On June 30th-July 4th, 2002, we took 9 Ho-Chunk male youth on a backpacking trip to the Porcupine Mountains in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

We began our trip by driving to Camp Forest Springs in Westboro, Wisconsin on June 30th, Sunday. We arrived in the evening and had orientation and spent the night in a rustic cabin.

On Monday we had breakfast and soon departed for the Porcupine Mountains. About 5 hours later we arrived at the rangers station and registered our group and our plans for our hike. We loaded our gear into the back-packs and began a new experience that most of us had never done before that of carrying our belongings on our backs up and down the trails of the mountains.

The temperature was 95 degrees and the black flies and mosquitoes were thick. We had applied repellent many times and still were being attacked. This along with the newness of that weight on our backs made for slow going. We soon learned the value of teamwork and that the encouragement from our fellow hikers gave us new strength to climb the hills against all obstacles.

We made our way to the campsite late Monday evening. Soon the tents went up and water from the river was purified for drinking. Supper was the next order and boy did the youth ever eat that night. All the food was soon devoured and nothing extra was found.

Swimming in the ice-cold Carp River was an experience never to be forgotten, just ask some of the boys.

One new twist to this trip was having to put all of our food up on the Bear Pole. The bear pole is a steel pole about 25 feet high and all the food is put in a large cloth bag and strung up the pole with a rope. This puts the food out of reach from bears. As far as we know there were not any bears in our campsite that night.

On Tuesday morning, after breakfast, we loaded up our gear and began our hike towards Mirror Lake. We made slow progress as many of us fell in the mud, completely down on our back and had to be lifted up out of the wet stuff by our fellow backpackers .We made it to Mirror Lake later in the day and was welcomed by thunder lightening and heavy rain. We did swim in Mirror Lake until one of the hikers cut his foot and had to be taken out by rangers and four-wheelers. If you want to know who this young man was that got out of the rugged mountains on wheels while the rest of us walked, ask one of the youth.

Wednesday, we finished our climb out of the woods and mountains and arrived at the parking lot where the van was waiting for us. We headed for Lake Superior and took a swim in the frigid waters. Then we headed back to Camp Forest Springs for showers and a delicious steak-supper.

On Thursday morning, after breakfast, we headed back to Black River Falls. Thanks to John Mitchell who assisted me as a chaperone on this new adventure with the youth of the Ho-Chunk Nation.

The following youth participated in the hike:

Buddy Boyles Wesley, Matthew Carriga, Marcus Carriga, Kodiak Cleveland, Forest Decora, Skylar Funmaker, Simon Snowball, Floyd WhiteEagle, Alden YoungThunder. The chaperones were John Mithchell and Bob Ziebarth.