Afloat in the wild

In the dimming sky, the half moon scattered light on Mica Bay. The woods beyond the beach merged with night's shadow, inky black. Silence blanketed the late summer evening.

A chorus of wolf howls -- rising one after the other -- pierced the quiet the way a thrown rock breaks the surface of calm water, sending ripples to every periphery. After a short delay, another wolf pack, miles distant, responded with its own song, ascending in pitch and urgency.

A chance to hear wolf music is often earned via paddle and portage, and suffered through on hard ground in a sleeping bag. My wife, Silke Schroeder, and our friends Sean and Mette McLoughlin had been basking in the afterglow of a fine steak dinner when the call of the wild came, just outside the sliding glass doors. I almost felt a little guilty to be slouched on a couch with a cup of coffee in hand.

On Minnesota's border with Canada, Voyageurs National Park is a wilderness surrounded by water. Many, if not most, of the people who spend more than a day there do so on a rental houseboat, which is literally what it sounds like: a small modern home -- kitchen, living room, bath, bedroom (sometimes more than one) -- mounted on pontoons.

For about $1,200, including gas (at last fall's relatively cheap rates), we had rented this water-borne RV for a three-night weekend cruise around the park.

By hauling our barge-load of civilization into the wilderness, we incurred blessings and curses in equal measure. We didn't have to pitch a tent, but we did have to listen to the generator's steady belching for a few hours each night and morning (necessary to keep all the on-board batteries charged).

We didn't have any marine mishaps, but our inexperience led to some dignity-compromising moments. And while we did encounter some wildlife, we scared off a lot more.

Unmoored

We had arrived at Voyagaire Houseboats on the shore of Crane Lake on a Thursday afternoon in early September. A one-hour orientation prepared us to operate the boat's various systems, to navigate and to tie up at the designated campsites, and to operate the outboard on the little aluminum fishing boat we'd be towing behind us.

It was a lot of information in a short time. Basically, Voyagaire was handing the keys to a large sea vessel to four landlubbers. Someone jokingly asked what would happen if we sank it, and our handler (who gave his name variously as Fred and Jim) said, "Don't worry, we've got your credit card."

Fred/Jim motored us into the middle of Crane Lake, then, with a brisk wave goodbye, stepped off the bow onto a moving speed boat that had pulled alongside without our seeing it. With a James Bond-like wink, he was gone, and we were on our own, heading north into the park.

Just to the northwest of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Voyageurs spreads over 340 square miles, and more than 40 percent of that is water. As we traveled, shoreline and sky framed every view of the landscape of pine, birch and exposed bedrock. We passed anglers in small craft and other, much bigger houseboats. One was completely sealed up with reflective gold windows. A rooftop hot tub appeared to be the only option for actually enjoying the outdoors.

After a couple of hours matching our chart to channel markers as we headed north, we decided to set camp. The designated houseboat sites are most often sandy beaches where the boats can be run aground like World War II landing craft. I drove ashore at a site dubbed Depthfinder View, complete with a fire ring and a picnic table.

Here, my inexperience carried a price. Depthfinder was exposed to the west, the source of an increasingly violent wind. As a result, we suffered a rough night.

As the wind tossed up waves, the houseboat lurched and the fishing boat tied to the stern hammered away on the pontoons. Because I had declared myself captain, I faced some derision in the morning.

"Maybe we were supposed to disconnect that fishing boat and tie it up separately," Sean suggested laconically at breakfast.

"Funny how it took us eight hours of racket to figure that out," I replied.

After breakfast, we spent more than three hours traveling the length of Namakan Lake. A cold wind spat rain at the bow, but all was cozy inside the houseboat. Sean piloted. Mette navigated. I photographed. Silke read People and entertained us with the foibles of starlets and himbos. Knowing that rich and famous people did even dumber things than I did made the world seem a better place.

Once we left the open water of Namakan, we turned north into a sheltered channel. We landed at Mica Bay Beach, on the south shore of Kabetogama Peninsula.

Voyageurs is a tangle of islands, channels and lakes, and the border with Canada snakes through them at odd angles. From our campsite, we had the rare privilege of being in the Lower 48, but looking south into Canada, just across the bay. From where we sat, it didn't look like a foreign country.

It was there we heard the chorus of wolves after dinner. When they'd quieted down, we tuned our marine-band radio into Voyagaire's weekend trivia game.

Home base volleyed questions to the eight participating houseboats and tallied the points. We lost on "What was John Lennon's last album?" ("Milk and Honey") and won on "Does a worm lizard have legs?" (No.) We ended up last, but had fun trying.

The next morning, as the sky threatened rain, we fired up the tiny Mercury on the aluminum fishing boat and motored over to the Kettle Falls Hotel for breakfast. The 98-year-old, 12-room hotel can be reached only by air or water.

Here again our inexperience had a price. I brought the boat in a little fast and a little too far from the dock. Sean gamely tried to salvage the landing with an ill-advised long step. He lost his footing and hurled himself belly first onto the dock. As he clawed the planks, Mette and Silke grabbed his legs while I tried to figure out how to kill the engine.

"Good thing no one saw that," I said. But as we tied up, two golf carts appeared to take us up to the hotel, and it turned out that the drivers had seen our slapstick arrival. Thankfully, they were kind enough to let their smirks be their only commentary.

Tucked away in the woods, the Kettle Falls Hotel is a simple, white, wood-framed structure that has played host to lumber barons and lumberjacks, tourists and anglers, and these days a lot of houseboat parties in search of a good, hot meal.

After a huge breakfast of pancakes and eggs, we strolled the grounds and basked in the late-summer sun breaking out of the low gray clouds. We made it back to the houseboat without incident.

Summer fades

The last day was the best one. The sun stayed out, wind died away and we beached our barge on a tiny island at the northern end of Sand Point Lake. The campsite had a pretty, half-moon shaped beach and was sheltered by a regal grove of white pines.

We swam in the cold, clear water, and dried off on sun-heated boulders. Sean made spaghetti for dinner, which we served at a plastic table and chairs on the roof of the houseboat.

After dinner, we built a fire on shore, enjoyed dessert and coffee and watched the light fade to an orange glow. Just about the time the evening star brightened, a loon swam by the island. He brought the day to a close with a wild, big-hearted serenade of love.

Chris Welsch • 612-673-7113