A dried-and-true idea to feed wilderness travelers has merit

ON THE GUNFLINT TRAIL — On a recent day, cars and pickups toting canoes bounced up and down this two-lane stretch of blacktop.

In vehicles headed toward the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, drivers and passengers were excited and tidy, their smiles wide and their clothes clean.

No less excited but decidedly more trail-worn were paddlers in vehicles departing the boundary waters for the trail's origin at Grand Marais. It's there, hard by Lake Superior's shore, that bush-weary voyageurs can indulge in various modern conveniences, not least hot meals and hotter showers.

North Woods visitors traveling both directions of the 57-mile-long Gunflint Trail are potential customers of Sarah Hamilton's. For 23 years, she's owned Trail Center Lodge, a resort, restaurant and bar on Poplar Lake, which abuts the woodsy corridor.

A restaurateur's daughter, Hamilton grew up in Des Moines, Iowa.

"My dad first brought my sister, Anna, and me up here in the 1970s," Hamilton, 56, said. "Later, Anna (age 57), got a job here at the lodge, and she got me a job here, too."

Making a living is no picnic on the state's northern fringe. But the Hamilton sisters have found ways. In time, they bought Trail Center Lodge. They also have opened and sold a restaurant in Grand Marais (My Sister's Place), and now own another eatery there (Hughie's Taco House, named for their father).

All of which was preamble to a morning about five years ago when Hamilton awoke with a brainstorm: Why not develop a line of freeze-dried meals to peddle to wilderness travelers?

Sure, others were already in this business, notably Mountain House, an Oregon manufacturer whose freeze-dried dinners and other offerings (including ice cream) are distributed nationally and sold at REI and other retailers, including Walmart.

But no one, Hamilton believed, was custom-mixing freeze-dried (and dehydrated) meals the way ... well, the way she could.

The result is Camp Chow (bit.ly/campchow), a line of freeze-dried and dehydrated food that boasts 53 dinners, 27 breakfasts and eight desserts, as well as a smorgasbord of soups, veggies, bread, side dishes and beverages.

Also on the menu are gluten-free, vegetarian and vegan meals.

Sounds simple.

And, as I learned on a recent trip into the BWCA, it is.

On that journey, for food I carried only Camp Chow meal packets, which I had purchased. This was a departure for me because usually when I travel in the boundary waters I carry fresh food, or as fresh as possible.

In fact, I had never eaten a freeze-dried meal before backpacking into the Montana mountains last September with my son, Trevor, and a friend of his, Alec Underwood, to bow hunt for elk.

Because our camp was six miles uphill from a trailhead, and our hunting grounds would encompass a few miles more than that, our pack weights were critical considerations — especially so if we ultimately killed a bull (we did).

Boring as that diet might sound, it provided the calories and energy we needed to hike in, hunt, and pack out, while weighing next to nothing and consuming precious little space in our packs.

On the BWCA trip, one evening I had Camp Chow pork sausage wild rice casserole, on another evening, spaghetti beef and pork. For breakfast, I ate eggs with wild mushrooms, and eggs and sausage.

In keeping with the BWCA trip's minimalist theme, I carried only a Jetboil to heat (and boil) water — a dandy invention that in a flash produced a potful of boiling water for coffee and to add to the Camp Chow freeze-dried and dehydrated meals.

Upshot: As much as I have enjoyed over the years eating a steak for supper during my first night in the boundary waters, and for breakfast the next morning cooking a meal of French toast and sausage, the Camp Chow approach had merit. The food was plentiful, flavorful, easy to make — and there was no cleanup of camp pots, pans and dishes.

"We outsource most of our ingredients, but mix them and flavor them here at the resort," Hamilton said, noting that she has custom mixed meals for ultra marathoners and for dog mushers entered in the Iditarod in Alaska.

"I develop new recipes all the time, and whenever I have a new one I test it on the staff," she said. "When they like it, I put it on our Facebook page (facebook.com/CampChow) and test it with a few people there.

"When everyone likes it, we add it to our menu.''