The next morning again dawned sunny and clear. It was time to pack up and leave. Here's a shot of Shelly and I posing while we take one last look around.
There's a transition that happens to a campsite. Most everyone who makes regular trips to the wilderness experiences it in one way or another. When you first pull into a site and start unloading gear everything seems strange and new. Nothing's familiar, you measure the campsite by other campsites you've known ...."remember the one with the great sand beach?"....or...." These log sitters are not quite as nice as the ones at...."
Even if it's a familiar site, there's a similar reaction. You look around, see what's changed, maybe you note with just a little sadness that that with every passing year another tree disappears, the firegrate has been moved, the latrine slammer has disappeared, the pack-hanging tree is gone, etc etc.
We'd paddled into this campsite just two days before and had been nearly heartbroken. Having camped there before and knowing what a beautiful site it had been was a bit depressing in light of what the storm had done. Nothing was the same. Everything was a tangle. It was unsettling.
But...by the time we left it was a different place. After cutting and sweating over fallen trees and branches, after having two great days of fishing and a meal of the finest fish anywhere things started feeling better. The old routine was settling in. Sit around a couple of campfires surrounded by family, knowing they are appreciating and feeling the same things you're feeling....and the place begins to to feel good again, more familiar. It starts to feel "right". You arrange a couple of rocks in the fireplace, get the log sitters just so, find yourself a good pokerstick, and it all comes back. It gets comfortable.
I'll admit that when we pulled into the tangled campsite two days earlier we had questions. I hadn't really wanted to stay. It just didn't feel right surrounded by all the mess and the tangle and destruction. Now, though, I found I wasn't ready to leave.
When we had left home we had wondered, "What's it going to look like?" But the big question had been, "Will it ever be the same?"; and that question had been answered. True, the storm that had so damaged the area left a huge mark. Visually, much had changed. But the previous two days had answered the question....the resounding answer was that the BW was still very much the same.
We wandered around the campsite looking for any last scraps, loaded the canoes and slid out onto the lake. We rounded the point and headed south toward the truck with the snarl of the chainsaws working their way through the Burnt Lake portage fading with every stroke.
