Rethink Your Stereotypes

            There were four of us.  Emily, Grace, Zoe, and I.  We were the select few chosen to go on this “once in a lifetime” experience.  I had never met them before we left, and I really didn't know what to expect.  I certainly wasn't expecting them.  We were all so different, I couldn't imagine spending the next two weeks with them.

            We met in Thunder Bay, Minnesota.  I was the last one to arrive, which kind of concerned me, I figured that everyone else would have done some bonding in the airport.  But, when I got there I saw three fourteen year old girls sitting in a row, with one seat in between each of them, not talking to each other.

            All of the sudden a small blond lady bounded over to me, a huge grin plastered on her face.  

            “Hi, my name’s Sarah!  You must be Amy, everyone else is already here.  I’m your trip leader!  I think we’re going to have a great time these next few weeks!  Do you have all of your stuff?” I managed to nod my head between her rapid questions, “That’s great!  So now that we’re all here and ready we can head off!”

            We spent the hour drive in complete silence, with the exception of Sarah who was asking more questions than any of us could hope to answer.

            Suddenly, Zoe said from the back, “I think I see the sign to the campgrounds,”  And that was the sentence that dissolved all the barriers between us.  Everyone erupted into chatter.

            The rest of that day and the entire next one were spent getting equipment together, adjusting the bags, packing and repacking our gear until everything was just right.  Everything had to be perfect before we set off.  During this time I learned a lot about the other girls.  

            There was Grace, with extremely dark brown, not quite black hair, who didn't seem that happy to be here, although she didn’t really seem that excited about anything.  She was shorter than me, but still taller than Sarah.  She had those glasses that made you seem smart, although I kind of got the understanding that she was the kind of person to wear them just because she liked how they looked.  

            Then there was Zoe, she was the one that kept us all laughing with her dry sense of humor.  She was one of those people that would make fun of themselves just to keep everyone else entertained.  She was the most prepared out of any of us, wearing her hair in two tight french braids.  

            There was Emily, who had already hurt herself two times within the thirty-six hours we were at the campsite, and both times were just because she tripped over her own feet.  She told us all about her fear of bones, which Zoe immediately pointed out as being ironic, seeing as how she’s the most likely to break one.  

           We seemed to get along really well during those two days, but I knew that sitting around a campfire was a very different situation compared to backpacking across an island in the middle of Lake Superior.

            The third day rolled around and we were all woken up at the crack of dawn by Sarah.  “Girls!  Breakfast!  Hurry up!  We can’t miss the ferry!”

            We had a quick breakfast, packed up our stuff, threw it in the van, and drove off.

            The ride over was quiet, almost like the first day again.  I think that the realization of what we were about to do finally sank in.  Thirty miles in only four travel days.  I mean sure, we would spend a day at a campsite in between every hiking day and just relax, but still, that was a lot of walking.

            When we finally arrived at the harbor after a twenty minute drive that felt well over an hour, we couldn't see anything.  The amount of fog was ridiculous.  We stepped out of the van and immediately couldn't find each other.

            A voice floated out of the fog ahead of me, “This way!”  It was Sarah, who had somehow managed to find her way around.  We grabbed our bags and blindly made our way after her.

            My bag felt like it weighed as much as me, but I tend to over-exaggerate, so in reality it was probably only fifty pounds.  I had my sleeping bag in a plastic bag that was tied to the bottom, my camera was clipped to the back for easy-access, and I was carrying a fourth of the tent and food.

            We got closer to the water and the fog started to thin out a little.  The outline of the ferry slowly came into view.  At first it looked like it was a really nice, new boat.  But then the fog cleared some more and all of our hearts sunk.

            The boat looked like it was at least thirty years old, the hull was rusted and from what I could see the navigational equipment was ancient.  It had it’s name, The Voyager II, painted on the its side in chipped black paint.  I wondered what happened to the first one.

            There were two crew members on board helping people get their gear on the boat.  Standing in front of us there was a troop of boy scouts waiting to get on the boat as well, they looked to be about our age.  They threw their bags up to the guys who packed them in the cargo hold.  We overheard the conversation their troop leader was having with one of the guys packing their stuff.

            “So how long are you guys going out for?” asked the crewman.

            “We’ll be out there for five days and four nights,” the troop leader replied.
            “Your bags are pretty heavy, that’s a lot of weight to be dragging around,”

            “Eh, they can handle it, it’s only about thirty-five pounds per bag,”

            With that Sarah started cracking up.  She was still giggling as we stepped onto the loading dock.  The guy stepped over to help us get our gear on board.

            “You ladies look like you need some help with that,” the guy said.

            Sarah started giggling even harder, “Actually, we’re handling it just fine,” she told him.

            “How much weight do you have in those, twenty pounds each?” he asked.

            At this point Sarah was laughing so hard she could barely respond, “Try more like fifty-five in each of the girls’, and about seventy in mine,”

            He looked a little flustered at this point and tried to regain some of his dignity by saying, “I take it you’re only camping out in the area surrounding the landing dock, there’s no way you could go very far with those bags,”

            Sarah was now in hysterics, “We’re taking the thirty mile loop.  And you might want to rethink some of your stereotypes,”  And with that she tossed her bag to the guy who staggered under its weight as he tried to catch it.  The rest of us silently passed our bags up to him as well, glaring at him the whole time.

            The inside of the boat was no nicer than the outside.  There were rows of benches that had no back to them, so you were forced to sit up the entire two hour ride.

            I was lucky that I didn't get motion-sick, but Grace on the other hand, was drugged with so much Dramamine that she pretty much passed out, taking up an entire bench, the second we sat down.

            It was a good thing she had taken something before we got on the boat, the captain said that the ride was normally pretty rough, but it was especially bad that day.  So we sat there, being thrown side-to-side, in complete silence because no one else on the boat was talking.  Even Sarah was quiet, but you could still see the victorious smirk on her face from her confrontation with the deckhand.

            As we rode we you could actually see the fog rising, it looked like it was being summoned back into the clouds.  Thankfully it was completely gone by the time we reached the first of the islands.

            We passed by island after island, each one covered completely by trees.  They were so green that it was almost like someone had painted them.  The four of us, Grace was still fast asleep, ran to the open deck on the front of the boat.  As we were heading out, Emily knocked into one of the benches and came extremely close to ending up in some guy’s lap.  She somehow managed to right herself before joining the rest of us at the bow.

            The boy scout troop was out there as well, all wearing matching uniforms, and staring ahead very seriously.  Their troop leader was trying to yell out various informative facts about the islands over the wind, but no one seemed to be paying him much attention.

            As we continued through the islands the sun began to come out a little more.  This led to the colors becoming even more vibrant.

            “Are you girls excited to start our adventure?” asked Sarah.

            “Yes!  I can’t wait to see the island up close,” replied Emily.

            “I’m sure it looks great from here, but the second we take one step inside that forest I’m positive we’re going to hate it,” said Zoe.

            “What could possibly be so bad about the forest?” I asked.

            “You’re probably thinking about the cute little bunnies and squirrels hopping around in there, but I’m thinking about the wolves!” she replied.

            The boys group had overheard us, and the troop leader had decided he was going to show off his knowledge of the area.  “Well boys, contrary to what these ladies think, the chances we’re going to see a wolf on this outing are very slim.  At the last count there were thought to only be eight wolves on the entire island.  If anything, we need to be more concerned about the nine hundred and seventy-five moose roaming around,”  He looked over at us with this proud look on his face, as if to say, “Ha, we know more than you!”

            I think we were all expecting Sarah to say something, but she just turned back to us and continued talking about the view.

            The boat finally arrived in the Windigo docks.  We woke Grace up, who was  grumpier than usual after being knocked out for two hours, and headed off the boat.  Sarah shot one last victorious look at the deckhand before we walked off.

            That night we camped out a quarter of a mile down the trail.  We saw the boys group pass by our campsite, and when they saw us already setting up our tents they started laughing while pointing at us and talking in hushed voices.

            Grace, who had been too drugged to remember what had happened with them on the boat turned to us and asked, “What’s their problem?”

            “Oh, they think that they’re ‘manly men’ and we’re just ‘silly little girls’,” replied Zoe.

            “I see,”

            Sarah decided to chime in, “Don’t worry about it ladies, boys will always think that they're more capable than girls.  Eventually you'll just learn to tune it out,”

            “I just wish we could find some way to show them up,” said Emily.
            “Their karma will catch up to them,” stated Zoe.

            We all dissolved in to laughter, “You don’t actually believe in karma, do you?” I asked.

            “I’m telling you!  It’s real!” protested Zoe.

            And with that we slowly forgot about the sexist group of guys that were somewhere ahead of us down the trail.  We were just focused on how perfect life was around our little campsite.  We had laughter and good food, and couldn't possibly ask for anything more.

            The next morning we set off down the trail again on our first real hiking day.  The trail was uneven and we ended up having to escort Emily down some of the rougher areas.  Even though we were walking slow, it gave us time to admire the wildflowers growing around the path.

            At the four mile mark we stopped to have lunch, but our break was short lived, because soon after we had finished eating Sarah was hauling us to our feet and we set back off down the trail for another three more miles.

            After we had traveled another two and a half miles we heard voices up ahead.  As we kept going we started to see figures farther down on the trail.  It was the boy scout troop, and from what we could hear it sounded as if they were arguing.

            When we got closer we could see and hear them more clearly.  They looked exhausted, sweat drenching the heavy fabric their official looking uniforms were made out of.  And it turns out they weren’t arguing, they were complaining about how tired they were.

            As we passed them on the trail our bags felt twenty pounds lighter, and we all stood up a little taller, just to show them that, yeah, we are girls, and we can do this.  They stared at us as we walked by, half of them in admiration, and the other half in disdain.

            When we were about a hundred feet past them Sarah turned around and yelled back at them, “You really might want to rethink your stereotypes!”  And we walked off without another look back.

            The rest of our trip passed without ever seeing them again, we assumed that at some point they must have turned around.  And there were times when we didn't feel like we could walk another step, but we just had to remind ourselves of the feeling we got when we passed the boys, and we all found that we had it in us to keep moving our feet.