Roger Anderson

Church Canoe trip 1974

The trip started in mid-July which is a good time for a canoe trip. It is warm and dry. The number of bugs has also dropped. This trip was in the mid-1974. So, a travel permit was easy to get in 1974.

Reverend Vinton Beckstrom, who was pastor at the United Church, and I led a group of eight youths on the trip. We started at the public landing on Brule Lake. Brule Lake is several miles long and it has much open water. It is unusual because it has two outlets. One outlet is at the east end of the lake. The other outlet is at the west end of the lake. That is the start of the Temperance River.

The west end of Brule Lake has cliffs. We took a portage near the west end of the lake north to Cam Lake. We camped there for the night. The next day we paddled and portaged into Town Lake. Our goal was to camp on Cherokee Lake for three nights.

We were more or less out of food after our second breakfast which was a Friday on Cherokee Lake. That was part of our plan. Pastor Beckstrom was scheduled to officiate at a wedding on Saturday night. We left our camp and we paddled “light” to Sawbill Lake. We had Vinton’s pack, one empty pack, and our fishing poles. We met Mary Ann, his wife, and Mr. and Mrs Milton Helvig at the public landing on Sawbill Lake. They were our resupply plan. They had fresh steaks which we enjoyed that Friday evening along with the food for the rest of our trip.

We spent Saturday exploring Cherokee. Sunday, We paddled and portaged to North Temperance Lake. The next portage took us to South Temperance Lake. At the east end of South Temperance Lake is a river and rapids to Brule Lake. We paddled to the public landing on Brule Lake where we were met by some of the parents. We ate supper in Grand Marais and we returned to Two Harbors tired and happy.

Roger Anderson considers himself a life-long resident of Two Harbors even though he taught science in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for over 30 years before retiring. Starting in 1968 Anderson took up the sport of judo and coached judo for more than three decades, and in 2007-2008 traveled the world for 54 days. A guest columnist sharing his BWCAW canoeing stories that span over 60 years, Anderson would like to apologize to Eric Sevareid for the similarity in name to “Canoeing with the Cree in 1930.”