Updated July 15, 2026 04:17 pm
Thursday, July 9, was a perfect day in northern Minnesota: high temperatures in the 70s Fahrenheit, light breeze and blue skies. I checked the forecast before turning off my phone and stuffing it in my pack for the duration of our four-day trip into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness – warm, sunny, and dry. If I had any concerns, it was the one I’d sent the day before to my sister and trip partner Jane: “FYI…there is a small fire south of Lake La Croix.”
“Oye…will have to keep an eye on him,” he replied. “how close?”
“Not close,” I texted back. “It’s on the other side of the lake.”
Jane and I go sailing in Boundary Waters every summer. We grew up in northern Minnesota, we have a family cabin on a lake that borders the wilderness, and we both guide canoe trips Out of a camp at the end of the Gunflint Trail. These forests and waters are an extension of our lives. Every familiar lake and camping site brings a memory. Some have been delayed for more than half a century.
This year, Jane’s daughter Ellie joined us. In 1999, on Ellie’s first trip to the Boundary Waters, Jen breastfed her under a mosquito net at a campsite on the Pines, a lake we could swim to and from our cabin. Our destination on this trip was Lac La Croix. It’s a long push through a beaver-dammed river, two large lakes and at least seven ports to reach this spectacular lake in one day, but it’s worth the shoulder pain. Lac La Croix stretches across the border into Canada and is surrounded by high cliffs and mountain peaks.
It features campsites shaded by white pine and granite slabs that slope gently to the water. At the base of a rock, rising straight out of the water, are vivid ocher pictographs of moose and other mystical symbols, painted by the indigenous Ojibwe or their Anishinaabe ancestors. These paintings may be 1,000 years old. No one knows. But they make the natives of the area feel omnipresent.
We arrived in Lac La Croix on Thursday afternoon, set up camp, went swimming and fired up the jetboil to heat water for chicken curry. Our campsite was by a secluded creek. On the way to the restroom there was a patch of ripe blueberries and a view of a sweeping western sunset. A smoky balloon added to the fiery drama of the sphere’s fall. It looked like it was sparked by a much larger fire than the one-acre Thumb Fire I’d texted my sister about the day before.
The morning brought with it a smoky haze. It lifted and we paddled across the lake to climb the summit of Warrior Hill, a high ridgeline that gave us views to the south and east, where we saw another black plume rising lazily toward the sky. I turned on my phone on the rare occasion that I had enough coverage to check Watch Duty, the app I use to keep an eye on wildfires. Surprisingly, I had service and the app showed that the Thumb Fire had grown to 143 acres. The new Bear Trap Fire to the east was growing rapidly, and smaller fires had spread west of the Moose River, our only route back to the car; And near the Echo Trail, is our only road home.
The fire was still far enough away to panic, but I felt the intensity of the 90-degree heat and with it a terrible wave of sadness. I understand that fire is necessary to regenerate forests, but these huge, centuries-old white and red pines will not grow back in my lifetime, I thought.
Then I wondered what would happen to the blue herons, bald eagles, white-throated sparrows and warblers we had seen today, as well as all the animals we had not seen – the wolf, the moose, the lynx and the bear.
There is a name for this sorrow. it is called solastalgiaEmotional or existential distress caused by negatively perceived environmental change. In other words, it’s “when you feel homesick when you’re at home,” according to philosopher Glenn Albrecht, who coined the term in 2007.
On Saturday morning the lake was calm and the sky was blue, but the constant rumbling of planes flying overhead throughout the night had made me uneasy. Unless there is an emergency, airplanes are not allowed to fly below 4,000 feet or land in territorial waters. We decided to break camp and start sailing south. When we reached the port of Ramshead Lake we knew where we wanted to camp. At that point we could extend the loop westward or camp at Nina Moose Lake and return the way we arrived.
We paddled and watched a pair of bald eagles fly by; Turtles passed by sunbathing on the rocks; And taken to Agnes, a lake usually filled with campers. No one was visible. A white cloud was moving overhead towards the west.
It was impossible to estimate how fast the fire was growing. In about an hour it paddled into the Nina Moose and into port, the dense white cloud had transformed into a rumbling, smoking plume, and a new small cloud had developed to its south. We were hot, dehydrated and swimming in a fierce headwind. As we circled the lake in search of a shady campsite, I turned on my phone in hopes of checking watch duty.
Instead, I got a message from my partner, Brian: “Babe, not sure if you get this or not, but the US Forest Service is closing a large area to entries this evening due to fire, including you. Be careful. Love you.” That’s when full-on panic set in and I realized how quickly a summer day can turn from wonderful to surreal, claustrophobic and dangerous.
Before we could head out, we had to stop at a camping site to cool down our minds and bodies by filtering water and swimming. We also wanted to convey the closure to the only other group of campers we saw all day. Turns out, they had already been alerted by a ranger who had stopped at their campsite on Lac La Croix. We had been out paddling most of the day and the ranger had not seen us.
Hydrated and intent on getting out of the woods, we headed quietly south, with the song of a white-throated sparrow following us to the river. This forest has been my lifelong refuge, a place to regroup when the world moves too fast and humanity goes off the rails. If these logs burn up in flames, I thought, I have lost my backyard escape to peace and sanity.
We left in time to buy dinner at Eli’s. Two days later, the U.S. Forest Service would close the entire million-acre border waters. Three days later, the Thumb Fire would grow to 14,500 acres; Bear Trap Fire to grow to 13,500 acres; And at least ten other fires will raze the forest. The Echo Trail, our only way out, will be evacuated, and Ely residents can only watch the fire get closer.
And that perfect campsite on Lac La Croix? Possibly it has been reduced to memory.
Stephanie Pearson is a contributing editor Outside2023 National Geographic Explorer, and author of 100 Great American Parks published by National Geographic. his three Outside The stories have been anthologized in The Best American Travel Writing, and have won several Lowell Thomas Awards from the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation. He is also a former travel editor Outside.
