mattwinthewoods

Usually Outdoors in Minnesota

[mattwinthewoods]

It was that time of year again to witness the spectacular color that signifies the changing of the Seasons up on the Natural Playground that is the North Shore of Minnesota. A drive on the Honeymoon Trail, a Hike up and around Oberg Mountain and an Agate Hunt and visit to Father Baraga Beach were some highlights on this adventure w/ Jake and Marc.

[mattwinthewoods]

A North Shore Story:

There are days during the winter in Minnesota when the sun doesn’t shine.  It’s still there, but a grey haze envelopes the sky and seemingly the world, leaving one to feel as though they’re in some sort of melancholy snow-globe.  It was one of those days and I decided to drive up to the North Shore past Duluth from where I lived in the Twin Cities, hike a state park and spend the night in Grand Marais, just to get away for a little while.

I was not working, as I have always had an aversion to work. I enjoyed the thrill of being chosen and hired, but lacked the fortitude that one must have to withstand the withering numbness of tedium I would feel after weeks or months; not feeling creatively or personally fulfilled by employment that was necessity rather than for pursuit of happiness.  Besides, for the time being I was not worried for money as my beloved Uncle had left an inheritance to me after passing away just months earlier.  Not wanting to stay in town, I headed up the freeway towards some escape and adventure on an otherwise unremarkable Winter’s day.

Driving up 35, coming over the hill and looking down over Duluth and seeing Lake Superior is a sight I fell in love with the first time I saw and still evokes a sense of wonder and opportunity for me.  Soon traveling up the two lane highway of lore Highway 61, I had decided to stop at Gooseberry Falls State Park, hiked awhile slipping around on the trails, admired the work of the CCC crews and took some photos.  Getting back to my car around lunchtime, I headed farther up Hwy. 61 to a small charming town set along the shore, Beaver Bay,  which has a restaurant that I was familiar with.  

I was the only patron that particular gloomy day besides one other person in the place who soon left and I was still considering what I felt like doing for the rest of the day.  Was I going to go to another park?  There were several world-class parks not far.   Would I go get a room in Grand Marais and see what kind of interesting things there would be to be found?  Should I keep driving and go all the way to Grand Portage on the Canadian border?  As I sat there eating I wondered what I might do and that’s when the song came on, “What a Wonderful World” by Louie Armstrong.  That song, now…?

When my Uncle had been diagnosed with lung cancer, I visited him in the hospital one day and talked.  “You know my Dad doesn’t want a tombstone or grave marker?” I told him, “He said that he wants people to gather, say a couple remembrances and play a song by his favorite group,” a certain soft rock group that has a hit about a hotel out west.  “Well, I would like ‘What a Wonderful World’ played at my funeral,” he told me and grinned.  He had been a very cheerful guy and it fit him and his outlook on life.  It was one of the song included in the video montage at his service.  

Eating my lunch on that gloomy day with no sunshine outside just the grey bleakness of winter, alone in a quiet restaurant that song began to play and I felt a shudder deep within myself.  It wasn’t a pain nor was it discomfort, but a feeling of extreme isolation as though I had never been farther away, in body or spirit, from all those I had ever loved or ever cared for, even though they were literally only hours away, I had the overwhelming sensation of being alone and adrift amongst the world, a million miles from them and had the sense of urgency to see them, speak with them and tell them I loved them.  My grief of losing my Uncle Gregg, who had been a surrogate Father to my elder sisters and I, who I had counted on and taken granted all my life, who had taken me fishing and shown interest in me that a biological Father is meant to and mine had not, who I had seen expire in a hospital room months earlier, it seemed to flood in, that horrific introspective despair.  That song….   singing of the celebration of life.

“What was I doing up here?  What was I doing with my life?  Why did I continue to perpetuate a lifestyle that gave me very little happiness outside of inebriation when I would feel less malcontent?”  I should be challenging myself and I wasn’t; I hadn’t.  “I’m afraid you’re floundering,” my Mother had told me, “You’re not pushing yourself…  I see you pulling back and becoming more isolated and it’s not healthy Matthew.”  What will be my fate, Universe?  I’ve given you permission in depths of self-loathing to take me away, into the dark.  To slowly see the face in the mirror grow older before me.  What disappointment I felt in myself.  What a wonderful world….  singing of hope springing eternally.

I had grown old enough now to have experienced loss in my life; family and friends.  There is the understanding you come to realize that when someone leaves your life, whether it be in loss of life or loss of love, a hole is left within you.  A hole that cannot be filled in, not fully, by anything but time.  Though you’ll yearn and feel the sadness and longing fill your being, there is no remedy but time.  There seems to be those certain ghosts that revisit often, wanted or not.  

Those lyrics, sung with Armstrong’s signature smoky voice, played slowly and dreamily through the speakers, seeming to fill the room and myself with a stinging sadness of those things that I had passed through with age, things I would never get back, those I would never see again, all the regrets that I would find myself thinking on in the early morning hours, the aimlessness accompanying me through my frustrations.  That song….

I paid my bill and headed south down the highway towards home.  I couldn’t imagine going to Grand Marais and sitting in a hotel room all alone looking at Superior, hearing the wind rush outside the window like some sort of lonesome wail; I couldn’t do that.  Back, back to the place I’ve known and called home. To what end?

After that day, I would like to say that I raced back and expressed my love to my family, turned my life around and found happiness to quell that which inside me was in unrest, and I wish that all of that was true.  The real truth of it all is that I still am trying to find meaning in this life and trying to see the sunshine behind the clouds, that I’m still affected and striving to be better, but this was just a North Shore story.

-Matthew Wennerstrom

[mattwinthewoods]

A Strange Evening on the Root Beer Lady’s Island of Knife Lake in the Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota

Root Beer Lady's Island in August of this year, 2019: I am not saying this was absolutely paranormal or a ghost, it was just an experience that my friend and I had on a recent trip to Knife Lake.

My buddy and I were lucky enough to get the Southern Site, one of two on Dorothy's Island. Of course, we were happy to have gotten the site which is close to Ribbon Rock. We were going to make it a two night spot as we were on the tail end of our 10 day trip.

On the first night, which was a very calm August night with hardly a breeze, we had placed an inflatable light (a Luminaid Light) up in a tree about head level. Later in the evening, after cooking dinner and lounging around, the light popped out of the tree, rolled down the hill and propped itself against the only tree that would have stopped it from going down probably 50 feet down to the waterline. We looked at each other and kinda laughed as to how the light could have come off the branch it was laying on and how it had stuck itself next to this tree saving it from rolling all the way down the hill. As we were remarking on this strange occurrence, a plastic egg holder that was laying next to our food bag flipped off the log it was on and landed on the ground. Needless to say, we both looked at each other dumbfounded. "How did that happen? What the.......??? If anything else moves around I'm staying in your tent tonight." I told my friend.

Just then, standing around, the air seemed to have an electricity that made my hair stand on end and gave me goosebumps. As though we were in the presence of something that was letting us know it was there.... I had been living in a 100 year old house in St. Paul and had some strange experiences and I would say, "This is YOUR home; we are only caretakers." So that is what I said out loud once or twice. After a minute or two, it felt "normal" again in the air, leaving us to speculate what had happened. Again, I'm not claiming that it was paranormal or a ghost, it was just a very strange set of circumstances that I'm glad I didn't experience alone. If anything, I think it was kind of a playful gesture if it wasn't just the breeze messing with us.

Here's a link to the trip video: No footage of the specific event unfortunately, but still evidence we did spend the nights there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7-RW8lwnwM&t=205s

[mattwinthewoods]

Encountering a Tree Person in the Remote wild of the Boundary Waters in Northern Minnesota

Here's a little preface and to be aware there is a bit of NSFW material within this story: I was with three other guys luckily, otherwise I would of gotten the HECK out of there. We put in at North Moose River and traveled up through Iron/Lac La Croix past Curtain Falls up into Crooked, past Lower Basswood Falls and ended up on Horse just as a storm was hitting, this was on our 7th day. Luckily(?), there was a spot open (the second site on the north side after the gap into the river).   We were setting up tarps and I was pumping water with my trusty MSR pump and I noticed two of my buddies whispering to each other and it made me wonder what was going on. "There's a guy talking to Steve," my friend motioned back towards the woodline, "He came out of the woods." I walked back to find Steve talking to this skinny, disheveled figure who looked right out casting of a bad movie. His personal hygiene immediately made me think of Howard Hughes when his mind was dissolving. This man's fingernails were so dirty, gnarly and long that so much dirt was pushed beneath his fingernails that they were literally black. He had a long beard and long hair which was matted and dirty with sticks and other debris within it. He immediately asked if he could trade some things he had for any extra food we might have. He also told us that he was hiking on the "Angelworm" trail (the Angleworm Trail is the actual trail) and was camped out by our latrine. Wow, I did not like the vibe of this strange man immediately.   It started to storm badly again and he scampered back to his "shelter." Exchanging hesitant glances beneath the tarp in the rain, we decided that it was too rough to paddle out and we might have to spend the night here with this nut in the woods.   I've never felt more unsettled camping in my life. He seemed that kind of crazy person that could come out of the woods firing a pistol at us. We gave him tortillas and some granola bars in exchange for some tackle and some other random things, one of which was a knife. I know....., it was spooky.   He proceeded to tell us that his name was Aaron, and that he lived in the woods and was looking for psychedelic mushrooms. He was/is basically tripping his life away in the woods... He would talk non-stop about hunting for blueberries and how he would eat mushrooms and trip and think about blueberries, and it eventually got weirder and weirder.   After leaving and coming back about twice, each time bringing more things out of the woods to try and give to us, he began to talk about a baby deer that he used to carry and how it would buck him now and then. But, the more he spoke, the more he rambled and had long, drawn out pauses. He then told us, and please excuse the language and scenario, that the only animal in the woods that "gives you their warmth," are snakes. And, he told us if you have a big enough snake, you can make love with it. He proceeded to tell us several animals men and women can have relations with. Needless to say, we were all horrified and looked at each other agog.   The strangest thing he said, among many strange things, was his description, "how flowers grow over a shallow grave." I was having all sorts of bad thoughts after he uttered that sentence. Finally, I had had enough of his lingering and crazy talk. "Hey, you have anything else going on tonight?" I asked him, I trying to soften the blow into, "because it's our last night here, you know, and we just want to chill and reflect, could you give us our space please?" I had decided to try the empathy route.  I saw his eyes droop and he said okay, but would it be alright if he came back in the morning for some food? We had told him that we were leaving the next day and we would give him all we could? Yes, come back in the morning... Not gonna lie, we all slept with our gear under our vestibules and didn't leave anything out that night. Steve said that night he was swatting something that kept poking his tent as he was set up closest to the wood line.  I had the hatchet laying next to me as I slept. The next morning we broke down the tents and got ready to go. "You guys want to come back here a sec?" Steve shouted out. "What's that?" he asked pointing to the ground near his tent. I kid you not, a pile of human feces was near his tent. We shook our heads, let's get the F out of here, So, Aaron comes out of the woods, we showed him the bag of food (three potatoes, instant coffee and some sugar and salt packets). "This is all for me!?" he asked. We all nodded and he thanked us and told us that he was going to beat us to the portage. We watched as he gleefully skipped off into the woods toward the Horse River.   I have never had such a sense of relief as I did leaving that campsite that morning. Much of it still seems unreal. Our friend Chris had taken photos of Aaron and when we hit Ely he went to the Ranger Station. "Oh you met Aaron?" the Ranger told him. Apparently he's quite known to them. 

If you ever run into someone that mentally ill in the wilderness, it would probably be best practice to leave them alone and report them to the authorities.  

[mattwinthewoods]

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[mattwinthewoods]

There are very few places that I would describe as Magical, but this is one that you can feel...   Lac La Croix in Northern Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.