Minnesota author Barton Sutter reads his essay on the BWCA, titled “The Backroad to Ely.”

This is part one of two segments.

Essay was later collected in "Cold Comfort: Life at the Top of the Map," published by University of Minnesota Press.

Transcript:

(00:00:00) On this cool blue morning, I'm sleepy but happy because I'm heading up to Ely for an overnight in the woods Dawn comes painfully early at this time of year, but I managed to rise when the clock went off and moved through the house like a sleepwalker groping my way through the ghostly light and the racket of Robin's already on the job. I'd packed the night before so there wasn't that much to do Brew Coffee fill the thermos Pat the kids pet the dog kissed the wife murmurs. Oh sweet nothings into her neck, but it's 5:30. Anyhow, by the time I hit the expressway out of Duluth and the sun shines bright as a big brass Kong as it breaks from the fog over Lake Superior shoot. I forgot my shades. No matter I've got a neat plump pack in the back seat and the canoe was clamped like a cap to the roof of the car. A half hour up the North Shore. I stopped into Harbors for an old-fashioned breakfast at Miller's Cafe homemade hash browns bacon and eggs plenty of cholesterol to carry me through the day the friendly waitress brings me the paper which includes a brief story on the recent Ruckus Over The Boundary Waters. My congressman James Oberstar has written a bill to restore the use of trucks to transport boats over three long portage's near Ely. The bill would also allow the use of motor boats in several areas where they're currently banned. I'm a paddler period it's hard for me to understand why Motors of any kind should be permitted in a designated Wilderness on the other hand. I sympathize with local folks who want access to the lakes in their backyard, but I don't trust Oberstar for one minute back in the 70s. He tried to remove nearly half a million Acres from the Wilderness for logging and mass Recreation. The issue is complicated upsetting. It's disturbing my digestion drop it. I tell myself. Let's go at the edge of Two Harbors. I turn left on Lake County to this is the back road to Ely one of my favorite highways in the state most folks and they come from all over the nation these days most folks approach Ely by the front door shooting up u.s. 53 then cutting East on 169 that route makes sense. Smooth and fast with four wide Lanes most of the way, but I've never cared much for common sense. I'll take Highway to any day with it's dangerous ditches lumps and bumps and Evergreens growing right up to the road. I like to think of myself as a canoeist, but the truth is I probably spent as much time driving to and from the Lakes nosing down the back roads searching out hidden jewels as I have on the water over the years. I've become a connoisseur of her. Roads Lake County two is a good one. How many Maps this highway is only a thin Gray Line through the green of Superior National Forest. Sometimes it doesn't show up at all which makes it my kind of erode the first 10 miles have been rebuilt in recent years. So I feel I'm cleared for takeoff and cruising down a Runway as the car climbs. I watch Lake Superior Fall Away in the rearview mirror and merge with the sky. It's warmer over the hill. So I snapped the heater off and crack the window the car fills with the perfume of the forest herbal fresh and sweet. If I could bottle that I'd make a million call it Borealis break my heart muskeg. I first drove this road some 30 years ago with an older cousin who went on to work as an ornithologist in Ecuador in Borneo. Northern Minnesota is exotic enough for me travel. They keep telling me is broadening
(00:03:52) but I don't want to be
(00:03:53) broad. I'm after depth the brain insists on novelty constant stimulation, but the soul desires the same old thing renewed again. And again, that's why I moved. L've to Duluth 10 years ago to Lose Myself repeatedly in the Woods and Water of Canoe Country to give myself some history here to lay down layer upon layer of experience in the same old always different place. I won't see any tigers on this trip. I won't see anacondas, but I've seen Bears on Highway 2. I've seen deer and moose so sleepy as I am dreaming of cougars I drive with one eye open for Or whatever actual Wild Thing may happen to appear and see there's a ruffed grouse. There's a rabbit. Halfway up highway to the second-growth forest is darkened by a stand of White Pines from a distance. They resemble towering candelabras. These trees are so green. They look black. Nothing says North like a white pine. Once Upon a Time two hundred years ago just the other day White Pines covered this entire region. It's a thought I can hardly bear to think today less than 2% of the original Forest remains. I remind myself to join the white pine Society recently formed to protect this endangered species from the greedy chainsaws of the Timber industry. Somehow the loggers of the last century missed this particular stand and so far. The forest service has treated these trees with respect creating a picnic area in their Shadows sparing the Giants that grow right next to the road tacking large reflectors to their trunks instead of sacrificing them for human safety and efficiency i Wind Through The Pines in a matter of moments, but out in the open again whizzing through the scrap Woods, I feel changed haunted. It's as if I just awakened from a disturbing dream about my ancestors.