Readers and writers: Dark lessons from the Boundary Waters lead an eclectic mix

Mary Ann Grossmann, Pioneer Press
Updated ·9 min read

Surviving and dying in the Boundary Waters. The return of a popular fictional Minnesota private investigator. Women’s lives in Zambia. We’ve got an eclectic mix for you today.

“Last Entry Point: Stories of Danger and Death in the Boundary Waters”: by Joe Friedrichs (Minnesota Historical Society Press, $19.95)

I was pinned on the log near the middle of the river. The surging river kept me locked tight against the tree while water poured over my life jacket and upper torso. My legs were under the tree. The current wanted to pull me down and under the tree, while simultaneously my top half was being nudged over the log. My body gradually took on the shape of the letter C. — from “Last Entry Point”

Joe Friedrichs is an experienced canoe paddler on the lakes in the sprawling Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness near where he lives. Like most lovers of the majestic BWCA and the adjacent Quetico in Canada, Friedrichs and others in his party knew what they were doing when they headed into the BWCA. Yet they capsized in the “brown churning rapids of the Temperance River.” Friedrichs survived by gathering all his strength and pulling himself out, but it was a close call.

Billy Cameron wasn’t so lucky. The first sentence of Friedrich’s exciting (and sometimes painful) book is: “On paper, Billy Cameron did everything right. And he still died n the Boundary Waters.” Cameron, an avid outdoorsman, fell from a canoe into the frigid waters of Tuscarora Lake. It was the Indiana man’s death that led Friedrichs to explore dangers in the BWCA.

Throughout this colorfully written and carefully researched book, the author stresses he is not being sensational. People die in the BWCA, which encompasses more than a million acres in northeastern Minnesota and draws some 250,000 visitors annually. Across the BWCA and adjacent Quetico Provincial Park in Canada, motors mostly are not allowed. It is a peaceful place, almost mystical in the imaginations of Minnesotans and others from around the world.

“..the purpose of sharing these stories is to educate, not to scare,” he writes. “Better planning. Utilizing situational awareness. Waiting. These simple steps could have prevented many of the deaths you will read about…At the same time, accidents happen. Nobody expects a towering white pine to fall on their tent while they’re sleeping. It happens here. So do lightning. Tornadoes, Hypothermia… Stories of people dying can have value, in the way a tree, once cut down, can be made into a table or a bench. It is no longer alive, but it continues to have a purpose. And perhaps, above everything else, these stories are here to help us remember what the Boundary Waters is capable of.”

Friedrichs, a news reporter and co-founder of the award-winning “Boundary Waters” podcast, does a masterful job of filling in every detail as he writes about the dead and interviews survivors of BWCA tornados and fires, as well as talking with families and friends of those whose lives ended in the wilderness. He gets advice from search/rescue operatives such as Rick Sitten, an expert on finding people. He talked with Gov. Tim Walz, who was a U.S. congressman in 2016 when his brother, Craig, was killed by a falling tree during a lightning strike on Duncan Lake. His nephew, Jacob, was seriously injured but recovered.

“Last Entry Point” is divided into stories about the most dangerous conditions in the BWCA — water and lightning, fire and ice — and speculation about what happened to two men whose bodies were never found. Along the way Friedrichs introduces us to colorful characters such as Mark Zimmer, who spends half the year in the BWCA. His refusal to wear shoes has earned him the nickname “barefoot paddler.”

Friedrichs does an especially good job at explaining the conditions that caused numerous fires in the BWCA, usually driven by high winds. Among the survivors were Greg and Julie Welch, who lived through being surrounded by flames as the Pagami Creek wildfire swept their campground. The heroes of these fire and smoke stories are the search and rescue teams from Cook, Lake and St. Louis Counties, praised by survivors for quick action under difficult circumstances. But everyone can’t be saved. In 2012 Forest Lake residents Thomas and Cynthia Pineault, experienced paddlers, died when their canoe capsized in strong winds and dropping temperatures.

Sometimes there is no way of figuring out what happened to the missing. Lloyd Skelton, for instance, took off his clothes and walked into the woods. He was never seen again, although his clothing was found. The saddest story is about Jordan Grinder, a young man who grew up in New Mexico and had never been North. He had no idea what it meant to live in 40-below-zero temperatures, arriving with no winter clothing or shelter. He was never found either. (Experienced BWCA biologists agree that the men were not attacked by animals such as wolves, generally not a problem in the BWCA.)

Besides the contemporary stories, Friedrichs briefly recounts the birth of the BWCA, thanks to environmental authors/activists such as Sig Olson and Ernest Oberholtzer. who were instrumental in successfully fighting a plan that would have built dams across what is now the BWCA. He also explains the long relationship of Native Americans with the region.

Whether you’ve experienced the beauty of the BWCA or are an armchair traveler, this book is a good read about an area that draws those who want peace, adventure, spiritual awakenings or just s’mores around a campfire.

The author will introduce his book at 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 12, at Next Chapter Booksellers, 38 S. Snelling Ave., St. Paul.

“Man In the Water”: by David Housewright (Minotaur Books, $29)

I don’t know who the good guys are. I don’t know who the bad guys are. I don’t know if there are any good guys or bad guys. Who would I be helping, anyway? The marina? The insurance companies? Against who? The family of a guy who may or may not have committed suicide? Of all the things I’ve done that were none of my business, this is the most none of my business of all.” — from “Man in the Water”

The man in the water is dead. Of course he is. Because Rushmore “Mac” Mckenzie’s wife, Nina, found the corpse frozen to a ladder that led to the marina dock. That means McKenzie, a former St. Paul cop and now an unlicensed investigator, will become entangled in this man’s life whether he wants to or not.

McKenzie and Nina were at the marina on the St. Croix River early in the season to take a short cruise with their friends Barbara and Dave Deese. After they find the body of businessman E.J. Woods, authorities believe he committed suicide. But the man’s daughter, Naveah, asks McKenzie to investigate her father’s death. He had no reason to be at the marina. He didn’t like the water, didn’t fish and wasn’t interested in boats. Was he lured there and murdered?

Reluctantly, McKenzie sets out to do old-fashioned leg work, spending time at the local VFW club where men and women veterans of the Gulf Wars gather. They offer insights into E.J.’s life, although they didn’t know he was seeing a therapist for PTSD as were several others. As McKenzie investigates the death of E.J., who ran a tree-cutting service, lawsuits are flying. Four insurance companies with whom E.J. had taken out big policies refuse to pay and Bizzy, his widow, is suing the marina for negligence. Bizzy seemed distraught when her husband’s body was found that cold morning, but she recovered quickly with the help of her lawyer. When the accountant for her husband’s business is found dead, also a presumed suicide, McKenzie’s investigations ramp up. Meanwhile, Naveah changes her mind after a talk with her stepmother, Bizzy, and asks McKenzie to back off the investigation. Why?

Housewright’s sense of place in this 21st McKenzie novel is great, as usual, when he evokes boating (ad partying) life on the St. Croix. And the story is made richer by McKenzie’s trademark inner dialogue as he figures out what to do, where to go, and what the evidence tells him. Even the most astute reader will not guess the motive behind the deaths, in which the St. Croix plays a vital role.

The good news is that McKenzie doesn’t get too beaten up, which makes Nina happy but resigned to her husband’s being in danger much of the time.

Housewright, who lives in St. Paul, will introduce his book at 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 25, at Next Chapter Booksellers, 38 S. Snelling Ave., St. Paul, and sign copies from noon to 2 p.m. Saturday, June 29, at Once Upon a Crime mystery bookstore, 604 W. 26th St., Mpls. He will read at 7 p.m. Monday, July 1, at Barnes & Noble, 2100 N. Snelling Ave., Roseville.

“Obligations to the Wounded”: by Mubanga Kalimamukwento (University of Pittsburg Press, $24)

I learned how to gyrate in bed to please my future husband. His pubic hair was to be razored off by me. I gasped at this, picturing the slivers of gray on his gleaming head. That gasp earned me a pinch between my thighs. Which brought us to the next lesson. By keeping a mouthful of water and rocks without a spill, I learned the importance of my silence in case the impending husband disciplined me with a beating. — from “Obligations to the Wounded”

Mubanga Kalimamukwento, who lives in Mounds View, has won the $15,000 Drue Heinz Literature Prize for this story collection about the lives of Zambian women in their home country and abroad. The prize recognizes and supports writers of short stories and includes publication of the winner’s work. Although “Obligations to the Wounded” won’t be published until October, we didn’t want to let this intriguing collection slip through the cracks.

For those unfamiliar with the geography of Africa, landlocked Zambia is in the south-central pat of the continent. It is a republic, formed out of northern Rhodesia in 1964 after the British left.

The author, a Zambian lawyer and writer, examines the cost of womanhood through the voices of 12 Zambian women and girls. Some of these stories are not easy to read. A woman living in the U.S. returns to Zambia to help care for her mother, who is experiencing dementia but in a lucid moment warns her to keep her daughter away from her grandfather. During a baby’s naming ceremony in the U.S., a woman writes a letter to her little niece in Zambia about “what it means to be Zambian,” including advice to be born a male, become a doctor or engineer, and how to bring shame to the family. On her wedding day a woman has sex with another woman who treats the encounter as though nothing has happened. A defiant girl who knows she is a boy shaves her head and dresses so that she looks like “her father’s son.”

In a 2019 article published in Minnesota Law magazine, Kalimamukwento said she considers herself a human-rights advocate through her writing and “(likes) to think about the relationship between literature, especially about minorities, and the development of human rights legislation and policy.” Her first book, “The Mourning Bird,” is a first-person narrative about the life of a homeless girl in Lusaka, Zambia, available now in paperback.

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