1999
Winter Trek on Saganaga
by Mel Baughman
It was Saturday, February 20. Larry, Rick, and I departed from the Twin Cities late on Friday afternoon and drove to Grand Marais where we split the cost of a motel room. It was peak season for winter travelers and earlier that week I had called seven motels before finding a vacant room that we could reserve. The 6 am wake-up call touched off a procession to the hot shower before our cold winter trek. We downed omelets and pancakes at South of the Border, known locally as SOB, then drove north to the end of the Gunflint Trail.
Snow squeaked and crunched under our boots as we hiked up the Narrows on Saganaga Lake. A brilliant sun beamed through blue sky but it added little warmth to the single digit temperature. Carrying backpacks and pulling sleds, we generated our own heat and soon stopped to shed layers of clothing.
A wildfire swept through the Narrows several years ago leaving behind a forest of tree skeletons and bare granite. It was an Ansel Adams landscape-black and white, but picturesque.
For the first mile and a half, the trail was packed by snowmobiles but none passed us on this day. At the north end of the Narrows, we emerged onto the main lake body. There we turned northwest into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and left the packed snow trail. At least a foot of powdery snow slowed progress momentarily until we strapped on snowshoes.
I soon discovered that my old-fashioned Ojibwa snowshoes made from a kit provided greater flotation than the newer, high-tech snowshoes worn by Rick and Larry. My waffle-patterned tracks were imbedded 3-4 inches deep, but my partners' sank another inch or two into the fluffy snow. I quickly pulled ahead by two hundred yards.
We headed in the direction of Munker's Narrows reading the map frequently to find our course through a maze of peninsulas and islands. None of us had previously traveled through this portion of the lake in winter.
Coal black ravens flapped through the clear air, squawking to their companions in the distance. Lines of animal tracks crossed the lake revealing the paths of foxes, wolves, and moose.
Two hours of hiking took us to the west end of Munker's island. Our topo map showed nearby areas of deep water that hinted of lake trout, whitefish, and walleyes. I kept my eye out for a campsite. Shouts from my companions behind informed me that they had broken through the upper layer of snow into slush. Larry's sled had become iced up and was tough to pull. I suggested they wait a few minutes while I prospected for a campsite. Two hundred yards ahead I found a small cove with a gently sloping shoreline. A hillside forested with spruce, Norway pine, birch, and black ash provided wind protection on three sides. We agreed to camp there.
We tromped the snow flat with snowshoes, but when I removed my snowshoes to begin setting up a tent, I sank another foot into the powdery snow. This stuff just wouldn't pack and behaved like deep sand. I buried logs in the snow to which I fastened tent ropes. Overnight the soft snow solidified at our campsite providing a hard walking surface and secure foothold for the logs guying our tents.
We pitched tents, gathered firewood, stomped down a fire pit and chose a protected spot for cooking over our stove. Then we snowshoed a quarter mile to a likely fishing spot where the topo map showed contour lines descending quickly to great depths.
We bored holes through 20 inches of ice and spent a couple hours jigging. I landed a 3 1/2 pound lake trout that provided the main ingredient for fish chowder.
My thermometer read three degrees when we crawled into our sleeping bags at 9 pm. Under a starlit sky with no wind, who knows how far the temperature dropped that night? I had brought a thermometer that I use mainly in the summer and realized that it bottomed out at 0 degrees. That's hardly adequate for winter use.
It was wickedly cold in the morning, but we had plenty of warm clothes. I discovered that my stove wouldn't work in the frigid weather. The fuel pump wouldn't generate enough friction to build pressure in the fuel tank. We lit a fire and boiled water for a simple meal of oatmeal, coffee, and cocoa. My stove worked fine on last year's winter camping trip, but the temperature had not been this cold.
After breakfast we snowshoed a mile west to another island where the map indicated nearby deep water and spent the day fishing. The cheery sun quickly warmed the air and by mid-afternoon we were fishing in our shirtsleeves, although the temperature in the shade was probably in the 20s. We lathered on sunscreen and wore dark glasses.
Two hundred yards across the lake an otter emerged from the woods and ran along the shoreline. It slid on its belly and pushed with its hind legs creating a trough in the deep snow. At a point of land the otter climbed a small hill only to slide down the other side. This otter was at least two miles from any open water where it could find food and escape from predators. Winter is a risky time for otters.
Fishing was slow in the morning. That's angler talk meaning we didn't catch a thing! In mid-afternoon Rick hiked over to a sunny slope for a nap. While he was snoozing, Larry and I simultaneously got bites on tip-ups. He landed a 3# northern pike while I caught a 7 1/2# lake trout. Later in the day Rick and I each caught a 3 1/2# laker. Supper was another great meal with fish and rice.
We survived another cold night and once again awoke to clear sunny skies on Monday morning. We broke camp and snowshoed half way back before stopping to fish for a couple hours. Fishing was slow again. You know what that means! But we had extra fillets on the sled that we divided among us for a treat back home and evidence for our spouses that we really were winter camping and fishing.
Larry and Rick said they wouldn't want to do this every weekend, but it ought to become an annual tradition to winter camp in the BWCA.
