Camp Nebagamon

For two groups of alumni, the wilderness experience has been a means of maintaining friendships and celebrating the outdoors well into adulthood—padding already strong bonds with Nebaga-friends as they paddle. These are the stories of their summer traditions:

BOYS’ TRIPS

by David Eppstein (61-61, 65, 67-69, 72, 74)

My first Camp Nebagamon trip was a Swamper cabin foray to Bony Lake in 1961. The two things I remember most were catching my first sunfish and one of my cabin mates developing a bad case of poison ivy. It must have been a particularly bad year for poison ivy, because I also remember that Fred Brownstein was elected to the “Nut Club” for contracting poison ivy as a result of wiping his butt with the wrong leaves.

As a camper, I also took a couple of Sawbills to the Boundary Waters, but never any hiking trips with those crazy Danes—walking, in general, and especially having to carry a pack, was never my thing. But I loved the canoe trips. They were challenging without being overwhelming. And the experience of being out in the woods, away from it all for days at a time with a group of friends, was pure pleasure. So pleasurable, in fact, that I’ve been taking similar trips on an annual basis with a core group of Nebagamon boys for more than 20 years.

During that time, Jimmy Lewis (63-66, 69-72), Steve Salky (64, 66-69, 71-74), my brother Joe Eppstein (65-66, 69, 71-72), his son Eitan Marder-Eppstein (99-01) and I have taken trips on 18 different whitewater rivers throughout Canada and the U.S. Like the song that Darryl Couts used to sing at the GTC, “I (we’ve) been everywhere, man, we’ve been everywhere”…from the Verde River in Arizona to the Otherside River in Saskatchewan… from the St. Croix River along the Maine/New Brunswick border to the Wallowa and Grande Ronde Rivers in Oregon.

Jimmy, Steve, Joe and I have been taking camping trips together since the early 1970’s when we were all counselors at Nebagamon. A couple times a year we would gather as a group, with respective spouses, significant others, and, eventually, children in tow at some campground, inn, or cabin(s) to spend a couple of days in the woods. But the “Boys’ Trips,” as they have come to be called did not start in earnest until 1996. That first trip was a four-day affair on the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers, during Tropical Storm Fern. I have never, before or since, been in a tent when it was raining that hard. Joe and I slept well, having remembered our CNOC instructions on how to properly pitch a tent. Jimmy and Steve, on the other hand fared less well.

When we returned to the river, it had risen eight feet overnight to flood stage. Which, of course, meant that macho Big Chiefs Joe and Steve were determined to run the huge wave train at the confluence of the two rivers. They made it through the first six-foot rooster tail, but swamped out immediately after that and spent the next 30 minutes working to get out of the current with the canoe. We picked them up about a half-mile downstream.

The next year we tried something a bit more tame by taking a five-day trip on the newly designated “Wild and Scenic” Buffalo River in Arkansas. The rapids were nothing to write home about, but the campsites along the river were terrific. In the years that followed, we went in search of the perfect combination of scenery, remoteness, and whitewater challenge—rivers such as the Green River through Desolation and Grey Canyons, the Mistassibi NE in Quebec, the Bloodvein and Pigeon Rivers in Manitoba, the Dumoine and Coulonge Rivers in Ontario, and the Clearwater and Porcupine Rivers in Saskatchewan. The sweet spot for us was to find a class III whitewater river without too many portages, requiring either a float-plane or long shuttle in, and able to be canoed on for six or seven consecutive days. The Clearwater in Saskatchewan, just over the border from Alberta, with its superb campsites and challenging rapids, was perfect. We even managed a base camp day just above a three-tiered waterfall—sweet respite from our usual 18-20 “clicks” (km) per day.

Most of the time, we had these rivers to ourselves, only occasionally passing an occupied campsite, or meeting up with another small group at the beginning or end of a portage. We were able to identify most rapids, waterfalls, and portages on the 1:50,000 scale maps we carried, and, in some cases, were lucky enough to have these supplemented by “River Guide” notes found on-line from previous paddlers. But there were definitely times when we had to decide for ourselves whether a particular stretch of rapids was runnable, and, if so, which line to follow. The latter was often the subject of intense debate—mostly between Joe and Steve (and later Eitan), as the rest of us waited for our instructions. However, the line ultimately chosen did not guarantee success, which is why gear was always stored in NRS dry bags securely lashed to the thwarts. The rapids known as “The Wall” and “The Canyon” on the Pigeon nearly did us in. And, while running the Green River in an open canoe with a support raft for gear, we executed a perfect “real-life” canoe-over-raft rescue at the bottom of a particularly hairy class IV rapid to the applause and cheers of the guided trip participants watching from shore.

Around the campfire at night, the conversation seesaws back and forth from then to now. We know each other’s stories so well that any one of us can complete the telling. And having been together through marriages, divorces, child rearing, career changes, and death gives rise to a comforting intimacy. Names fall away as we take to addressing one another as “Brother”…or in our more effusive moments “SON!” Laughter, from the loons and us, drifts out over the water.

I don’t know how much longer these trips will last. Old age seems to have a way of creeping up on us. For years, we’ve toyed with the idea of doing some really BIG water like the Nahanni in the Northwest Territories or the Moisie in Labrador and Quebec. Maybe next summer…with a guide this time.

QUETICO CONTINUES

By David Michel (75-80) and Jeff Goldenberg (75-82)

As college sophomores in the spring of 1985 we were missing each other, Camp Nebagamon, and the wilderness. We had last been camping together on our 1980 Big Trip and, through the glorified retelling of stories from Quetico, had convinced ourselves that we needed to return to the Boundary Waters, this time on our own.

That summer, David flew to MSP and climbed into the passenger seat of Jeff’s 1982 Fiat Spider. Heading north, the Fiat proved to be almost too small for our gear, a bit overmatched on the unpaved Gunflint Trail, and a magnet of derision for the denizens of the Iron Range, who yelled at us at a fuel stop to, “Get an American car!” We relied on memory and the skills learned at CNOC as we shopped for groceries and packed out. The only thing we needed from an outfitter was a canoe. We put in at Moose Lake, just as we had in 1980.

Since everything we knew about camping we learned at camp, neither of us could imagine doing anything differently. We soaped our pots, drank bug juice, swam in the nude, and never wore lifejackets.  We did splurge on a two-man A-frame tent, an improvement upon Nebagamon’ s Korean War-era “wilderness” tents that did not stay dry and had to be pitched in a thicket of trees, (and thus on their undulating roots).  We nicknamed that tent “Taj Michel,” in a nod to its luxuriousness. The rest of our equipment included ponchos, jeans, and the sleeping bags we had used since Swamper Five.

Now, 31 consecutive summers in Quetico and the Boundary Waters later, we have incorporated more luxuries, distilled beverages and cigarillos.  Jeff’s blue sleeping bag is the only piece of equipment that has made every trip. What began as a lark became a tradition that remains unbroken. We would never think to let our jobs or families get in the way of something this good.

Over the years we have been joined by many of our friends from Camp including Michael Aronoff, Greg Averbush, Ted Isaacs, Bill Dubinsky, Bob Dubinsky, and our bothers, Chad Goldenberg and Jeff Michel. We have been fortunate to stop by Nebagamon on our way back to the Twin Cities on many of these trips. We have bumped into Big Trips twice. On both occasions they were underwhelmed by a group of middle-aged men serenading them with “Thanks for the Pines.”

We are already looking ahead to Quetico XXXII next summer. For us, our annual adventure is far more than a camping trip. Together, we are keeping the fires burning.