R and J in the USA

We loved our time in the little outdoorsy tourist town of Ely, Minnesota. If you want to explore the boundary waters, this is a good home base.

There were no other towns for miles and miles, so when we finally arrived at the outpost of Ely, Ryan noted the population sign matched the town in which he grew up, somewhere in the 3,000s. But this town was nothing like his small town. When you are in a small town that is within thirty minutes from a handful of large towns and small cities, a town of 3,000 has a few neighborhoods, a small Main Street with maybe a bakery, a pub, and a post office, a handful of gas stations, and not too much more. When you are a small town like Ely, where there is no nearby bigger town to go to within fifty miles for supplies or more of the cultural add-ons that bigger towns can bring, you’ve got to have them all in one place. So Ely was hopping. There were multiple main drags with shops, more than a few solid coffee shops to get some hot drinks and pastries, a movie theater, grocery stores, and more than one good park to hang out at or play beach volleyball in.

We stayed our night in Ely in one of said town park parking lots next to a nice set of bathrooms and ate our dinner to the sounds of a local beach volleyball game roaring and then winding down.

We headed over to Ely Outfitting Company, one of a good handful of local establishments set up to take folks out canoeing on the Boundary Waters. We had scheduled a half day canoe adventure and met our guide, Rob, at 7:00 AM to get out onto the water nice and early. 

We were greeted at the window by a North Face clad woman ready to check us in with those Minnesota vowels. Only after chatting a bit more did we find out she was originally an upstate New Yorker too and had overlapped a year at the same college as Ryan! With thirty years in the bank in these northern Minnesota waters, the Upper Midwest accent had snuck in and become her own, and she no longer identified as a “fellow New Yorker”.

Then we met our guide for the day, Rob. Despite our initial challenges communicating about where to park the van, which had us questioning if we were in the right hands, we very soon found ourselves all in on our boundary water guide. Not only did he know his stuff and carry a 45-pound canoe on his back with so much ease and agility it might as well have been a scarf resting so lightly on his shoulders, he was a blast. We struck up a playful and fun rapport immediately. 

As we’ve found on this trip, when you sign up for a 3-4 hour guided something or other into nature with someone you don’t know at all, you realize very quickly that your life is somewhat dependent upon someone you have only just met, and you are deep into someone else’s wilderness. We couldn’t have felt in better hands.

A native Minnesotan, Rob had grown up in rural Minnesota and had made his way to this little oasis in the north where one could slip away deep into the wild and beautiful places and not concern themselves too much with much of anything else. He wanted to help us get to know Minnesota and told us one of their locally famous Lena, Ole and Sven jokes. He had a slight Minnesota accent to begin with, but turned it on to full tilt for the sake of the joke. Rob told us that the Minnesota accent was an inheritance from the area’s heavy Nordic influence. It made sense when hearing the crossover between the Minnesota sounds and Swedish ones.

So, he starts in on the joke. 

Ole, Lena, and Sven are out in the cold hiking and they have lost their way. It is snowy. It is cold. They are hungry. And they are lost. 

They stumble upon an old oil lamp in the snow, pick it up, rub on it, and out comes a genie. The genie makes it clear this is not a “three wishes” situation in the standard sense. They each get one and only one wish.

Ole goes first. “Oh gosh. I sure would love to be back in the cabin, all cozy warm, with a nice hot drink, sitting by a lovely fire.”

And poof. Ole is gone.

Lena says, “Oh golly. That sure sounds wonderful. I wish for the same thing!” And poof, Lena disappears and she and Ole are as happy as can be, finally warm by the fire.

Sven’s turn.

“Oh gosh. Well, now that Ole and Lena are gone and it’s just me, well, gosh, I’m lonely. … I wish they were here!”

We laughed. We felt fully welcomed to Minnesota.

We got to the trailhead and Rob pulled a canoe off the top of the van by himself like he was grabbing a pot out of the cupboard. Effortless. He did a short portage to the lake and we loaded into the canoe. Soon we came to another portage opportunity and Rob offered it up to one of us. Julie eagerly volunteered. Though she successfully carried the canoe the short distance across land, there is no question she did not make it look as easy as Rob did, nor was she finding it to be as easy as Rob made it look. That’s why he’s the professional.

Talk about peaceful. 

The water was full of tannins so it had that rusty brown look to it, but Rob explained to us it was so clean that it was safe to drink.

Julie was seated in the middle of the canoe, Ryan in front, and Rob in control in the back. Rob told Julie that the middle seat was the hardest to paddle from since it was the widest, so she didn’t have to paddle if or when she didn’t want to do so. This was nice to hear, but Julie was never one for taking the easy out and decided to dig in deep.

“Whoa! No one’s gonna accuse Julie of lily-dipping,” Rob chortled.

“Damn straight,” Julie replied. “And, let it be known throughout the land.”

So, now that Julie had made it clear she would be puffing her feathers for the duration, we were cruising and making excellent time through our morning’s adventure.

We made our way past a very small, but very distinct, set of petroglyphs on a vertical rock face. Rob took us to a part of the waters where nature’s cycles were slowly growing what would eventually, a couple tens of thousands of years in the future, be new forest floor over the waters.

For now, it was a floating floor, like a water bed of accumulated forest detritus that had turned into peat moss and was filled with carnivorous plants. We were psyched to see them! We had read signs about seeing them in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, but never actually saw one. Here, there were tons of them!

We got out of the boat and stepped on this floating floor. It was wild.

Since we were so ahead of schedule, our “lunch stop” ended up being around 10:00 AM. We pulled over to an island with a great jumping spot into the water.

Ryan reported that he didn’t bring his bathing suit and hadn’t intended to go swimming, to which Julie responded with a “WHAT?!?!” After a little open public berating that Rob was thoroughly enjoying, Rob jumped in first and Julie second where she could continue her taunting from the water. Julie explained to Rob that sarcasm and brutal taunting was a crucial part of their love language, and Rob joined right in. Ryan, who is impervious to peer pressure, laughed it all off, but did eventually decide, just seeing them in the water, that it actually looked kind of fun. He took his shirt off and jumped in in his shorts and was happy he did so. Julie was super happy he was in the water, even happier that he was enjoying it, and even happier that she got to express her love with the well-earned, “I told you so.” Marriage is so wonderful.

Early lunches were eaten, water and scenery were enjoyed, and before long we were back in the boat and heading back towards our van.

As we paddled away with plenty of time left in our morning adventure, Julie dipped her fingers in the water longingly. “I only wish I had done a real swim in the water,” she quietly pined.

Rob piped in, “You can go for a long swim if you want.” As we pulled up to the exit of the water. Julie looked at Ryan with a wave of hope across her face. “Go ahead, Babe. If you wanna do it, go for it.” 

Before long, Julie stripped back down to her bathing suit and pulled out her swim buoy that she had packed “just in case”. The water was cold, and Julie was seriously out of swim shape, but with a canoe next to her, she decided to go for it. This wasn’t a lake filled with lots of open water swimmers, so the new folks getting into canoes definitely stopped to stare for a little as the crazy woman in the swimsuit got in the water for a swim. Julie was off into the frigid September northern Minnesota water as happy as can be. 

Her goal was to swim across the small section of the lake, which looked like maybe 400 or 500 yards, to the land at the other side. She and the boat took off in that direction. It was blissful. Julie was surprised how quickly her heart rate went up, like in her runs, and found herself having trouble breathing, so she would shift between freestyle and sidestroke until they made it to the other side. “Wanna get back in the boat or swim back?” Rob and Ryan asked her. She was tired and out of swim shape, but the water looked so enticing. “That’s a long swim back.” Rob said. In reality, it was not. It was only another 500 yards or so. Julie was cold and tired, but they could tell she wanted to do it. So back they went. Julie in the water. Rob and Ryan in the boat alongside. “It looks like you are barely moving,” Ryan said, as they were all discovering that they were now upcurrent. It took a bit more to get there, but eventually the distance was crossed.

This made its way onto one of Julie’s trip highlights. 

After the swim, Julie got her warm clothes back on and they packed up to leave, Ryan now taking his turn at carrying the canoe over the short portage.

Rob slung the massive canoe atop the van with just as much ease as he’d gotten it down, and they headed back to Ely for some over the top heavenly hot showers.  

We closed up the day with a few coffee shop stops on a search for cookies, grabbed lunch at a Thai Food truck that was seasonally in town when its proprietor was in Ely instead of her native Thailand, having family in both places. It was hot and delicious. We pulled out of Ely with happy, full stomachs and even happier, fuller memories in tow.