Not Feeling Minnesota
Last week, I traveled to Minnesota for my first summer vacation in ten years. My wife, Ellen, doesn’t like hot weather and I thought it would be cooler there than in New Jersey. It was, though not markedly.
Minnesota has many nice woods, streams and lakes. I had last been there in early June 2002 to deliver an environmental law lecture in Duluth, a unique and scenic small city on a steep slope at the western edge of Lake Superior.
After that conference, I drove three hours north to the Boundary Waters, a million-plus-acre wilderness area along Minnesota’s Canadian border. During a solo canoe trip in that virtually unbuilt-upon, vast patch of forest and chain of lakes, a storm blew in. I carelessly capsized my vessel and immersed fully in 50-degree water. All of my cotton clothes were soaked. After I righted the canoe, I removed my wet garments.
I spent the next ten hours paddling in rain and windy, low-fifties air, wearing only boxer shorts and seeing only two other canoes. Without the sun or any landmarks to orient myself, I was lost in a vast maze of lakes which, aside from their different sizes and shapes, looked very much the same, surrounded by trees atop ten-foot rocky outcrops. I stayed as close to shore as I reasonably could.
At twilight, I emerged from a narrow passage and saw a choppy, circular, mile-wide lake. As the gloomy light was fading, I knew I had to paddle directly across the lake’s center; staying near the shore would have taken too long. Though I swim well enough, I knew that if the canoe had capsized, I wouldn’t have survived; the water was too cold. I paused. Peace and gratefulness for the 44 years I had already lived descended upon me. Then a song came into my head:
Don’t rock the boat, baby. Don’t tip the boat over.
I didn’t. Kneel
Article from LewRockwell
LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.