It’s All Home Water: The Medicines of Wanderlust
For close to 25 years, the Reserve Mining Company discharged up to 67,000 tons a day of its iron mines’ tailing slurry into Lake Superior, the source of drinking water for several local communities. Today, the Silver Bay Pelletizing Plant is owned by Northshore Mining and produces up to 6 million tons of taconite pellets (a low-grade iron ore) a year. After a decades-long legal fight, the tailings are now stored in a basin several miles from the lake. I paddled out to the plant simply to feel myself alongside it and to witness the harrowing juxtaposition of it next to such beautiful waters. On the lengthy paddle back to my route along some steep cliffs, the waves were more than five feet high and things got pretty dicey in the canoe. Those restless Lake Superior waters seemed symbolic to me. Photo: Tony Czech
For a closer look at the dangers a toxic sulfur-ore copper mine poses to the more than 1,000,000 acres of backcountry in the Boundary Waters, please see our accompanying film, “A Northern Light,” (below) Encompassing more than 1,000,000 acres along the US-Canada border, the fresh water, wilderness habitat and sustainable jobs of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness are priceless—but in peril. Aided by the Trump administration, a Chilean company is pushing for an irresponsible, dangerous and toxic sulfide-ore copper mine on the park’s boundary. Patagonia ambassador Nathaniel Riverhorse Nakadate paddles through the BWCA to give voice to a silent, pristine place. Join him. And read the feature, “It’s All Home Water: Paddling Past the Graveyard.”
I never expected to fall so hard. True wilderness will do that to you. If ever there were a place to push reset on the world, this is it. With more than a million acres of off-the-grid forests, waterfalls, rivers, streams and lakes for adventure, I doubt there are places more pristine and bewilderingly surreal than the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
What happens when there is no more backcountry? To allow the toxic, copper-nickel mines proposed by Twin Metals Minnesota would be unfathomable here. We are capable, loving souls with the ability to pull together and do right by the miracles of nature. We are far better than allowing such incomparable beauty to disappear forever.
For close to 25 years, the Reserve Mining Company discharged up to 67,000 tons a day of its iron mines’ tailing slurry into Lake Superior, the source of drinking water for several local communities. Today, the Silver Bay Pelletizing Plant is owned by Northshore Mining and produces up to 6 million tons of taconite pellets (a low-grade iron ore) a year. After a decades-long legal fight, the tailings are now stored in a basin several miles from the lake. I paddled out to the plant simply to feel myself alongside it and to witness the harrowing juxtaposition of it next to such beautiful waters. On the lengthy paddle back to my route along some steep cliffs, the waves were more than five feet high and things got pretty dicey in the canoe. Those restless Lake Superior waters seemed symbolic to me. Photo: Tony Czech
The bear—accompanied by her two cubs—was as big as any I’d ever seen. The three-foot-wide ditch left me no room to run for it, and things got even more amusing when it went dark, with yet another hour or so to go under the moon and not being able to see where she was. Sometimes it is best to simply square our shoulders and put our heads down in full Zen mode on the path of life. The mantra remains the same: Nothing behind, everything ahead. Photo: Tony Czech
Just before embarking on our expedition, I spent a few moments admiring the lines of a newly carved and sanded 60-inch Gunflint paddle at the Merrimack/Sanborn factory in Winona, Minnesota. A handmade, artisan-crafted Gunflint paddle has already given me some 28,000 miles of adventures thus far, and more memories than seems possible. Here’s to another 28,000. Photo: Tony Czech
The Cascade River is one of many intertwined throughout the forests of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. On days like this you can almost feel the fish, ever certain they are there. On this river, I simply long to hold each one gently in my hands, to feel the fragile, translucent reminder of the miracles in nature. Come on all you wild fish, let’s dance. Photo: Tony Czech
In the months before my first solo journey to the Boundary Waters, colorful maps of all kinds were spread out along the floors, illustrated by hand-scrawled notes. What stood out the most was a 500-foot cliff overlook with a stunning waterfall along the last lake before the Canadian border. I set my sights on this moment from the get-go and dreamed of making it all the way there. This was our final portage before the border and included a harrowing shotgun drop to the lake. Voyageurs and First Nations peoples used to journey along this same route to trade furs and other goods. The first day I fished it I caught endless smallmouth, sight casting along a canyon wall. By late morning I had caught so many I put the fly rod down and paddled along the steep cliffs, watching the fish beneath the banks. How many fish do you need? Photo: Tony Czech
At the final pool after a tumbling waterfall, a shrimp fly I use for redfish in the salt marshes back home in Texas found this beautifully porcine brookie. The fish fought with such gritty aplomb that it took a couple minutes before I could even get a look at her near the surface. At times like these I’m rarely conscious of anything else in the world. Just the water, the light, and a wild trout trembling with life before making its way back home. The gentle and lilting rainstorm that followed only made my sunlit heart more joyous. Photo: Tony Czech
The smallmouth fishing was so steady only a fool would have traded the fly rod for sleep. I was casting to a rocky outcrop hidden along a steep dropoff, while a top-water deer hair pattern sent out SOS calls. I kept thinking of this red-blooded light shining just for me as rest of the world was awash in concrete and highways, and how I only wanted one thing: to fish through the night. Photo: Tony Czech
After making French press coffee with beans ground using a stray rock and a bandana, we head out for the umpteenth portage of the day. This forest portage was a long one. Nightfall was close and I ended up carrying the canoe and gear by headlamp for a couple more hours. Especially at night, it never ceases to amaze me how each forest sounds different depending on the types of trees and wind currents flowing through them. The smallest details are everything. Photo: Tony Czech
Support the Boundary Waters Wilderness Act
Contact your member of Congress to support H.R.5598 and protect 234,328 acres in the Superior National Forest from copper-nickel mining development.
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