I always have a slight sense of trepidation when my wife Jodi drops me off on the far side of the Lost Lake Swamp, with miles of remote, unbroken bushwhacking ahead of me. Earlier this month, it was myself and a friend who Jodi was waving to as we headed into the thick woods from the dead end on the Little Fork River Rd.
My friend, once an elite Division I collegiate runner, was the only person who had ever agreed to join me (Jodi, oddly, has never been tempted) on my annual snowshoe slog through the swamp. This was her second time so she knew what she was getting into on this slightly overcast morning, with the temperature hovering just above zero.
We hit the trail about 10 a.m., with my log cabin, perched high on the ridge on the far side of the swamp, as our ultimate destination.
As the crow flies, it was seven miles. Winding through the alder thickets, the dense cedar groves, and the miles of scattered, stunted spruce and tamarack, it was easily ten miles, maybe more. The snow was deep and powdery and, where the wind hadn’t packed it, we sunk in, at times, to our knees.
I’ve done this trek many times before, but this time I had a slightly different route in mind. There’s a small hill in the swamp, about a mile from where we started. On a U.S. Geological Survey map, it marks what appears to be the origins of the Little Fork River, with little lines of winding blue that wrap around both sides of the hill. I had passed by there a few times in the past, on skis once the crust was hard, and had always passed south of the hill, into an extensive thicket of alder and dwarf birch. I was hoping to avoid that by passing north of the hill. For me, it was uncharted territory, but the risks associated with exploring new territory have certainly diminished in an age of smartphones with their GPS capabilities. In the past, I had always used a map and compass, which can have limitations in a landscape with very few recognizable landmarks. Google Earth had indicated that a series of beaver ponds awaited us on the north side of the hill and we found the snow windblown enough to make for a bit easier going. We slogged through a narrow patch of brush before reaching somewhat higher ground, where the alder transitioned to cedar. By then, we were a couple of miles into the trek. It has been slower going than we had expected and it was after noon by then so we knew that daylight could become a limiting factor.
But we continued on, and finally reached the largest of the upland islands in the Lost Lake Swamp, a place where few humans ever wander. Along the way, I chopped several chunks of chaga from old paper birch. I don’t know whether the chaga from these old trees is any more potent than what I find closer to the house, but as I sip a little chaga tea in the mornings, it always brings me back to my explorations in the swamp, which is its own palliative in a world that sometimes seems to have gone insane.
A portion of this island also contains the most extensive stand of yellow birch that I’ve ever found in these parts. I wasn’t sure if we could locate my favorite yellow birch as we trudged across about a mile of upland forest. It’s a massive tree with a huge spreading crown, but after nearly an hour of trekking through very old woods, I recognized a rock outcrop and, from there, was able to navigate to my tree. It had been years since I had made a visit and I, of course, had to give it a hug.
It was at that point that my trepidation lifted. We had reached the midway point of our trek and we were now back on familiar ground… in my own somewhat expansive backyard you might say. No need for the occasional check of the GPS after that. The thickets of alder, cedar, and the deep woods of the big island were behind us. From here on, it was open, stunted spruce and weathered tamarack, until we would reach the Arrowhead snowmobile trail for the final mile or so.
The trepidation was gone, but the work was only half over. Before reaching the more open swamp, where we suspected the wind would have packed the snow for us, we had to pass through the most dreaded area of all, a stretch of sedges and cattails. If you haven’t tried to snowshoe through tall sedges or cattails before, try to avoid it at all costs. The structure of the grass-like plants hold the snow up, which means once you break through you sink much further than usual. At times, we were wallowing in nearly waist-deep snow, while the sedges and cattails tangled our snowshoes. The stretch was only a couple hundred feet but it seemed like a mile and it strained our already tired muscles.
We finally made it through and reached the open swamp, where the going was considerably easier. By then it was mid-afternoon, so we needed the break, both from physical exhaustion as well as the progress of the soon-to-be-setting sun.
From there, we shot as close to a straight line as we could muster, through two miles of what peatland experts refer to as “featureless water track,” which could have easily passed on this day as frozen Arctic tundra. My poor friend, who was a distance runner back in the day, was definitely flagging as we made our way, one increasingly painful step at a time, across a seemingly endless expanse of snow drifts interspersed with the gnarled bones of stunted tamarack. I promised that relief would come once we hit the snowmobile trail. “It’s really just up ahead,” I told her several times before she finally stopped believing me.
“No really,” I finally said and, this time, it was true. It was the sight of a couple snowmobiles whizzing by, that finally convinced her. We reached the trail, took off our snowshoes, and she collapsed right on the trail. After a brief rest, we started walking the final mile. To go straight home would have required putting our snowshoes back on (which neither of us wanted to do), so we opted to walk the trail instead to its intersection with our road. We called Jodi and asked her to pick us up there, figuring either way we had made it across the swamp.
“Are you crazy?” is the usual response when I tell people about my slogs across the swamp. But I don’t think it’s crazy to challenge yourself on occasion. And, it’s the only way to see all that’s truly out there, beyond the limit of our comfort.