A plywood porch extends from the front of the Titan motor home and the gutter for the porch leads to three barrels that collect rainwater. A tractor, lawn mower and a few other implements surround the humble dwelling. I’ve reached the residence of my canoeing partner, Bob Darkow. Bob greets me as I park my car and stretch, taking in the wide view from the ridge. The accommodations in the Titan are Spartan. Bob and his sons only needed a shack to sleep in during deer hunting season when they drove the old rig on its last trip. Now that he’s retired, Bob lives on his ridge throughout the year.

It’s not until the next morning that I fully realize the beauty of this home in the woods. My wooden bunk is under the oversized windshield and first light finds me sitting up to take in the forest at the edge of the clearing. There is no noise, no roar of traffic. Deer prowl the woods and I search the edge of the clearing. I pull on my clothes and step outside, breathing in the clear, still air. This is what a home is, what it always was for the people that came to this land for thousands of years. It’s the land that makes a home, the land that satisfies our spirit. Although Bob has improvements planned for his rustic house, it will always be the land that makes this place special for him and his sons. How odd that this simple dwelling seems strange to me! I’ve been too long in the city to realize that there are better ways to live, ways that satisfy our souls, rather than our neighbors.

Soon my canoe is atop Bob’s Jeep and we’re headed north toward Canada. A long but pleasant day ends in Dryden, Ontario. We’ve been here before at Ron Kowal’s Kowality Inn. Ron is a former innkeeper from Churchhill and Bob and I listen to stories of polar bears and Russian birds and the odd happenings of that faraway town.

Early Monday morning we’re on the road to Red Lake. After a brief visit to the Government Building on Howey street, we drive to Al and Kelly Rogeslesky’s Goldseeker’s outfitters. Al and Kelly are putting the finishing touches on a new building that will be the new headquarters for their business. We talk about Woodland Caribou Park, the proposed park expansion, sightings of Caribou…

Since Bob and I are starting our trip on the northern part of the Chukuni River, and finishing on the western shores of Red Lake, Al will move Bob's jeep to our take-out point at Black Bear Lodge.

I’m taken aback by the size of a new truck parked in Al’s driveway. He explains that the six-wheeled truck is able to tow the vehicles of canoeists so that they can complete their trips and have their car or truck waiting for them. By using the truck, one person can move a large vehicle over the gravel logging roads near the park. Using these services, canoeists are able to extend the boundaries of their trips without more expensive fly-ins for fly-outs. Al loads our gear and canoe on the truck and soon we’re traveling east out of Red Lake.

Gold mining is the business of Balmertown, just east of Red Lake and Al points out some of the historic landmarks of the mining business. It’s still a rough, dangerous occupation, as Bob and I will find out a few weeks later as we make our way back.

Soon all signs of civilization vanish and we drive on a gravel road, a path that heads toward our first portage. There's that lonely minute when Bob and I stand beside the road as our host heads back into town. At these early-trip moments, I used to wonder if I forgot to bring anything that I need. Lately, I often wonder if I dragged anything along that I don’t need, some useless object that will only add weight to our considerable load.

Our first portage, from the road to the water, was once a dirt road. We can still see the double tracks of vehicles, now grown over by new trees. Soon an old dam appears.  There’s a dead moose in the water against the old bridge. Perhaps the moose was old, or perhaps unlucky during the long winter. We’re worried about the rising wind – there’s open water to cross before we’ll camp tonight.

Just before Little Vermilion Lake, the river gets shallow. We stop our canoe and take a look at this short ripple of water. The only place free of rocks has a current that flows rapidly - in the wrong direction. A wilderness canoeist has four options for obstacles like this one.

I look for option one - a portage. The shoreline is rough and rocky and there's no good place to land. Option two is to line your canoe through the fast water. One does this by attaching a line low on the bow and low on the stern of the canoe, then walking upstream along the shore. By adjusting the length of the lines and using the current, you can control the canoe, keeping it in deeper water as you pull it upstream. The shoreline here is very rough and rocky and too far from the current to make lining possible.

Another option for moving a canoe upstream through faster water is to pole the canoe. Poling requires quite a bit of skill and experience. A wooden pole, about eleven feet long, is used to push the canoe against the current. The load in the canoe must be adjusted correctly to keep it pointed upstream. The poler then stands in the canoe and pushes. As you can imagine, results may vary when a canoe is poled.

Bob and I decide on option four - the upstream method that requires little thought and much effort. We get a running start, then plunge into the current. Paddling hard and fast, we seem to be making some headway. As our initial momentum is used up, we get to the point where we're just able to keep the boat from moving backward. Furious paddling allows us to inch forward. It almost feels ridiculous, paddling like a madman and moving inches at a time. I'm a bit anxious about hitting a rock with my paddle. Paddles are pretty strong, but a "madman" could easily break his blade if he accidently catches the bottom. After about three minutes we're finally in slower water. We're also winded and wound up.

By two o’clock clouds move in and we make it to a nice campsite on Little Vermilion Lake. As I walk the shoreline of our camp, I notice that the moss is torn up and turned over in quite a few spots. I wonder if a bear wandered the shore, looking for grubs. Later that evening, however Bob and I watch as crows or ravens pick at the moss on a nearby peninsula. Some of the disturbed moss must be from these birds, but a larger overturned patch seems too big, even for a crow. We place the tent far from the shore and hang our food carefully.

Little Vermilion is a busy lake. We see about a dozen motorboats just before five o’clock and a few more in the evening. The sound of gunfire, somewhere far to the north, rings out half a dozen times. Later we hear a few shots south of our otherwise quiet campsite. I recall something my brother Dan told me years ago. His friend Ernie moved to downtown Chicago back in the seventies. Ernie also heard gunfire every warm Saturday night through his high-rise apartment window. All night long the shots rang out. He figured it was mostly people shooting into the air, like bandits in an old western movie. I remember a friend who dreamed of retiring to a place where he could shoot something in his back yard. Maybe he did! After thinking about it for awhile, I realize that out here, where there are no people, where the evening news doesn’t report a murder every few days – it’s all right to take some target practice in your back yard every now and then.