By Andy Wright
All I’m saying is, you would just never expect to find jellyfish in the Boundary Waters. 
Sure, you always hope to spot wildlife on a trip; wolves, bears, pine martens. With luck, a rare glimpse of a moose. At the least, you’re able to actually anticipate these moments. But meeting a freshwater jellyfish leaves a deep impression – considering most people don’t even know they exist. Do you? I didn’t.
Yet there they were. My wife and I sat spellbound in our canoe as we discovered dozens – and then hundreds – of tiny pulsating shapes in the waters of Ruby Lake. Bell-shaped bodies expanding, contracting. Tentacles flexing in time to the undulating waves. Milky-white and translucent, the penny-sized creatures performed their slow motion ballet for this audience of two.
It was unreal. It was X-Files. It was The Abyss.
Better yet, unlike most wildlife encounters, this was no fleeting moment. For several minutes we reveled in the beauty of this first contact. After a time, our craft drifted outside the school of . . . whatever these things were, and we moved on, talking excitedly.
Needless to say, I was not at all prepared for this rare sighting. But what followed, was entirely unexpected. Like myself, Author Douglas Wood had enjoyed many outdoor memories in his life, but his perhaps most profound memory occurred indoors, at home, far from the wilds.
He fondly recalls picking mulberries at age 3; catching sunfish with a cane pole at 7. On his first visit to Lake Kabetogama, he immediately darted into the forest, emerging only after his grandfather was sent to find him. Though the north woods remained in his heart over the years, their mystique would change his life’s direction in his 25th year, as he lay bedridden with a nasty flu.
A high school teacher at the time, Wood asked his wife to read something to him. She reached for a book recommended by one of his students; a title by one Sigurd Olson.
“She started reading the first pages from Listening Point, and I soon had tears running down my cheeks, and not from the flu. Here was someone who put into words, all my feelings about the outdoors and the north country.” He’d been bitten by a different bug now.
Within two months, Wood had read all of Sigurd Olson’s books. He sent Olson a heartfelt letter of gratitude, and they became fast friends. Another month passed and Wood had quit his teaching job and began to write. Moreover, he also started using his other talents to perform “EarthSongs” – the nature-inspired music he continues to play today. And Wood now leads the Board of Directors for the Listening Point Foundation.
So, just what is it that transforms a nature enthusiast into an advocate; that turns a mere “enjoyer” into a protector?
I read aloud from the web page: “Craspedacusta sowerbyi, they’re called.” Although not indigenous to Northern Minnesota, our freshwater jellyfish (sometimes also called hydromedusae) prefer bodies of fresh, standing water. Luckily, we have some of those in Minnesota.
After our trip, a Google search satisfied our quest for truth. But for the five days until then, we spoke of our chance encounter with a sense of awe and wonderment usually reserved for the supernatural or the sacred. I could not forget it.
I had been to the Boundary Waters many times before, going back into childhood. I’d seen much wildlife (enough, probably, to have taken the sightings for granted.) But jellyfish – this had tipped the scales for me. I could not keep silent about the place any more. And I had to tell everyone the rare privilege my wilderness experience had been for me.
Dusting off a long-forsaken love of writing, I began blogging all things Boundary Waters. In sharing news of the area with readers, I found fulfillment in promoting its care, and promoting those who fought for its preservation. Something on that trip changed things for me. I found a sense of stewardship, my “outside voice.”
But now, in the wake of modern threats like overdevelopment and “nature deficit disorder,” I often wonder how we can encourage new voices, more voices for wilderness.
But first, how to identify them?
Ask the people who hear those stories first: the outfitters. “Basically, we look for happy, relaxed people,” says outfitter Sue Ahrendt of families coming off the trail.
Along with husband Andy Ahrendt, the co-owner of Tuscarora Lodge on the Gunflint Trail, is something of a scout for wilderness lifers. In addition to daily introducing people to the region, she’s written the guide Becoming a Boundary Waters Family.
“The area has an uncanny way of getting under peoples’ skin,” she says. “I believe that we have an innate yearning for wild places, for natural settings, for beauty.”
As in her book, Ahrendt seeks to teach families about living in canoe country. Sue says they educate “more than anything else . . . This is why we want kids to come, to learn to care for it and respect it.” The learning process Ahrendt speaks of, can take time.
For Douglas Wood, it was time, but not that alone. The inspirational writings of Sigurd Olson provided for Wood a pivotal “a-ha moment.” They brought to fruition a love for wild places, and from this came a dedication.
Perhaps it’s not so coincidental that I had a similar moment of clarity which led me to write. That it took a certain amount of time and exposure, until I became an advocate and not just a vacationer.
Sigurd Olson seemed to know of such epiphanies. He wrote that each of us are born with a share of curiosity and wonder which, over the years can be lost. Yet, he said, “their latent glow can be fanned to flame again by awareness and an open mind.”
If each of us does have the promise of an a-ha moment waiting for us somewhere ahead (should we seek it,) I think people like the Ahrendts are doing the right thing.
“We know that as [Boundary Waters families] grow up, they will take care of what they know and love,” says Ahrendt.
Now I seek to cultivate those formative wilderness experiences, among my readers, but also among my children. Their own flashpoint of inspiration may be on their first visit to the BWCA. Or their fifth. Or perhaps, as with Douglas Wood, they’ll be far away altogether, and will read something that fans the embers into flame again. For me, the flame was an outspoken love for wild places. For a long time, I didn’t truly know I had it. But I did. Do you?
Editor’s note: You can read more of Andy’s insight, and inspiration at his blog: www.UpNorthica.com