Last weekend I went up to the boundary waters with a group of women that have known me forever. (Forever starting when I was three.) One of my oldest friends, Emma, is the director of a wilderness camp at the end of the Gunflint Trail, which is where we spent the weekend doing yoga, snow shoeing, making art, and of course, doing lots of eating.
Growing up my family spent a week in the boundary waters every summer (they still do, I unfortunately haven't been able to join them since graduating from high school) and being up there this weekend was lovely. It's a place that is not only beautiful, but moving. The solitude of the place combined with its wild nature makes for an invigorating place to spend time. This was the first time that I have been up there in the winter, and while I can't say that I would forgo its summer adventures in favor of those of winter, the winter does hold a different sort of appeal.
It was so great to see real snow, as that has been rather lacking in Minnesota this year. Having a foot or so to play in made me realize I did, in fact, miss it. I am notorious to my family and friends for complaining about winter weather. I prefer to think of it not at complaining but as stating facts, but it remains that I hate being cold, I hate how long it lasts, I hate how much longer it takes to do everything and how much harder it is to do everything, I hate the freezing feeling when you first get into your car and know that it's not going to warm up for at least 5 minutes, and the list goes on. But I realized being up there, for as much as I don't like winter, I love the atmosphere created by snow. Perhaps it's simply because having grown up with it and not experiencing it this winter I'm subject to being overly nostalgic, but regardless of the reason for my sentimentality, my weekend in the boundary waters did wonders for my mental health. (Even if we did drive back in a white-out snow storm at 35 miles an hour.)
Growing up my family spent a week in the boundary waters every summer (they still do, I unfortunately haven't been able to join them since graduating from high school) and being up there this weekend was lovely. It's a place that is not only beautiful, but moving. The solitude of the place combined with its wild nature makes for an invigorating place to spend time. This was the first time that I have been up there in the winter, and while I can't say that I would forgo its summer adventures in favor of those of winter, the winter does hold a different sort of appeal.
It was so great to see real snow, as that has been rather lacking in Minnesota this year. Having a foot or so to play in made me realize I did, in fact, miss it. I am notorious to my family and friends for complaining about winter weather. I prefer to think of it not at complaining but as stating facts, but it remains that I hate being cold, I hate how long it lasts, I hate how much longer it takes to do everything and how much harder it is to do everything, I hate the freezing feeling when you first get into your car and know that it's not going to warm up for at least 5 minutes, and the list goes on. But I realized being up there, for as much as I don't like winter, I love the atmosphere created by snow. Perhaps it's simply because having grown up with it and not experiencing it this winter I'm subject to being overly nostalgic, but regardless of the reason for my sentimentality, my weekend in the boundary waters did wonders for my mental health. (Even if we did drive back in a white-out snow storm at 35 miles an hour.)
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when it came time to die, discover that I had not lived."
-Henry David Thoreau, Walden
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