Allure of the ancients at Fishdance Lake

Wednesday night, Jenni and I finally had a chance to sit down and pore over our BWCA maps. We developed a rough plan to break it down, day by day:

Day 1, Saturday: Put in at Poplar Lake, portage into the BWCA, camp at Banadad Lake
Day 2, Sunday: Banadad to Frost Lake, via Long Island Lake
Day 3, Monday: The Frost River; camp at Mora Lake or, preferably, Little Saganaga Lake
Day 4, Tuesday: Little Saganaga to the Kawishiwi River, camp along the Kawishiwi or on Alice Lake
Day 5, Wednesday: Alice to Lake Insula (a shorter, easier day)
Day 6, Thursday: Lake Insula to the popular Number Lakes; we'll likely camp somewhere in Lake Two or Lake Three
Day 7, Friday: Number Lakes to the North Kawishiwi River; camp at the last site on the edge of the Boundary Waters where the North Kawishiwi becomes Farm Lake
Day 8, Saturday: Farm Lake to Bear Island Lake and the finish of the trip

That final day is going to be a whopper. We have no portages - theoretically, anyway - but have to cross the "large and windswept" expanse of White Iron Lake and paddle up the Bear Island River. In total, we'll cover a good 15 miles - or more.

With the building excitement for the trip - just a week away now - I've been doing bits of spare-moment research. Wednesday evening I looked up a few of the lakes and rivers in various Boundary Waters guide books on the shelf at Barnes & Noble. Jenni and I know the Frost River route is going to be challenging, particularly if the water is low. It has frequent portages, some of them rough, and, from what I've read, a good number of beaver dams to negotiate. It's going to be a long, hard day...the kind that, according to one book, is capable of putting friendly canoe-mates temporarily at odds by the end of the day.

Well, nothing like a good test of the ol' marriage. Monday, the Frost River day, will be our first anniversary.

Another note: While looking up some information about forest fires, I learned that we'll be passing through part of the area burned by the Ham Lake Fire last year. That 75,000-acre blaze sent a finger of flame surging south of the Gunflint Trail, right across Rush Lake, one of the first few lakes we'll paddle. We'll also paddle through the locales of two 2006 fires: The Famine Lake Fire burned the forest around the eastern end of Long Island Lake, and the Cavity Lake Fire blackened Little Saganaga Lake's northern shore.

Most exciting has been a discovery I made earlier this week looking up Boundary Waters historic sites online. The Boundary Waters is home to the location of a number of pictograph sites (one of the finest examples is at Hegman Lake). These reddish rock paintings of animals, canoes, manitous, and maymayguayshi (man-like figures) were made by Native Americans. Most are estimated to be between 400 and 1,000 years old.

A couple of months ago, Jenni and I were visiting my grandfather, Otto Christensen, an avid outdoorsman who has taken many trips to the Boundary Waters. He asked if we were going to be see any pictograph sites on our voyage. "No," I replied, "unfortunately our route won't take us near any of them." Rotters, too, because coming upon this ancient art in the wilderness would be awesome.

How wrong I was! As it turns out, one well-known pictograph site is on a rock face rising from the waters of Fishdance Lake...just a short detour off our Kawishiwi River route near Alice Lake (I've added the location of Fishdance Lake to our map).

Just the name "Fishdance Lake" conjures up images of ancient spirits and total wildness. This is a place with history. And it's calling my name.