The North

This weekend was spent deep in the wilderness, near our hostile border with Canada.

I went canoeing, portaging, and fishing all weekend. To get to our campsite, we had to drive to a town of 3,000 people, then drive for another hour on dirt roads to get to a drop-off point. From there we took the canoes and paddled/portaged them (which is a fancy word for "carried them on over our heads") for 4 more hours. We truly were in the middle of nowhere. It was totally worth it though. Girlfriend got to come along with us, and we both caught a big fish (and some little ones), and we saw a huge beaver, mice, hawks, eagles, one very large turtle, a couple of deer, a red squirrel, herons, cranes, a strange looking wood duck, a couple of families of ducklings, and some misquitos the size of fruit bats.

The really cool part is that the nature was pretty close. I fed the turtle a fish carcass (or at least the bits left over when we were done filleting it) by hand. Of course this was probably dumb, because that turtle could've taken off one of my fingers, but it was fun. The thing was enormous. It's tail was probably 8" and it had moss growing on its shell and snails on its head.

There was a small marsh below our campsite and we watched a monstrous beaver swim through, chewing plants and reeds. The thing was the size of a medium breed dog, and it was so close you could hear him chewing.

The trip was fantastic. I can't wait to go back.