Naive Noni #2

"Lord knows I've never been through Marine Boot Camp - hell, I can hardly watch war movies because even the fake killing disturbs me - but I couldn't help but think that I had somehow gotten myself into some weird sort of hoo-ahh situation: paddling my rickety ass canoe directly into an oncoming thunderstorm in an attempt to make it to our next camp in a quickly darkening wilderness. The wet stuff numbing my face could hardly be called rain anymore. It had combined with the lake and the wind to create some extra-natural force; pushing us back from the land we desperately needed to reach before nightfall.

It was unbelievable. Just an hour earlier it had been a pristine day; well over half way into our Boy Scout 'vacation' to the Boundary Waters Wilderness Canoe Area. Somewhere between Minnesota and Canada our group of amateur rowers had found a gorgeous island in the middle of the largest lake we'd yet seen. Josh and I had chosen to go with the younger group, boys that were hardly even teenagers, so we could enjoy a more leisurely pace and spend whole days fishing. We thought we had found the perfect place for just that. And then the rain started to fall.

It only sprinkled at first, but the thick drops and dark clouds in the near distance clued us in to nature's true intentions. Josh immediately realized we'd be in trouble if we didn't get off the island ASAP. We were two hours away from dusk; closer with the storm roaring in overhead. If we didn't try to beat the rain we'd be stranded on the island for the night. That would put us half a day behind schedule and throw our last two days completely off. We'd run out of food and miss our rendezvous back to civilization.

Josh sprinted through the thick, mossy forest that carpeted all but the edges of the island, trying to corral the younger scouts who had scattered to do God knows what. Luckily, each boy was quickly accounted for. Despite their lack of maturity, but more importantly thanks to Josh’s leadership, everyone hurriedly disembarked from the small cove where our canoes were docked.

Before we knew it we were in the middle of a dark lake in the Minnesota Wilderness when the heavy sprinkles turned into heavy rain and the once fun trip became deadly serious. Josh was in the back of my canoe desperately reading the map, frantically trying to find the cleared camp ground we had to reach at the other end of the lake.

‘Just head 10 degrees to your right and we should hit the site!’ he yelled over the wind and rain.

I was afraid Josh and I wouldn’t make it. Josh was afraid that the younger scouts wouldn’t make it. He called out to me again, this time to tell me that we had to circle around to the three canoes behind us to show the younger scouts exactly where we were headed. I was as confused as I was annoyed. We were always the lead canoe and the others had just followed us. As we struggled back to each canoe I realized Josh wasn’t showing them where we were headed as much as he was reassuring each boy that we’d make it and everything would be just fine if they just hung in there and trusted him. Boys that were close to tears when we got to them were left with a smile of determination as we moved on to the next one.

My arms were burning by the time we had circled back to the front of our pathetic armada. The shore-line we were aiming at was a sliver in the distance; a grey line below patches of evergreen. Stroke after painful stroke without a hint of progress finally yielded to hope. Somehow the constant rain, wind, and paddling morphed into a timeless, mindless action. We reached the shore after an hour on the lake.

Exhausted, our struggle was far from over. In the now pitch dark we had to set up camp before we could finally rest. Josh struggled with the younger boys in the group to drag their canoes on-shore. One by one he made sure each boy had their tents put up before he even thought of erecting his own. I tried to help, but I had never really gotten the hang of it the whole trip and the near impossible conditions weren’t making it any easier. Finally, everyone was safely zipped up in their sleeping bags and was asleep before Josh and I had even finished staking our tent pegs in the drenched soil.

Wet, cold, and exhausted, Josh and I slid into our sleeping bags, our minds trying to wrap around exactly what we had just put ourselves through. I looked over at Josh, and right before falling asleep said,

'Son, you really grew up today, I'm proud of you.'