Honey, we (almost) sunk the canoe

It is officially my birthday weekend, and by the time you read this, I will be oo-la-la-ing my way through Italy. Don’t worry, you’ll get a full breakdown on that next week. 

 

But for now, let me tell you how much I’ve missed and adore cabins. 

 

This past weekend, Jack and I flew into MSP for a short weekend stint in northern Wisconsin, where I know a lot of you are lucky enough to enjoy a cabin and possibly property on a lake. 

 

We had come because a group of Jack’s college friends had planned to get together at one of their relatives’ cabins in Gordon, on Lake Minong Flowage, and we were invited. So we flew out on Friday, spending the afternoon in Minneapolis with one of his friends as we waited for him to be done with work. He and his roommate then drove us up to the cabin, where we spent the weekend. 

 

It was a nice cabin, with plenty of space for the 10 of us. Although their dock wasn’t in, there was thankfully a place on shore for us to put in canoes, paddleboards and kayaks. A couple of the friends were excited to go fishing, and as my family raised me right, I had a large voice in where we went to drop our lines, best practices for putting on a minnow and how to put on a bobber (just doing my duty to help some of these city folk out). 

 

I regret the need to report that, although we spent a good chunk of time with six of us in two canoes, we did not catch a single fish nor even have a single bite. But we had a blast. The other friends who weren’t as interested in fishing joined us on the paddleboards, kayak and tubes and we collectively chatted and floated on the water. 

 

Then it got fun. 

 

Jack and I were in one canoe, with him steering and a friend sitting in the middle. It had been a long time since I had been in a canoe, and he was teasing me that I wasn’t pulling my weight. So on the way back to shore, I started paddling really fast and really hard, and he took the bait and matched me. 

 

The problem was that he had started doing it on the same side as I was, so with two paddles going furiously in the water on the same side, and us trying to turn to the shore, we promptly flipped over, dumping all three of us into the water. 

 

After spending a solid thirty seconds laughing our butts off in the water, we realized that all of our things had been in the canoe, including the property of the relatives who had so kindly lent us their cabin. And I learned that when a canoe doesn’t have floaters on the end, it gets really heavy in the water. 

 

But we successfully completed a capsizing drill, which Jack learned at camp as a boy. After managing to put the end of our canoe on the end of the friend’s canoe, we were able to flip it and get it right side up. But then as Jack tried to get back in, it took on water and just ended up flipping it again, this time full of water. 

 

And for those who are curious, a canoe full of water being upside down in the water means a heavy canoe that makes Amelia nervous it will sink. We tried doing the capsize drill again, but with no luck, so Jack and I decided to just swim it to shore where we could get leverage to flip it over. 

 

At the end, as we stood on the shore and took stock, we realized everyone was okay and nothing was lost—and thank goodness for that. I was worried we were going to lose the fishing poles that belonged to the owners of the cabin. 

 

So it was another story for the books, another successful weekend cabin stay, and an adventure filled with long-lasting memories. I love cabins. 

 

My Determination: “The early worm catches the fish, Russell. Remember that.” — Honey, I Shrunk the Kids