By Laury Deerson
The BWCA trip was really an experience for the girls who had never participated in a canoe trip like this one. Doug Berg and Lesley Seamans (staff), and Barb Hanna, Karen Rishavy, Ginny Reifenberger, Laury Deerson, Janney Davalos, Missy Quigley, Tammy Anderson, and Ann Scholer were the people who went on the 8 day adventure of the beautiful BWCA.
On May 25th, we set out to explore the pretty and very big Lake Seagull followed by Lake Alpine. The next day we pushed across Lake Jasper and we set up camp on Ogish. Most of the girls wanted to go swimming. Mr. Berg told all of us to be careful to not get cut on the sharp rocks, but leave it to me to cut my hand open. It didn’t feel too good paddling the next day on Muellar, Agamok, Gabi, Rattle. The following day we paddled on the gorgeous Lake Little Sag. That’s the day I sprained my ankle. It was kind of a crabby day for us girls. We saw some really beautiful pictographs that the Indians carved into the walls of rock. We set up camp on Little Sag. Each of us girls picked a bush to hang our little bikini grundies and our bras on. Mr. Berg got a good laugh out of it and named it the “Bra Bush.” Then the next day Lake Kawishiwi. Lake Alice was our lay over day. It rained all night and part of the next day. The rest of the day was nice. We all did our own things. Mr. Berg went fishing, Lester went swimming and all of us girls dried our clothes that got wet from the rain. The fourth day was Lake Thomas, Kekekabic, then we went over Pickle Lake and went to see Dorothy on Knife Lake. Dorothy has lived there about 40 of her 60 years. She sells root beer that she makes herself (mmmmm) and candy bars to the passing campers. We went there and signed her book. All the Mini-School people that have gone to the BWCA have signed her books. She has a lot of guts to live there all by herself. But she picked a wonderful place. After visiting with Dorothy, we paddled across Knife Lake. We did a 120 rod portage to get to Lake Hanson, then there was Ottertrack. We did another portage which was 96 rods long. The next Lake was the mighty Sag. It was really windy so the waves were big. After Sag was Lake Red Rock. The last day was Lake Alpine. It was a funny exciting day for all of us. We went over some really shallow rapids. They were real rocky. Ginny and Tammy were going down the rapids and they tipped over. It was funny at the time, Ginny flew right out of the back of the canoe. Barb, Karen and I were in the canoe right behind them. We were scared to go down but we had to do it. On our way down, the canoe turned around. We were going down backwards. We all had to turn around so I was stern and Barb was in the bow of the canoe. But we made it. Ginny and Tammy got back in their canoe okay. But we sure did laugh about it afterwards. Then we paddled across Lake Seagull. We got to Portage Outfitters where we started from. Mr. Berg’s family and Frank Pfiffner were there to greet us. We camped there that night and left the next morning to go home. All of us had some rough times on our trip, but we all loved the magnificent BWCA trip with Mr. Berg and Lester Seamans.
*This trip took place last spring.