Years ago a book on the mysteries of the human condition struck me with a novel thought I’d never considered: Human beings are basically social creatures, the author acknowledged. But in many of us there dwells a yearning to break out of the mold and our workaday society and to explore.
To explore what? I asked myself a question: has there been a day in your life when you didn’t see another person or hear another voice? In other words, total isolation. If so, how would you react? Relief? Panic? Call the wife?
After thinking it over I bought into the idea, which called for some basic strategy. In northern Minnesota there are thousands of square miles of lake country in the more remote parts of the Boundary Waters where a sensibly equipped person in winter could roam in solitary appreciation and kinship of a wild nature.
So I walked into the office of the managing editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, for which I wrote a daily column. “I want to get away in the winter wilderness, alone, and share the experience with the newspaper’s readers,” I said. The editor considered this proposal and went immediately to the meat of it. “How much is it going to cost?”
“Practically nothing,” I said. “I’m bringing my own gear, cross country skis and a small camp cooker. In other words, total isolation.” The editor looked out the window. It was the middle of winter and my odd proposition coincided with a major league snowstorm underway that eventually put 25 cars in the ditch in South St. Paul and shut down half of the state’s schools.
“I want to ski into the Boundary Waters country and camp,” I said. “It’s packed with snow and ice in winter yet beautiful in its isolation. I want to experience two or three days of complete solitude.” The editor thought he could meet this request less dramatically by furloughing me to Duluth to spend a week on the aerial bridge watching the ice form on Lake Superior. I told the editor I was disappointed by this rare lack of vision. So he authorized two or three days of isolation in the winter Boundary Waters.
I drove the several hundred miles to the Boundary Waters territory, organized my gear at a lodge on the edge of East Bearskin Lake and in the half light of the early morning strapped on my skis and headed out on the snow cover of the lake ice, several feet thick by then and safe.
It was glorious when the sun rose, nurturing the visitor with its color and glistening snowfields. “Enjoy the show,” they seemed to be saying. And I did. The air was quiet except for a random breeze and I headed in a direction where I had canoed before, bearing a few hundred yards from the pine forest to the north. The breeze was soft; practically nothing stirred in the forest. I remembered a waterfall in this direction but wasn’t sure whether there might be a route to it negotiable on skis. I remembered the turquoise cast to the tumbling water but it had to be frozen by now, so I struck the waterfall as a serious destination. It didn’t matter. The whole scene, the frozen forest, the high sky, the unhurried swishing of my skis, was pretty glorious. I took photos, skied ashore for a sandwich luncheon I drew from my pack, and now became aware of the wildlife—large black birds overhead, call them ravens, smaller birds chattering as they flew over my head.
And then in the distance, deer. But nothing human. I skied slowly to absorb the country. And now more deer, all of them safe enough from wolves in daylight, I thought. It was such a remarkably light-hearted day that I sang a few verses of John Denver’s “Sunshine on my Shoulder.” It went that way until nightfall. By then I’d made a campsite on a small island just off shore, cleared the snow and pitched my tent, cooked a light supper on the tiny camp stove and settled into my sleeping bag for the night. I’d brought a small overhead lamp and read a few chapters of one of Georges Simenon’s Superintendent Maigret’s crime novels that fit weightlessly into a back pack. Sounds? Yes, some. Larger birds. Woodpeckers before nightfall. Owls. Ravens. Some distant screeching. But when I’d started to make breakfast I had a sensation that I hadn’t been alone all that much. In the snow outside the tent were deer tracks, and little further away larger tracks, not immediately identifiable. Moose? Probably. Nothing especially close to the tent, for which I offered a sociable thanks.
And the next day the sun was glorious and full. I skied a huge circle though the Norway pines beyond the shore ice, still looking for that frozen waterfall that I was unable to locate on my map; but I was royally welcomed by the woodpecker chorus and yelled up to the ringleaders. “Way to go, guys.” I looked up and saw clouds beginning to form and thought I probably should to hustle because I’d have to make one more camp before returning to the lodge. But still no signs of identifiable humanity.
How about some blips of fear now and then? I didn’t feel that. I carried no weapon. If I thought I needed one, I shouldn’t be out here. And so I skied toward my final camp and exchanged mock woodpecker sounds with the real ones coming from the trees. How do I know if they have a sense of humor? More moose tracks in the snow. I calculated my return. I wasn’t going to make the lodge trail by nightfall and as the sun started dipping toward the horizon I looked for a campsite. Troubles there. Nothing capable near the shore so I kept moving and finally found a place just off the lake ice amid some high hanging brush. I put up the tent at nightfall, ate some sandwiches read for a few minutes and turned off the lamp.
I tucked myself in, a few yards off the frozen lake, pleasantly satisfied with my experiment in solitary living. I nodded off around 9 p.m. when the concert began. The soloist was the leader of wolf pack about a quarter of a mile down the lake ice from where I was camped. There is no sound that so starkly defines the winter wilderness as wolves howling in concert at night. For any intruder within earshot it stifles the breath and grabs the skin. I poked my head out of the front flap and counted nine of them. A person who was apparently a wolf expert once told me that a wolf chorale like that can be seen as something like a celebration of their community. All right, I like communities. But there they were, celebrating for nearly a half hour. I thought seriously about it. I thought that instead of the wolves wandering in my direction I would be better off letting them know I was there instead of surprising them. So I banged a few pans, and flashed my light briefly and settled into my sleeping bag.
The chorale went for more than a half hour, and then subsided. Now silence. I considered my position. I had a Swiss Army knife, which at the time didn’t feel all that protective. But I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until daybreak at 7 a.m. or so. The night had been without incident and safe. I began to take down the tent and went in back to dislodge the rear rope.
It wasn’t there. It had already been co-opted by long white teeth. The snow behind my tent was filled with large and mingled wolf prints. They had all been there. All nine of them, while I slept.
I’m not sure how I explained that to the editor. But it was definitely an unprogramed finish to solitude in the wild. The editor congratulated me on my return but suggested the next time I might want to switch to waterfalls. He said it would be easier on the company’s insurance policies.