WAKWIR: Laketrails 2019

Welcome back, readers, to another WAKWIR session, and this week we will talk about my EPIC journey to Laketrails. There are six sessions at Laketrails, the first three which my sister Tereza, attended as a camper worker. I went to the fifth session, or the middle school session (again).

My sister and her camper-worker friends

So it all started on a bus. Yeah, that sounds a little weird, but literally, it all starts on a bus. I got into my mom's car and drove to the bus stop. So after a lot of having forced “goodbye” and “have fun!” moments, I finally got on the bus and was driven to Young's Bay Resort at the Northwest Angle (Cool place by the way). In groups of six, we were then whisked away in boats to Oak Point, where Laketrails Base Camp is (which is on Oak Island).

When we got there we played games and had dinner, and then went to the opening campfire (the first major event of Laketrails). The next day, we had breakfast, played games, then went to stations that tell you what you will do when you are on your canoe trip (it's a five day long trip on Lake of the Woods). There was a station on how to paddle, swim, portage, and what packs we would take. There was a nature walk and a games station to get to know each other and possibly meet people who will go on your trip.

Next, we chose our canoe trip. Now, it seems a bit funny, but the guides for the trips actually dress themselves up in clothes related to their trip, then make a silly skit to get kids to go on their trip. There were six trips in all, 3 which were ranked in medium difficulty, and the other three in easy difficulty. I decided to go on a trip to an unnamed lake that Laketrails called Survival Lake. It is about a mile away land wise and about 6 miles paddle wise from Question Lake, a lake in this place called the Western Peninsula. Then, once the skits were done, everyone quickly pushed and ran out as quickly as possible to get to the trip that we would want to go on. My trip had a limit of eight and everyone was in a rush to get there. I was lucky, I was the last one to get to the group, and once I did, half a second later, about 15 other people came running to our station who wanted to go on the trip.

The next morning, after a large breakfast session, our trip group got together, packed our canoes, and set off towards our destination. It was calm at first. I was sitting in the middle of the canoe or “duffing,” when we first hit our strong headwinds. If the headwinds weren’t bad enough, the sky decided to treat us to some rain for the rest of the day. But, in the middle of paddling to our campsite, we saw the group that was going to Question Lake. After a couple of repeat-after-me songs, they slowly paddled away into the direction of their campsite. We paddled on for another couple of hours, getting rained on, being cold, and enjoying a very scarce bit of sunshine before it rained on us again...and we got to our campsite. I don’t know when we got there, because we have no sense of time there, but all I know is, once everyone had their tents and tarps up, it poured.

Heading out to Survival Lake

Well, after the sky cried for a while, it decided to brighten up with some nice evening sunshine. While almost everyone was chilling and enjoying the evening, me and my friends decided to go to the beach where our canoes were propped against the shore, and dig for clay! According to our guides, we spent half an hour digging for clay. Well, the results turned out to be good because we made a two pound ball of pure clay just from digging in the sand!

The next day, I woke up, refreshed from a stir fry dinner, and pleased to know the ball of clay had dried completely(not to be used as a deadly weapon), and feeling completely up for the day, and mostly excited for reaching our destination! It started off with me paddling. I had it pretty easy because we had a soft tail wind and a nice pack of sunshine to set us on our way! We paddled across this place called Bishop Bay, and we got heavy head winds. The wind didn’t last that long because we went behind an island, and then we got to our portage spot.

The portage was short. Well it seemed short; it felt like a 5 minute portage and all of us were happy, until the guides told us it was a 20 minute portage and the bugs were coming soon. So we hurried up, paddled to our campsite only to realize that we had not had lunch yet. The guides and camper workers all started laughing, knowing that they had pranked us good, so as an apology, the guides gave us cheese, crackers, and salami for lunch (only the salami and crackers were good, the cheese had a funky taste). 

Now we were fully at our destination, our guides dug into the community pack to get their hammocks, and one of our guides actually fell asleep for a couple of hours while most of the campers (including me), swamped a canoe. If you don’t know what that means, it basically means to sink and flip a canoe either controllably, or uncontrollably. After another prank by one of the camper workers, we had pita pizzas for dinner, and we enjoyed another peaceful evening in the wilderness…

The next morning I woke up really early and I couldn’t go back to sleep so I got up and out of the tent and enjoyed the sunrise and a nice calm view over the lake. I got tired so I went back to the tent and slept for a while more. I woke up again this time with the guides awake, so I got out of my tent enjoying a nice breeze when one of the guides told me to wake everyone up. Knowing myself, waking people up was a very fun job for me so I ran up to all of the tents and yelled “GOOD MORNING, CAMPERS!” very very loudly. Loud enough, that the guides told me that I yelled too loudly. So later after oatmeal, we left from Survival back to base camp. We paddled against a heavy headwind which wore us all out. The guides treated us to a lunch full of pop tarts and apples. The pop tarts gave us the energy to paddle all the way to Red Water Bay. Which has a very steep campsite. If the wind wasn’t that bad, we just happened to have some rain which made the day absolutely miserable.We had chicken alfredo that night, and a lot of rain and wind…

The next day we were wind bound on our campsite. There was rain and SUPER heavy winds. We had no choice but to stay at our campsite and watch the big whitecaps that topped the lake. We were going to leave when the wind died down, but we were too comfy in the 12 person cuddle puddle in the 6 man tent… After a long and refreshing nap and relaxing day, we decided to do a night paddle. So at 8:30 we left our calm campsite and paddled into the sunset as we did a contest to see who could spot the first star. Once it was really dark, the sky was clear and I could spot about 10 different constellations(two of which were my own), and many, many, many stars. We sort of got lost on the lake, because we couldn't find our campsite. After many cold, beautiful hours, we finally found our campsite at 1:30 in the morning. The guides told us. That night (or morning), we only set up two tents. One for the campers, and one for the guides (the camper workers slept with us, and enjoyed a nice morning sleep…

The next morning, we realized that we were on our last day on trail, and that we would reach base camp later that day. So, after a bagel breakfast, we paddled out for about two hours, saw some groups that were coming back to base camp, when we had our Jennie Raid. The Jennie is the box that holds all of our food, and what's left we eat right before coming back to base camp. We ate some slim jims, and sausages, and mostly, a cookie made mixture which was very good. We then set out on our last stretch to base camp hoping we would be first...We weren't. Our group gracefully paddled third into base camp which was  fun. After the session of cleaning tents, canoes, and dishes for food, we had lunch. And after lunch we went into the LakeTrails sauna to officially end being on the trip to Survival Lake. That night ended with a delicious dinner, a lot of games, and a good night's sleep.

The next morning we were woken up as usual in our cabins for the cabin cleaning contest! The cabin cleaning contest in which you had to clean your cabin (obviously), and add a fun theme to it. Who ever won it, would get to be first for lunch. We had breakfast, and then went straight to cleaning and making the cabin look fancy. Our theme was fisherman fishing on Question Lake and catching fish. Sadly, my cabin didn’t win, and I was at the end of the lunch line. The food was still very good as always. We then got into our trip groups and discussed what our trip skit would be. Ours was going to be the best trip, like always, and yeah, we practiced our skit, played games, had dinner, then went to the closing campfire. At the campfire, every trip did their skit, with a song in between, until the camp director did a small ending campfire speech and went to bed.

The next morning everyone was brutally woken up by guides and camper workers with bells, whistles and drums, telling everyone to pack their stuff and bring it to the dock. Well, I had my stuff already packed, so I brought it to the dock, and had some Fruit Loops and Lucky Charms, before getting whisked away in a boat named Larry back to Young’s Bay Resort, where everything about LakeTrails Base Camp…

....Ended on a bus. 

David(WAKWIR)

WAKWIR and his buds

On This Day

Historic Highlights (credits)

2008 - Michael Phelps Earns his 8th Gold Medal in the 2008 Olympics
The American champion swimmer won the medal in the 4×100-meter medley relay race in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. With this medal, he broke the record for the most gold medals won by a person in a single Olympic games, a record previously held by American swimmer Mark Spitz.

1978 - Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman become the first people to complete the world's First Transatlantic Balloon Flight
The feat was accomplished in a balloon called the Double Eagle II. It took Abruzzo, Anderson, and Newman 6 days to fly from Preque Isle, Maine to a barley field near Paris.

1970 - Venera 7 launched by the Soviet Union
Launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Venera 7 became the first spacecraft to land on another planet, Venus, and send data back to Earth. It entered Venus’ atmosphere in December 1970.

1960 - Gabon gains independence from the French
France had occupied Gabon since the latter part of the 1800's. In 1910, the Equatorial country was added to French Equatorial Africa, a federation of France's Central African colonies. From 1934 to 1958, French Equatorial Africa was considered by France as an unified colony.

Happy Birthday to You!🎶 

1960 - Sean Penn, American actor, director

1949 - Norm Coleman, former St. Paul, MN mayor and MN senator

1943 - Robert De Niro, American actor

1911 - Mikhail Botvinnik, Russian chess player

1786 - Davy Crockett, American soldier, politician

Remembering You

1935 - Charlotte Perkins Gilman, American sociologist, novelist

1880 - Ole Bull, Norwegian violinist, composer

1850 - José de San Martín, Argentinian general, politician, 1st President of Peru

1786 - Frederick the Great, Prussian king


Load up your boat or canoe, get on the lake and make it a great Saturday!

Kim