Camping Articles - Learn How to Camp

This is the first hard frost of the fall season. Its gonna be cold tonight. The full moon is white and bright as if the yard light is on. Only Kenny and I are not in a yard. Were up in the super natural forest. (Superior National Forest). It’s late September and in a few days it will be the month of pumpkins.

At 9:45 pm the timber wolves cut loose. We put some more wood on the fire and toasted our feet and the health of the timbies. They rose to full chorus as if trying to throw their lungs out of body. That howling was as cool as tonight’s temperature was going to be. When they hit complete wailing I froze, just soakin' it in to my being.

About as often as we flip the steaks the wolves howl. These are the training howls for the new pups born earlier in the year. The alphas set one litter but it’s the pack raising the voices and the pups tonight. I have no idea if they are in the same square mile or the ridge about two hundred yards north of us. The howl is loose and loud. We camped in an old timber landing.. The skidder pushed up tops from the logging and we set the tent in an amphitheater of cleared brush and free firewood.

The tent went up fast and we had no problem gathering firewood almost within reach of the campfire. Cots set with sleeping bags and one unnecessary lantern settled between two bag chairs. This was easy, fast and relaxed. We had doubled hauled into and back out of two different lakes today in search of remote walleye. We iced some very fresh walleye fillets.

After all that stomping, hiking, portaging, paddling, and fishing we were looking for a user friendly spot. This place turned out to be Valhalla. With the timber wolves in close proximity we knew some moose had to do battle occasionally here. On one of our portages today we saw where two Bull Moose knocked out about twenty square feet of brush and small trees in some sort of rut head butting session.

These two bulls must have been fired up. The slope they were on was about thirty percent. You gotta be mad and in a hurry to battle while horn slamming down a hill pummeling the brush and any trees on the terra firma. The portage trail, intersected with fresh moose war, became a small maze. We tried to play woodland detective but it was fruitless with the roto-tilling of the bull’s hooves. When we found the upslope of the portage we just kept going. Up hill canoes weigh more than canoes on level ground.

When I take a bite of my steak and watch the heat go straight into the night from the campfire, with no wind, it’s all so surreal. Spiraling upward, sparks from the campfire meld into star chips. The meat is fantastic. The moon illumes the ground in a white gray glaze. The wolves have spoken tonight with a voice that haunts the history of man. Without either of us saying a word we raise a final unspoken toast to the howling sound piercing the night. They finally go silent and the two of us can’t shut up about how awesome that was.

I dare you to go to the supernatural forest, heck, I double dog dare ya.

The trout whisperer.

Karl "Trout Whisperer" Seckinger is a respected JustNorth author and outdoor adventurer. His guide service, DuNord Guide Service, and the trout waters that he fishes in the Superior National Forest, are some of the most tightly guarded secrets among Trout enthusiasts in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Contact Karl at 218 - 525 - 0442 or write to him at:

DuNord Guide Service - 6999 Culbertson Road, Two Harbors, Minnesota 55616