A Few Days Up North

A Few Days Up North

7/14 – 7/19/22

7-14

A half-hour before dawn, a great golden moon outfacing the gathering light, I checked the back seat to be sure I wasn’t missing anything, and – for the first time in a very long while – set off on a road trip in my own car. My destination was the flyspeck town of Emily, MN, where my college friends had rented a cabin. As usual, however, I planned to break the long drives with a series of local destinations along the way.

The first of these was Devil’s Lake State Park. Although it’s the most popular state park in Wisconsin – largely by virtue of being a short drive from the Dells – I had never been there, and spent a pleasant few hours hiking along the jagged Precambrian ridges overlooking the lake. I especially liked the Devil’s Door, a broken arch framing a sweeping valley view.

On my way out of the park, I stopped to hike up Parfrey’s Glen, a stony canyon cooled by a babbling brook. Then the long and impressively featureless drive to Washburn, a small town on the Lake Superior shore. After stopping on the main street (for a respectable pizza) and at the library (to check the underwhelming wifi signal), I visited the town’s two campgrounds. These are first-come, first-served, but on weeknights – or so the reviews had assured me – spots are usually available. Not this time. Eventually, I parked in the single unoccupied corner of a field euphemistically marked “overflow camping.” As I sat in the passenger seat and read by lantern light, that same great golden moon rose over the shimmering lake.

7-15

I woke to a steady rain drumming on the car roof. Around 6, I clambered into the driver’s seat and drove to the Washburn Public Library. Clutching my old laptop under my coat, I ran through the rain and sat in front of the door – which was sheltered by a low stoop – to upload the week’s YouTube video. The signal was adequate, if just barely – but my computer crashed just as I was finishing the upload, and I didn’t have time to try again.

I had reserved a spot on a kayak tour of the Apostle Islands sea caves, and arrived at the outfitter’s to find myself part of a group of four – a couple in one tandem kayak, and myself with a dude from northern Wisconsin in the other. Although the rain had given way to sun, a storm had kicked up three-foot swells, which slammed into the sandstone cliffs with a dull roar.

Launching from Myers Beach, we kayaked a few miles along the shore, darting into caves and under arches as the wind whistled and eagles soared overhead. My kayak partner – a DNR employee – turned out to be a part-time firefighter, who spends part of each summer trying to contain wildfires out west.

My next stop was public library of Superior, WI, where I spent the better part of an hour uploading my video. Then – after an excellent deep-dish pizza at a brewing company – I plunged into the woods of north-central Minnesota, and made my way to the cabin where my friends were staying.

7-18

My weekend at Emily passed in a blur. Saturday was Emily Day, an annual county fair-style shindig culminating in “giant fireworks.” I entered the meat raffle (sponsored, naturally, by Emily Meats), but was disappointed. Sunday, we drove out to Brainerd, which was almost eerily quiet. The town’s oddly-shaped concrete water, however, was appreciated by all. Two days of comradery and swimming in the idyllic little lake on which our cabin was situated, three evenings of bonfires and games – and then, all too soon, it was over. I left early this morning, before anybody else was awake.

After a long drive through the Twin Cities and along the I-94 corridor, I made a brief stop in Menomonie to see the Mabel Tainter Arts Center, an exotic Romanesque Revival building reminiscent of Louis Sullivan’s work in Chicago. This was followed by a somewhat longer stint at a tavern in Chippewa Falls, where I was treated to the best ham sandwich I have ever tasted. Then onward to Sparta, where I rented a bike.

The Elroy-Sparta bike trail is the nation’s oldest rails-to-trails project, and remains one of the most unique trails anywhere in the Midwest. It follows the line of a defunct railway through western Wisconsin’s beautiful Driftless countryside, past wooded hills bristling behind corn fields and tidy little villages nestled in coves.

The highlights of the trail are the three long tunnels driven through sandstone ridges that crossed the railroad’s path.

Biking through the tunnels is a unique, and slightly unnerving, experience – pitch black, seamed with unseen ruts, and serenaded by streams of cold water trickling along the walls and raining from the ceiling. The first tunnel, nearly three-quarters of a mile long, actually creates its own weather: since the interior was nearly forty degrees cooler than the 90-degree afternoon, thick banks of fog formed around the entrances and boiled out into the sunshine.

After returning my rental bike and stopping for dinner at the local Culver’s, I drove through the rolling hills to Wildcat Mountain State Park, where I had reserved a campsite. I walked out to the park’s overlooks to watch the sun set over the woods and hills. Then I returned to my car and lay sweating on top of my sleeping bag, waiting for a cool breeze that never came.

7-19

It was cooler this morning, with a welcome overcast. After my usual morning routine, I drove the few miles to Ontario, western Wisconsin’s paddling mecca. This town of 600 hosts no fewer than three major canoe / kayak liveries, all strung along the banks of the narrow Kickapoo River. Having chosen the inimitably named Mr. Duck Canoes (they had a deal on kayaks), I launched into the river, and was immediately immersed (so to speak) in the familiar world of a Driftless stream: high bluffs alternating with cornfields, rock bars and riffles.

Though not on the scale of the Upper Iowa (let alone the Buffalo), the Kickapoo is a beautiful river, with dozens of fern-bedecked sandstone bluffs and thick stands of riverside pines. I paddled by serenely, passing a few groups of Amish canoeists.

I had decided to kayak only about ten miles, but was nearly forced to go much further when a faulty cell signal prevented me from calling in the shuttle. Fortunately, I managed to use a good Samaritan’s phone, rattled back to Ontario in a timely fashion, and headed homeward through the rolling hills.