The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

 

The iron ore mine in Tower, Minnesota, closed in 1962. Now Tower’s major industry is Lake Vermilion, an island-studded jewel and one of the last outposts of private property before you arrive at the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Lynx number one was a hard-luck kitten. He was barely a year old, in March 2003, when he walked into a box-like trap near Isabella, deep in the Superior National Forest. Isabella is an old logging village bisected by Highway 1 as it slices inland from Lake Superior to Ely. Beyond the village is a small network of forest roads and great patches of spruce, pine, and balsam. It’s wild and dense country that few humans ever see.

In a good year, the wild rice grows thick on the lakes and rivers in northern Minnesota toward the end of August. The rice stalks multiply into such dense thickets that the waters become nearly impassable—to everything but the sleek canoes that glide through for harvesting. This job takes two people: one to knock rice into the canoe, and the other to propel the canoe through the water. Last year, I took the canoe’s middle seat, and my ricing partner stood tall in the back, pushing at the bottom of the creek bed with a twelve-foot pole, hand over hand, maintaining a gentle pace.