Buds, Bugs, and Baguettes

kayaking in Aialik Bay

fairytale moss charm-carpeting staff housing

When I was little, mosquito bites dotted my limbs in summer.  At one point I counted 37 on my right leg.  Northern Michigan is in the troubling insect big leagues for sure, and the swampy terrain surrounding my grandparents’ cabin could compete with the Deet-proof skeeters of Southeast Asia and the sand fly-ridden South Island of New Zealand.  When I canoed yesterday through veritable clouds of bitey fly-y things, I thought, “This is legit.”  Congratulations, Fjordlands National Park — you too are insanely beautiful and pestilent!

That’s about the only negative thing to say, though, about my little weekend getaway to our sister lodge.  If you can tolerate some bugs (and rain), your heart will thus with joy at several-hundred-foot-high granite cliffs spiderwebbed with cascading waterfalls, tucked into boulder-strewn coves reachable only at high tide.

That was kayaking.  Canoeing took us across a lagoon dotted with various species of loon, some playful harbor seals, a chirpy bald eagle, and a wilderness of dense spruce.  We walked through willow and alder, admiring flowering lupine and wild rhubarb, and emerged on the shores of a second lagoon.  This one was fed at its far end by a calving glacier.  Distant thunder rumbled, and massive chunks hurtled down into the water.  Bobbing and melting, they transform over time, gracefully carved swanlike curves floating placidly by.  Miles up the surrounding peaks, a few mountain goats cavorted, presumably unaware of a black bear lumbering across a ledge a hundred feet below.

I could go on and on.  The moss!  The lichen!  The rich dark brown chocolate lilies that smell bad!  And the kind, interesting people that live and work out there, relying on supplies by boat and semi-functional radios.  To cap it all, I slept in my own cabin, with actual walls, for ten hours a night.

Lest this laudatory account of my time in Aialik Bay cast shade on my fantastic regular camp life, let me report that this week also included:

- an impromptu after-dinner hike to a panoramic lake overlook
- pretty successful baguettes (with the exception that I omitted salt)
- rather successful baguettes (this time still nicely proofed, golden, and with salt)
- campfire visit with Ice friends
- foot-stomping country/bluegrass tunes by a good local band
- innovative pickle mixers with gin

Sorry for a formally uninspiring list, my baking muscles are crowding out my editing muscles.