chipmunk – Travel. Garden. Eat.

After two nights of camping on the island, it was time to pack up and begin making our way back to our original entry point.

We had hoped to spend our last night at a campsite on Cross Bay Lake, but someone else had beat us to it. Paddling on, we had our pick of sites on Ham Lake — technically outside of the Boundary Waters area, although virtually indistinguishable in beauty from many of the lakes on the other side of that boundary line. Following the recommendation of our outfitter, we settled into a campsite on a rocky peninsula.

We quickly learned that wading in the shallow surrounding waters was not without its minor hazards. My son insisted I take a photo of this lovely leech — the leeches attached themselves almost the moment your feet hit the water, and water shoes offered little protection. We kept the salt shaker handy for the rest of our stay at this site!

A healthy sprinkling of salt on the leech prompted it to curl up and loosen its hold. My husband quickly called “dibs” on the dejected leech carcass as it fell to the ground (with no one putting in a competing bid), as he put it to good use as fish bait.

Thankfully, not all camp visitors were so dreadful. While we did not intentionally feed the chipmunk pair that quickly made their presence known, they were always lurking and quick to take advantage of any untended crumb.

Frankly, these little striped culprits are often more a threat to your food pack than the bears!

The last night remained gray and cool, but the rain held off to provide some quiet reading and reflection time.

We almost had a hint of a sunset through the clouds. A solitary duck swam across the lake, as if set to a metronome . . . quack . . . quack . . . quack . . . and our last night of being unplugged and off-the-grid drew to a close.