In September 1969, Dick
and I began our year in the
wilderness on the edge of the
BWCA in the Superior National
Forest. Our small cabin had
neither road access nor
amenities. This is a reprint of
one of many stories about our
lives during that special year.
Food was on my mind as I pushed the canoe from the muddy portage and hopped in. A straggly alder branch almost snagged my hat but I barely noticed. Visions of crisp golden herring fillets filled my mind. In half an hour I would be pan-frying the lovely pink herring pieces a neighbor had so thoughtfully given us. I could almost taste them.
Dick and I were enjoying our wilderness experience. Only one aspect of our lives was tiresome—lack of fresh food. Our menus were limited without refrigeration. October nights were cold but the days still too warm for perishables to keep. We restricted our town trips to every two weeks and frankly, I was tired of canned meat and dried soups.
We were returning from our weekly mail trip to the Gunflint Trail where we’d also visited neighbors. I had turned down their dinner invitation since crossing the portage in darkness was an experience I wished to avoid. Being good neighbors, they shared their dinner by giving us a neatly wrapped packet of fresh herring.
What a joy to have fresh meat. Occasionally Dick shot a partridge and we feasted on it and sometimes, we’d catch a walleye or two but wild game couldn’t be counted on, so our meals were mostly bland and tasteless canned stuff.
Our canoe glided through the lengthening twilight shadows and soon we landed at our log dock. As I hopped out, Dick suggested “Go fry the herring. I’ll take care of everything else.” I ran to the cabin, flung off my backpack and reached inside for the white paper packet of fresh fish. It wasn’t there.
Frantically I dug deeper inside the pack. Nothing. I tossed a red bandana scarf on the floor; my billfold flew through the air. Nothing. Not a sign of the fish package. “Dick,” I called from the cabin window. “Is the package in the canoe?” Panic was setting in. The herring fillets just had to be there. They couldn’t be lost, could they?
Dick looked in the canoe bottom; he searched the path from lake to cabin. We rummaged through our coat pockets. Nothing.
Desperately we searched through everything again… the canoe…the backpack…my jacket pocket.
It was futile. The herring fillets weren’t with us. I had dropped them.
“What’s the alternative meal?” Dick looked glum. “Dried beef,” I answered morosely.
We ate a very silent meal of dried beef on toast, but as we filled our stomachs with the tasteless food, we began to feel more optimistic.
If—and it was a big if—the night was cold enough, and no animal devoured the fillets, we might have chance of retrieving the herring.
I was happy to see frost on the ground the next morning. Looking cheerful, Dick hopped in the canoe to retrace last night’s journey.
He canoed back to the portage but found nothing. He reached our car parked near Little Iron Lake. And found the herring fillets.
The white paper packet lay on the ground, under my car door where it had dropped from my Duluth Pack. Mice had chewed at the paper, but the fillets were intact.
I waited at the cabin, hardly daring to hope but finally a jubilant Dick burst through in holding the prize high. I unwrapped the packet, rolled the beautiful fillets in flour and fried them to a crisp. We ate them immediately and I have never tasted better herring.
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