in the canoe and I try to have a sixth sense awareness in order to keep track of my surroundings. With these safeguards in place at the forefront, it allowed me to appreciate everything from the large eagle perched and watching over me, to the red, parasitic mites on a harvestman spider (daddy long legs).
An Eagle Outside Of My Tent That Morning
A Harvestman Spider With Mites
When I needed a break from reading, I tried fishing again; this time using a Scum Frog surface lure. The sun was high, and I had two smaller pike nudge at it from behind, and then one very large pike between 30 and 40 inches swung by, pushing water just a few feet from where I was standing. Obviously they weren’t interested in the lure, but I smiled and backed off. I continued reading, now next to my tent in the shade, until I finished the first chapter in my book. It felt good to get back into reading again, and the setting didn’t hurt either!
I knew that if I was going to sleep that evening I needed to rinse off the day’s sweat and sunscreen, so I went over to a different section of the river that was a bit more sandy, and submerged myself by doing a push up. It allows you to do what you need to do without going out deep. Afterwards I took pictures of a few birds around my campsite. When the shade was finally over the pool in the river, I grabbed my net, pole, walking stick, and backpack of fishing equipment and ventured down off the bank.
A White-Breasted Nuthatch Peeking From Behind A Branch
An Eastern Wood Pewee
To begin with, I tried what’s called a Whopper Plopper. It’s also a surface lure that gurgles along on the top of the water. I did catch a nice 24” pike that exploded on it and jumped several times. It was a nice looking fish that zipped out of my hands upon its release.
A 24" Pike Caught & Released Using The Top Water Lure: "Whopper Plopper"
Knowing it worked, I switched back to the silver spoon I had used that morning after retying a fresh fluorocarbon tippet onto the braided line. On my next cast, I caught a smaller 20” pike that had a large wound across its back where something big had bit it. I let it slip back down into the water after unhooking the lure. I cast several more times before I had a sudden and powerful hit. It never showed itself on the initial strike, but the upheaval of water that pushed to the surface when it turned sharply back into the depths, created a large mound of churning water. I held on tight. Even with the lure lodged in its mouth down below, there was no doubt who was in charge. Power like that in a big pike is impressive if not downright spooky and humbling.
It made several different runs, dragging line with it each time, and surfaced more than once too; dancing on its reddish fins. As the pike tired, it came closer to my legs in the shallow water; its great tail measuring cadence back and forth all the while sizing me up with its eyes.
The next few moments were a bit of a blur. With one hand, I plunged my walking stick down into the mud, pulled out a mini bungee cord, and strapped my phone to it while adjusting the setting to a 10 second timer. I planned to get a selfie picture of this fish.
Next I used my net, scooped up the fish, grabbed my multi-tool and tried extracting two of the three large barbs from the treble hook that was just inside its mouth - next to the teeth that were about the same size. I had a bit of trouble getting a hold of them, so I reached down, released the bail on my reel to give my line some slack, and carefully grabbed the pike by its jaw. I’ve seen it done before, studied how it’s performed, but had only once before tried to hold a fish this way. Teeth, barbs on the hook, and unbridled power have a way of making you tentative. But I wanted to try to do it right instead of always having to use a gripper.
The pike was a picture of patience, eyeing me the whole time. As I now held it by the jaw in one hand, I grabbed a hold of each barb with the tool in the other hand and actually had to break two of them off the lure itself before it came easily out of its mouth. There was no blood, and there was hardly a mark on the pike. I measured it against my pole, hit the button on my phone, and posed for one picture. However it turned out, it would have to do - hopefully capturing the moment!
I waded out to shin deep in the river, lowered the pike, moved it back and forth once or twice to work water through its gills, and then with a monstrous flick of its tail, it swung and pushed off; not out into deeper water, but it actually doubled back between my ankles and the shoreline, pushing a wave up over my gear and dousing it. From there it simply, and slowly, finned back into the pool and out of sight. It was as if the giant fish was saying, “Thank you for being gentle and working quickly, but take that!” It was my biggest pike ever at 35”; two inches shy of the next eyelet, and five inches beyond the last measured mark of fingernail polish on my pole. I was elated! It was enough!
I cooked up the second half of my morning’s fish for dinner that evening and was in my tent and sleeping bag by 9:00. After reading a few pages of the next chapter in my book, by the sun’s final light, I grew tired and was asleep by 9:30. What a day it had been.
On Tuesday morning I waited as long as I could to pack because of the heavy dew covering everything, compiled with the lack of a breeze to help dry things out. I started packing around 8:00 and had everything ready by 10:00. I had to skip breakfast as I needed every minute to paddle the several miles to where my wife agreed to pick me up at noon. I took a long swig of water, bit off a chunk of cheese, and set forth.
Maneuvering around hidden logs, rollers, sweepers, and any amount of dead-falls was a perfect way to end my river expedition. I was dog tired as I pulled the canoe up on the bank a few minutes before 12:00, but it was an exhaustion born of adventure. What had started out as a trip without a specific schedule, led to the wonders of life and its unexpected experiences.
See you along The Way…
“Why do I go? Because the wilderness reminds me of my place in the world, points me to one who is greater, and in the end, recharges my batteries.”
(Wilson, David. “Why I Go.” The Boundary Waters Journal, Winter 2021, p. 83.)
PICTURES OF THE WONDERS I ENCOUNTERED:
A Common Snapping Turtle That I Scooped Up With My Net
When the sap is rising in our maple, I know it is rising in thousands of other trees as well, and my expectations rise with it - winter is coming to an end. When the dripping sap slows down or stops, so has the advance of spring.
(Arnosky, Jim. Nearer Nature. Lothrop Lee & Shepard, 1996, p. 44.)
From as far back as I can remember, my family has marked the changing of the seasons, from winter to spring, by collecting the sap of maple trees; boiling it down to syrup. It was not the thick, goopy, substance sold in stores, whose primary ingredient was extracted from corn. What we created was precious. Its main ingredients were time, effort, and patience. The desired result was liquid gold!
The first stove that we used for boiling down the sap was an old, steel, 30 gallon drum; custom cut and welded with a hinged door - courtesy of the Gaylord High School shop class. That original was upright and held one large pot to which Dad kept adding fresh sap. The wood was cut to fit and split to provide the heat necessary that kept the sap at a rolling boil. Later we improved upon that design with a barrel that laid horizontal and allowed us to use two large pans at the same time; doubling our output.
Our source for the sap were the maple trees along the fenceline surrounding our property; up on the hills north of the small community of Sparr, in the Great Lake State of Michigan. Those same species of trees supplied our sap when we built a new house and moved to what we had simply called, “The Property;” just west of Sparr and nestled up against the backside of Sylvan Knob Ski Area. The land behind our home and barnyard was full of maples, in addition to beech, ironwood, hemlock, basswood, and the skeletal remains of the American elm, recently plagued by the introduced Dutch Elm Disease.
We cut our own firewood that we used to not only heat our own home, but to boil the sap in the springtime as well. Using the hills and gravity to our benefit, we’d roll dead and dried out logs down into the valleys where our Welsh pony, Hercules, would help skid them out to our hidden “Sugar Shack” tucked away in the grove of red pines behind our homestead. There the hardwood logs were stacked until sap was gathered and boiling commenced.
By then we had gotten ahold of an old 2x5 foot, genuine sap boiler from Mr. Crandall, a teaching colleague of my Dad’s. All it needed was a little soldering, and some elbow grease with a handful of steel wool, to increase our output. We suspended the boiler upon cinder blocks that we carefully leveled within the shack. The shack itself was framed out of cedar logs that were cut from the swampland belonging to the Elenz’s; back beyond the hills and just off Sparr Road - alongside the headwaters of the Pigeon River. The metal roof was from the remnants of our pole barn that had been built by Bailey Sides (who had been our neighbor and who had also built our house). The three walls were made of scrap slab wood, graciously given to us by the Meades from their sawmill on top of Sylvan Knob. The slabs were nailed horizontally to the cedar posts and provided little gaps where you could peek out between the curves in the wood. In other words, it was a community of gifts, from bartering and love, that helped to put our sugar camp together. Even the metal sap buckets that hung on our trees were one gallon fruit cans salvaged from the school lunchroom; their individually tuned sounds providing a symphonic chorus in the woods with each fresh drop.
Karen & Becky Collecting Sap Sparr Michigan April 1981
My Sisters And I At The Sugar Shack - 1981
Karen Next To The Sap Boiler In The Shack - 1981
The whole operation looked like something out of the 1800’s, but we didn’t know anything different, it worked for us, and nobody ever complained when you’d pour homemade syrup on a cup of freshly fallen snow scooped from outside, or onto a stack of hot pancakes while the winds blew down out of the north.
These are just some of my syruping memories that run in conjunction with our family’s history. There are more stories and descriptions of course, that involve Mom finishing the boiling up in the house in order to properly can it, the mighty swings and broken ax handles, jars of syrup used as Christmas gifts for family members, or evening conversations at the shack while sitting on a stump and surrounded by woodsmoke.
The good news is that those memories that were made, and the experiences my sisters and I had with our parents in the Northwoods, made an impact. Perhaps that’s why I’ve gotten back into it now as an adult. It’s part of my heritage, and in my blood. Maple syrup, that sweet liquid gold of spring!
See you along The Way…
-------------------------------------------------
Back In The Red Pine Grove - Sparr 2009
Owned By Someone Else Now The Sugar Shack Still Stands Showing My Kids In 2009 (Jodi & Todd)
A Former Maple Valley Now Grown Into A Tunnel
PICTURES & VIDEOS FROM SYRUPING
2021
Packing A Trail To The Maple Trees Along The Old Fence Line At School On The Illinois-Wisconsin Stateline
CLICK BELOW FOR A VIDEO OF THE SUGARING SET-UP:
To watch the video you may need to change the "view version"
at the bottom of the page.
Cindy Helping To Filter Out The Sugar Sand Before Canning The Syrup
The First Year's Batch
2022
CLICK BELOW FOR A VIDEO OF TAPPING TREES:
To watch the video you may need to change the "view version"
at the bottom of the page.
Taste Testing The Syrup In My "Beautiful Downtown Sparr" Shirt! (As it States, "The Center Of The Universe")
