A Justine Story...

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area is ideal for viewing wildlife such as moose and deer.

Driving the Trail

As Justine got older, her ability to walk in the woods diminished so she began driving all the roads in the area. Her experiences on these drives could be very interesting.

One day Justine was driving alongside a small pond. She saw a beaver swimming and stopped to watch. Justine decided to see if she could feed the beaver. The next day she came back to the pond with several young poplar branches in the trunk of her car. She stopped and took out the branches laying them along the shore of the pond. Then Justine loudly slammed the car trunk shut. The next day she came back to the same spot. The branches from the previous day were gone. She took out more branches and loudly slammed the trunk shut. After a couple of days, she could see the beaver watching her. Of course, Justine didn’t want to tell anyone what pond this was happening at in case a trapper heard about it and trapped her pets.

Justine would not be herself if some of her driving exploits didn’t get her into trouble. One spring she got her car stuck in mud on a seldom used back road. She hiked to the main trail and hitchhiked home. There she quietly got two boys from the lodge to come back and get the car out. Only problem was, they couldn’t do the job and had to go get Bruce. Justine stayed behind while they went for Bruce. At this point Sue heard what was going on and asked the boys where Mom was. As Bruce and the boys got equipment, Sue drove to the car. There she found Justine jacking her car up. Then Justine pushed it off the jack to one side. The plan was to slowly move the rear wheels out of the worst of the mud. About that time Bruce and the boys arrived. They easily pulled the car out but Justine’s method probably would have eventually gotten her out.

Another spring Justine and Sue took a short drive after dinner to see how the ice breakup was progressing. On the Round Lake side road they went to look at the Cross River. Their timing was perfect. The flowing water was just washing the ice floes down the rapids. For over an hour, the two women sat watching the jammed ice being broken up by the fast flowing water. Sometimes it seemed as if nothing was moving and then another piece would breakup and clear the rapids. The next block of ice quickly washed in to jam things up again for a bit. It was a once in a lifetime sight for Justine and Sue.