David: It's August and if you haven't been away yet this summer, you're probably thinking about getting out of town now> Maybe to a beach or lake or water park. Somewhere, anywhere. One of our contributors, Alex Kotlowitz, has been returning to the same stretch of woods summer after summer for something like 40 years. If you know Alex Kotlowitz's work that may come as a surprise. He is a really important chronicler of urban life and poverty in the city of Chicago. His books include An American Summer, There Are No Children Here, and Never a City So Real. All of them set in Chicago. When I think of Alex, I don't imagine him paddling a canoe. In fact, at a young age he found himself on a lake deep in the woods of the northern Midwest, and part of him has never left. Here's Alex.

Alex: I was 19 and had taken a break from college. I had been working as a community organizer in Atlanta, and I was unsure what lay ahead. A friend living in Minnesota suggested that he and I head north and so we traveled 300 miles from Minneapolis to this remote road called the Gunflint Trail. Near the end of the road, within reach of the Canadian border, we rented a canoe and followed a sneaking river into a series of lakes, each more beautiful than the last. My anxieties peeled away. I had never experienced such stillness. This is the Boundary Waters, a wilderness area bigger than the state of Rhode Island, home to over 1000 Lakes, each connected by rocky paths, or portages as they're called, ranging from 80 feet to several miles.

It feels mythical here, so pristine that you can drink directly from the lakes. The only way in is by canoe and once you're in if you don't have a map, forget about it. You're a goner, lost in this jigsaw puzzle of lakes. Some so small you can swim across them. A few so large they could swallow Manhattan. From that first trip, nearly 40 years ago, I was smitten.

[music]

Alex: There's a line that I think about a lot from the conservationist and author Terry Tempest Williams. She writes, "If you know wilderness in the way you know love, you would be unwilling to let it go." I'm 67 now and I know that these voyages will only get tougher and eventually impossible, and so I'm trying to get up here as much as I can.

Speaker 1: Where is that chest Alex?

Alex: I got to put it together. In late June, three friends and I arrived at a bunk house we rented from an outfitter. It was our jumping-off point for our trip. We woke early to get our permit and to load six portage packs with clothes, gear, and enough food for nine days.

Chris: This was really heavy.

Alex: Sure. Chris, who I've been paddling with for three decades, woke up with a sore throat and was feeling sluggish.

Chris: I can bring down the mood pretty easily.

Alex: If you have COVID man. We assumed it was COVID.

Chris: This is going to be really interesting.

Alex: Then my wife Maria called, she'd tested positive. It's like a funeral this morning.We haven't even started. I'm like, "Come on man." We hesitated for just a moment. We figured if Chris has COVID or if I get COVID what the hell, there couldn't be a more curative place to be than on the water. Then the outfitter Andy warned us it wasn't going to be an easy paddle. The wind looks like it's-

Andy: The wind is going to be straight into your face.

Gary: Oh my God. Are you serious?

Andy: That's a southwest wind, you guys are going to southwest.

Gary: Can you do anything about it? [laughs]

Andy: The next few days are going to be a little trying. It's like we're in the Bermuda Triangle.

Gary: [laughs] We just fucking got here. I waited three years to get here.

Alex: That's my friend Gary. He's a longtime backpacker but this is his first time the Boundary Waters.

Andy: What? You doing okay?

Gary: Yes, no. You just got to show me what to do, man we're good. We're good to go man.

Alex: Our destination that first night was Ogishkemuncie Lake, which paddlers simply call Ogish. We paddled all day through three lakes into a fierce headwind and so didn't get to Ogish until at early evening. All 11 campsites were taken.

Andy: That's a good wind.

Alex: This is the wondrous paradox of the Boundary Waters. Even though the campsites on Ogish were full, the lake felt devoid of people. That's the thing. This is a really popular place to come to in the Midwest but after a day or two of paddling, you might not see another person for days. After nearly 10 hours of travel on that first day, we pushed on to the next lake, found a campsite, cooked some brats and green beans.

Gary: Red wine?

Andy: Yes. Whatever there is. I prefer red.

Alex: Then prepared to bed down for the night.

Andy: Be ready, it's going to get dark in half an hour or so.

Alex: I came here with my recorder hoping to capture what so envelops me here. The mournful wails of loons at night, the lakes telling stories, the skies shouting. It occurred to me that very first night that I can't really capture on tape the true splendor of this place. It inhabits me. It lives inside me, and besides, how can you capture the signature of the Boundary Waters, its quietude? One writer, Sigurd Olson, describe being here as a time for silence. There's no way that rope is going to hold.

Gary: Come on, Alex don't be a gloomy Gus.

Alex: Every night before going to bed, we hang our food to keep it from bears. Make it harder for the bear.

Andy: That will be the last. That's the last obstacle for the bear.

Gary: He's going to say, "Oh my God. It's tied in knots, forget it." Screw it.

Alex: That's Gary again.

Gary: It ain't worth it, I'll go to the other camp site.

Alex: He can't help himself. He's just naturally exuberant.

Gary: Oh my god, we're totally screwing it. You know that.

Alex: We once were talking on a Chicago street corner in the early morning and a man approached us. He scolded Gary. "You know, you're talking really loud." As if Gary didn't know. It's who he is.

Gary: He is pulled on, he comes down.

Alex: It's one of the things I love about him. Nine days we paddled and portaged, fished and swam, but we mostly watched and listened.

Andy: What a beautiful morning, clear sky.

Gary: Fantastic. The only thing you hear is the river.

Alex: We watched the young eagle feast on a moose carcass in the shallows of a lake. We fended off and aggressive grouse. We are gold the peculiar abundance of butterflies. On past trips, I've spotted moose and mink, and otter. One time, Chris and I heard a pack of wolves howling from across the lake. I've canoed past a snapping turtle the size of a car tire. Another time, past a pair of trumpeter swans swimming protectively alongside their two cygnets.

Andy: You can tent and just feel the mosquitoes.

Gary: It's all right here. It's the fun.

Alex: Needless to say, it's not all serenity here.

Chris: Kill them all?

Gary: No, shitload of them.

Alex: Plus the portages can be punishing. Carrying the canoe or a 50-pound hack over boulders and through mud, often up steep inclines, or paddling on a day when the windswept waters turn moody. The swells can get so high that if you're in the bow of the canoe, you can't reach the water with your paddle. Some days even preparing wood for a fire is tough. The physical exertion, especially at our age, is wearing but it's as if you folded into the land. Honestly, it's nothing a few Advil and a good meal won't take care of.

Gary: I bet that trout is done.

Chris: It is.

Alex: We ate well on this trip, over four nights we ate fresh lake trout and Northern pike.

Gary: It was amazing.

Chris: Not going to lie. I like the Northern better.

Alex: We also had spaghetti and pesto, even jambalaya. Jim, who's an old college friend, and Chris, are incredible cooks.

Gary: Chris, don't you think that's too much red pepper flakes in there? Causing trouble.

Alex: Some traveled the boundary water solo, but I already live too much in my head and days alone here, I fear would only pull me further inward. Besides, I relish the company.

Gary: The one who should feel humiliated is Chris. He hasn't caught a fish yet.

[laughter]

Gary: Jim, how did that snag feel? When did you figure out that it was a snag and not a huge fish?

Alex: Oh my God. Jim, don't let him do this to you. In the evenings, Chris made us gin and tonics. He uses flavored fizz tablets mixed in lake water.

Gary: Wow, look at that sunset over there guys.

Chris: Incredible.

Gary: Look at the red, up on the corner there. See how it just pokes through the clouds.

Jim: Just amazing. The clouds are so close up here. You feel you can touch them.

Alex: Around the campfire, we talk about family, about politics, about books, but most often about really nothing at all.

Jim: Where do loons go in the winter?

Gary: That's's a Wikipedia.

Jim: We got to Wiki that when we get cell service.

Alex: I've neglected to mention there's no cell service inside this million acres of lakes and woods. We're off the grid, a rare time when we're disconnected from the world. Our last night on a campsite with a panoramic view of Tuscarora lake, we take our last swim.

Gary: Oh my God. So sweet. So cold it's freezing.

Alex: There was quite recently an effort to build a mine, a copper mine, along a river running into this wilderness. A river that feeds these lakes. Mining copper can be particularly toxic. Should any of the toxins leak, it would irreparably contaminate the waters. Who, I ask, would want to risk scarring this place?

Andy: I like what Gary said about this place, Chris. He wishes he could bring some of it back with him inside him.

Alex: How's that for being deep?

Gary: It's true.

Andy: That's deep.

Gary: It's true, man. Don't you wish, Chris, you could take this home?

Andy: We're going to put out the fire. Christopher, I think you.

Chris: Me?

Andy: Yes, the newbie.

Chris: The newbie, the rookie.

Alex: The MVP.

[laughter]

Chris: O what?

Andy: Rookie of the year.

Chris: Rookie of the year. I'm the only rookie here. I got to be rookie of the year.

Alex: The next day after three more lakes and two portages, one a mile long, and paddling yet again into a strong headwind, we arrived back where we started. This habit for me, that the first thing I do is call my wife, Maria, to make sure all's well. This time I especially wanted to know that she had made it through her bout of COVID okay. She usually preempts me and says, "Everything's good here." This time she blurts out, "Things are really bad." She wasn't talking about her COVID. In the time we'd been gone, the Supreme court overturned Roe versus Wade. They expanded the rights to carry a gun. They constrained the EPA. Nothing good.

That first weekend home in my city, Chicago, 10 people were killed, another 62 wounded by gunfire. Just north of the city, a young man with a semi-automatic rifle killed seven people at a July 4th parade. The country felt like it was shattering. I usually put my paddle away in the garage, but this time I've leaned it against a wall in my office. It's something to hold onto, to help me slip into that place where I can watch the sky sashay and where I can listen to the lakes breathe. That place where no matter the storms on the horizon, I can find refuge in the stillness. I'm unwilling to let it go.

[music]

David: Alex Kotz, his most recent book is An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago. Alex would like to thank Tuscarora Lodge and Canoe Outfitters and Chris Walker, Jim Adler, and Gary Marks, who allowed Alex to record their vacation.

Alex: They told me specifically to get people washing dishes.

Chris: You want trade places Alex?

Alex: That's my point. No, you don't know how to handle on that.

Gary: [laughs] It looks really hard.

Alex: You just washing dishes and leave the artist alone. He's got to work to do.

 

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