This is a story about my friend Nora.
Nora and I have been friends for 13 years. A big part of our friendship has been our annual trip into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness for over a decade. It’s been just the two of us every year, and sometimes our dogs have been invited.
We try to spend a week or more in the wilderness. We’ve noticed it takes a day or two for the tension of daily life to melt away. It’s ideal to let yourself fully steep in the quiet flow and simplicity of canoe country.
A lot of our time in the Boundary Waters is happily spent on daily tasks. There’s a meditative aspect to gathering firewood, setting up the tent, cooking over the fire, paddling through the water, and hiking around a new campsite - exploring every nook and cranny.
We spend a lot of time laughing while in the wilderness. We laugh over many things, but one of our favorites is what we’ve begun to understand over the years: Nora is a weird magnet.
Many times her weird magnet is very beneficial! Sometimes it’s quite unfortunate. I’d love to share some awesome weird magnet experiences with you, particularly as it relates to physical objects in the Boundary Waters.
Specifically in the BWCAW, something happens where Nora is missing something and it magically appears for her at a campsite. I’d say this is a fluke, but it’s happened too many times over the last decade plus, now it’s getting ridiculous. She’s gotten into the habit of just “calling out” what she’d like from the Boundary Waters. Last year, it was a working compass.
The compass
Sure enough, on a portage, Nora is standing in the water near the canoe. Looks down and sees the outline of a carabiner compass underneath a layer of sand.
The spatula
The gear tie
Over the years, a few weird magnet finds I can remember are:
Nora really wanted a spatula to flip her pancakes. Found a spatula.
She forget a measuring cup for her dog’s food. Nora found a 1-cup measuring cup and still uses it to this day.
Nora found a long-handled spoon, perfect for freeze dried meals - still uses it! She didn’t ask for this, but dang it was a A+++ find.
She found a gear tie (also didn’t ask for it), but now we use four gear ties for a few different things, as part of our regular routine. One of which is the gear tie around a rock + carabiner, attached to the bear hang rope.
One trip we were running low on toilet paper. She found a neatly packaged ziploc with a full toilet paper roll, trowel, and hand sanitizer. I still pack the trowel actually.
She lost her sunglasses. A couple days later, found sunglasses WITH a strap.
The shoes
She realized into a trip that her shoes were a little iffy. She only brought one pair. A pair of shoes were left at a campsite. They were in good condition, but for some reason did not have laces, and were not exactly the greatest for practicality.
Also last year, Nora was worried her pen was going to run out of ink. She found a pen.
The pen
There’s definitely more that I do not recall right now. Which is wild because I find this list impressive.
Me on the flip side? I don’t recall finding things. The Boundary Waters strongly practices the 7 leave no trace principles, so ideally there shouldn’t be anything left behind in the wilderness.
I also don’t have a weird magnet. Although if Nora is a weird magnet…. does that mean I’m weird and that's why we’re friends? :)
Retreat with us in autumn!
Appreciate the fall colors at Kona Kona Resort and Itasca State Park.
