Beyond

There is safety in the familiar but some days beckon us to look beyond

Basswood, Hermit, Oak, Manitou … the islands slip by like the dot-dash of a lighthouse flash. Most mornings, I find comfort in the cadence. By now, I know the outlines of the islands against even the faintest light of dawn as if they were old friends, protective shores. Staying within the arms of the Islands, protected by their bulk from the open lake, always a lee to run to — is the safe thing to do in a boat this small - out there alone, in the still dark day.

But what if I didn’t?

Usually, I contemplate the question sipping coffee, anchored in some nameless cove, engine off, my feet up with a view to the horizon, and then let the idea slip beneath me like a passing wave.

But not always.

Several times in the years I’ve explored aboard the Little Dipper, the urge to look beyond has gotten the best of me, days when the wind was calm and the lake seemed still alseep, when time had that long sweep to the hours that seemed to invite an urge to something new, to go beyond.

I pull up the anchor, fire up the engine, and point towards that horizon renewing the cadence of the islands as I continue heading north — Stockton, Ironwood, Cat, the clay cliffs and green trees of Outer Island, and then, as you put the whiteness of the Outer Island lighthouse behind you, there is only blue.

Outer Island is some 28 miles from mainland Wisconsin. To the north, it is another 25 to 30 miles from the nearest Minnesota shoreline. Slipping beyond that northermmost point of Outer Island, that last holdfast in the safety net of the shore, is to watch the horizons open like a hand in greeting, or a warning. The wind seems a little wilder, with an edge like an unsheathed knife. The waves more roiled and darker in the depths.

Looking east once you’ve cleared the island, there is not another shoreline between you and the wind for 320 miles, only blue and blue and blue.

Keep going. Let the comfort of the last shoreline trail away behind you, and then still more. Your eyes grow wider with the horizons. Go until even Outer Island is just a dark chalkline on the horizon and something that tastes like fear begins to well up in your throat.

Shut it down and drift.

This is a different world. There is a power this far out not likely to be kind to something as frail as a single human in such a small boat. I feel the weight of insignificance pressing down on my shoulders. What is out here to measure myself against? Who would hear the thin thread of my single voice?

I sit for a time, trying to calm myself and swallow that fear, watching a cloud pass above. It is a thin and weightless anchor.

Slowly, something opens up inside that is not fear exactly, but closer to awe. It is Edmund Burke’s sublime, that taut tightrope between panic and elation. It is Thoreau’s glimpse of “Matter, vast, terrific.” This far out everything else falls away leaving only the slow ache of distance. Beyond the islands, there is nothing for the eyes, or the mind, to linger on but sky and water and whatever you see in yourself.

I won’t say what I saw in myself those days against that vast mirror of sky and open water. Such visions are best shared only with ourselves, if we dare. But I will say that there are lessons to be learned by letting go of the familiar at times, going beyond the safe handholds of the islands — real and metaphorical — to where there is nothing between you and the world, between you and the all-too-often distant shorelines of yourself, if you are brave enough to look.

And there is a comfort, a sweet wave of relief, in finally pointing your bow back toward land, in watching the outlines of the islands you love opening like familiar faces as you get closer and closer to home.

— Jeff Rennicke (all photography by the author unless otherwise noted).