Virginia A. Spiegel

Just back yesterday from the Boundary Waters on the Canadian/Minnesota Borders after another inspiration canoe wilderness camping trip with my sister, Nancy. We both thought this trip would be an easy paddle in, a set up on our favorite campsite on a small lake, and a week spent day tripping here and there.

But Mother Nature knows how to keep you humble and on your toes.  About two minutes after launching the canoe, I took this photo:

And then it really started to be interesting.  It was honestly the biggest and nastiest water I have ever paddled in for so long.  So finally we said, “That’s it” and beat back to a campsite we had visited before.  We were one lake short of where we hoped to be, but very happy to be safely ashore.

Engineer Nancy set up with this tarp wind break that was a great place to cook and be out of the roaring wind and rain:

And so we spent the week on that one campsite with plenty of time for naps, lovely meals, sketching and a daily photography challenge. And in every kind of weather we had coffee break in the afternoon; you know that made me happy:

We also had two sunny days that let us survey our big lake and see mink, eagles, beavers, loons, and more.  Sometimes life gives you just what you need.

My August e-newsletter will be coming out before the end of the month with more exclusive photos and stories from the Boundary Waters .  Not a subscriber? Just send an e-mail with SUBSCRIBE as the header.

These maple seeds just turning pink were very interesting to me.  I photographed them again and again at different times of day and in different light:

I wouldn’t want Maggi (thanks to you and Melanie for the comments) to think my last post was all that I appreciated about England.  Every day out walking brought new delights:

The joys of being a little bit lost.

A fine place to stop for lunch.

The beautiful stone walls (Andy Goldsworthy explained)

And now my thoughts (and efforts) turn to Trip #15 to the Boundary Waters.

Wild at the Edges:  Inspiration from a Creative Life evolved by keeping in mind the kind of book I like to take to bed with me (maybe with a glass of wine or a mug of hot chocolate) and peruse as the spirit moves me.

You will find encouraging thoughts about life and art, hidden treasures of poems, close-up photos of art and nature and, last, but not least, a very personal view of the driving forces behind my creative life.

Preview Wild at the Edges here.

25% of all profits from this book will be donated to the American Cancer Society through Fiberart For A Cause.  Fiberart For A Cause has donated more than $190,000 to the American Cancer Society.

Photo by Nancy J. Spiegel Rosman

When I am in the Boundary Waters I try to keep my mind blank, but open.  A terrifically hard thing for me personally.  But art will out.  We were having “rock time” and I started pushing “stuff” around with a little stick.  The time floated by as the little stick worked its magic in finding and arranging things found on the rock.  I wonder what the next person who arrives on these campsite rocks will think of this found-object collage.

I’m always looking, looking, looking from the canoe, on the portage, and in camp.  Here are some of the themes I am, once again, contemplating with these new images as inspiration:

The juxtaposition of hard and soft; the timelessness of nature, the ephemeral nature of humans.

The beauty of decay, the cycling of all things in life from life to death.

The abundance of everything in nature, even spawn upon the shore.

The power of water; the mystery of reflection.

The Beginning of Pink

June’s Trip #13 to the Boundary Water Canoe Area Wilderness was pretty much a disaster, but it was compensated 1000 times over by this delightful journey.  We had an adventure-packed ten days of portaging, paddling, and appreciating nature.  Every other day we would “gear up” and paddle forth.  We portaged over 13.5 miles total, but were always done fairly early in the day.  The weather was phenomenal.  Our only disappointment was seeing only one moose (rut hadn’t started yet – very late), but he had only one antler!

Highlights included a concert from a pack of wolves camped out in our neighborhood and four beavers doing a ritual of some sort involving an all-nighter of tail slapping.  Of course, stunning as always were the eagles, the stars, the tall pines, and the strong teamwork of the Sister System required by the Boundary Waters.

That Sinking Feeling
Photo by Nancy J. Spiegel Rosma

One of our great adventures was beaver dams!  (I am not even going to start on impassable rapids with no portages and very little water – another whole story.) We would run the boat up as close as possible and I would jump out.  Sounds easy.  But you are climbing up/standing on a shifting mass of sticks – - some dried and easily broken, some loose, some firmly wedged in mud.  The water rushes between and over your feet and in the back of your mind in this little false alert going off, “I’m sinking, I’m sinking.”

Sister Nancy would jump out, we would take out one pack and lay it on the dam and then heave Beauty, our 17.5 foot Kevlar canoe, with the other two 50 lb. packs over the mass of sticks. Nancy would fling the pack back in and then take the fully-loaded boat out, swing it around and I would jump in.  Off to the next one.  Of course, coming back with the current was a different story (and actually easier).  The photo is the from the first and smallest dam (we did 3 out and 3 back) which compensated by being built on boot-sucking mud.

More later this week on things that inspired me on this journey, but here is one of the huge variety of mushrooms we photographed :

Pedestal