Chuck Haga: My tent and sleeping bag are officially retired, but I will return to Itasca

Was this the last time?

It's a common question, I think, when a fellow makes his way into his 70s and starts checking off things he once did but no longer can.

I turned 74 last Saturday. To be honest, I’m amazed I’ve made it this far. All those years chasing news, checking into small-town motels and avoiding the pools and exercise rooms because I had a deadline, buying "dinner" out of gas station vending machines, and otherwise living a largely sedentary life – yet here I am, closing in on three-quarters of a century.

And wondering …

Was that my last class? My last trip abroad? The last time I’d see her?

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And now … Was this the last time I pitched a tent, rolled out a sleeping bag and slept on the ground in Itasca State Park, watching the moon and stars dance and listening for owls?

I don't mean to be morbid here. With the help of good doctors (and maybe, just maybe, the prayers of people representing five different faiths), I have held my own against cancer and an assortment of other ailments. I look forward to turning 75, and then setting new goals, like watching my younger granddaughter graduate from high school. (College might be a stretch – for me, not her. She's 13.)

But like many of you, I suspect, I’m having to come to terms now with losses and limitations.

When I turned 70 four years ago, I went off to Itasca and made a fuss about still being able to get on the ground at night and get back up in the morning. "Camping at 70," I called a series of social media posts, and I followed that with Camping at 71, and at 72, and – despite a stage four lung cancer diagnosis – at 73.

And last weekend, I meant to brag once more – to drag one more year out of my ancient Sierra Designs tent, worn and a little torn, the aluminum poles slightly bent and reluctant to come together easily, and to roll out my equally aged and weathered sleeping bag.

But last year it had become increasingly difficult to work my way down and into the tent at night, to find rest there despite infirmities, and to bring myself up and out at dawn.

I love Itasca. I have for better than a half century.

I love the history of the place, the stories of the park's founders, who saved some of the great pines from the loggers and made of the interior an animal sanctuary. I love the log structures, especially Douglas Lodge and the Oldtimer's Cabin, and the stories of the Civilian Conservation Corps boys who harvested, peeled and set the great logs.

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I love fishing in the park, fighting slab crappies who turn a broad side to me and feel like trophies on the line. I have seen and admired bear, raccoons, a fisher, porcupines and deer.

When younger, I shared the park with friends and girlfriends and grandchildren, showing them the great red and white pines, having ice cream with pie at the lodge, watching for beaver at Mary Lake at the end of Wilderness Drive. In autumn, I played Bach in the car as I motored slowly through the mixed forest, garish color at every turn.

I love listening to kids discovering the park: "It drains water from 31 states and two Canadian provinces," a boy read aloud last week about the Mississippi River, which begins here. "Wow!"

If I won a billion dollars in a lottery, I’d give the state of Minnesota $250 million to protect the trees, as long as they’d let me manage Douglas Lodge, keep it open all year, with the restaurant, and I would live in the Old Settler's Cabin, and I’d be the old settler, and I’d come out and wave to the tourists as the paddle wheeler takes off on its daily cruise in summer.

And I’d encourage young people to pitch tents and sleep on the ground in the Bear Paw and Pine Ridge campgrounds. Get a tent with a mesh roof, like the one I had, I’d tell them, so on a clear night they could lie on their backs and count stars and listen for owls.

It was rough, this past week, camping in my favorite spot in Pine Ridge, and not just because of the thunder storms that pummeled me and my old tent. I don't bend so well anymore, getting down and getting back up.

So, sadly and reluctantly, I decided it was time. I retired my tent and sleeping bag, not as ceremoniously as they deserved but with finality. And I left the park early, a big lump in my throat.

I’ll return to Itasca, I hope many times over many years. Maybe I’ll splurge on a room in the lodge, or on one of the cabins. I’ll make day trips. I’ll hike Bohall and other trails, and I’ll fish, and I’ll look for bear and wildflowers and listen for loons and owls. And I’ll order blueberry pie at the lodge, with ice cream, and ask for the seat with the hummingbird feeder just out the window.

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Chuck Haga had a long career at the Grand Forks Herald and the Minneapolis Star Tribune before retiring in 2013. He can be contacted at [email protected].

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