By CHRIS PASCONE
Photos by MARK AND KATYA GORDON
Exploring the unknown can take you to faraway places and far-out adventures. But what if the unknown is actually right out your back door? Many people live within a stone’s throw of Lake Superior, yet how many truly experience the lake from beyond the nearest shoreline?
Katya and Mark Gordon live in downtown Two Harbors, just steps away from Lake Superior’s gargantuan “wilderness.” The Gordons have made a living the last 15 years leading adventure sailing trips on Lake Superior, taking hundreds of new crew members to Superior’s every anchorage and inlet. In fact, the Gordons spend up to 100 days a year under sail in both American and Canadian waters. Here’s what they’ve learned about sailing Lake Superior’s wilderness on water.
The Gordons base their Amicus Adventure Sailing trips each season at the North House Folk School dock in Grand Marais, Minnesota. They lead aspiring explorers on adventure sailing trips from May to October. And they have a piece of advice for shoulder-season trips: “Bring down-filled sleeping bags for kids in the cockpit — Lake Superior is arguably the coldest place in the country in May.”
Their trips have romantic names like “Isle Royale and the Sleeping Giant” and “Lonely Island Tour.” Mark describes the Lonely Island route: “We cross to Isle Royale, then hit Passage Island, sail into Canada to the Slate Islands, down to Michipicoten Island, and then back. We traverse the better part of the lake on the return. That’s all open water, over 400 miles in all,” Gordon recounts, as if it’s a regular occurrence.
See, for the Gordons, overnight tripping on Superior is the norm. They do as many as 20 crossings a season to one of America’s most remote national parks — Isle Royale, a place many only dream of seeing in person.
But it’s not all romantic. The Gordons can spend hours talking about seasickness, freezing cold and heavy weather on Superior. So, what drives the Gordons into the unknown, and how have they become so adept at handling Superior’s moods?
“I think of Lake Superior as a very dangerous wilderness,” says Katya. “I know we have wilderness forest up the hill from Highway 61 too, but that’s a lot gentler wilderness. Superior is just absolute and immediate.”
The Gordons both stress about the level of commitment that Superior demands. For Mark: “Superior is very unforgiving. I’ve done thousands of miles of wilderness travel over the years. I’ve been to Hudson Bay three times by canoe, I’ve climbed El Capitan. But the steepest learning curve of them all is sailing Lake Superior. It’s the one thing that has stopped me in my tracks.”
This level of humility is compounded by the fact that the Coast Guard is often not a solution on Superior; the distances are simply too vast. “If you’re climbing a big wall, usually you can say, ‘OK, I’m going to come down now,’” says Mark, “and there’s a way that you can do that safely.” But there’s no sure way to get rescued 15 miles from shore on Lake Superior.
“You can’t just pull the pin and bail,” Mark explains. “We’ve called the Coast Guard before, but the response is ‘hopefully there’s another boat around that can help you.’ The Coast Guard is 80 miles away. You’re really on your own.”
"SUPERIOR IS VERY UNFORGIVING. I’VE DONE THOUSANDS OF MILES OF WILDERNESS TRAVEL OVER THE YEARS. I’VE BEEN TO HUDSON BAY THREE TIMES BY CANOE, I’VE CLIMBED EL CAPITAN. BUT THE STEEPEST LEARNING CURVE OF THEM ALL IS SAILING LAKE SUPERIOR."
Lake Superior’s wildness demands rare skills for freshwater sailing. Skills like navigating 60 miles offshore in the fog, provisioning fuel and water for up to 40 days on the water because the nearest marina is a hundred miles away, or sailing through the night. You’ll also need to find “all-weather anchorages” to survive whatever the weather does.
“You need to know how to do plumbing and electrical work and fix a diesel engine,” says Mark. “All those things are going to fail at some point when you’re out there. And no one’s going to be there to fix it for you.”
And it’s not just skills and mechanics. There’s also the adaptation to daily living on water, with no easy access to land: “On the Lonely Island Tour, we see only one trail in 14 days,” Mark explains. “That one is about three-quarters of a mile long on Passage Island. All the other places we go are just wilderness. So to get off the boat, you hop in the kayaks or the dinghy and explore.”
This adaptation also requires accepting “lake time.” For Katya, “the Lake Superior time frame is totally different.” Last October, the Gordons sat at Windigo on Isle Royale for nine days straight waiting for the south wind to shift so they could sail their 40-foot steel sailboat, Amicus II, to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to visit their daughters at college in Houghton and Marquette. The lake never did cooperate, and the Gordons sailed home to Minnesota instead. Even that was a stretch, given the forecast, and they were grateful to have made it back.
But if sitting and waiting sounds like the opposite of exploring to you, you’d be wrong. For Mark: “You know, that’s part of exploring Superior. I’ve been to Windigo a zillion times, and I never experience it the same way. It’s a lot of fun exploring the island itself.” The Gordons are probably the first people to ever spend nine days trail running (something they both enjoy) on Isle Royale.
So Lake Superior requires a redefinition of “explore.” A new way of looking at risks and rewards. “A lot of people think sailing’s a great idea, but if you look at the number of sailors versus the number of skiers or canoers, it’s not much,” says Katya. “A lot of people get really scared once they get into it, with good reason.”
Superior forces you to find deeper dedication: “If you’re going to be serious about sailing on Lake Superior, it has to be your thing,” explains Mark. “You can’t go backpacking for three weeks every summer and become a really good sailor. It just takes time.”
And vigilance. “That’s why Mark is such a good sailor, because he’s vigilant,” says Katya. “I think most new sailors are not vigilant until they’re out on the water and the engine doesn’t turn on. Then they’re really freaked out.”
The Gordons not only keep a consistent logbook, where they record their course, wave and weather data, but also do an engine check every time they reach an anchorage for the night and check the bilge every hour. “When you check that every hour, you have a baseline. So if at 3:00 it’s dry, but at 4:00 there’s an inch of water in there, now you know ‘this came in in the last hour, not some time in the last 8 hours, or in the last two weeks, because I never looked,’” explains Mark.
Vigilance, dedication and commitment. Did we mention the weather? “You have not experienced cold until you’ve sat from midnight to 4 a.m. in May on the deck of a sailboat on Lake Superior in a strong wind,” Mark laments.
Is it worth it? Absolutely. Experiencing Superior’s wildness under sail is unique. For Mark, “At our business, Amicus Adventure Sailing, we don’t call ourselves a school. My passion is teaching how to live and cruise on a sailboat. It’s not so much about learning to sail but how to treat sailing as your vehicle to explore the world.”
Take it from the Gordons: the unknown is out there. And it could be in your backyard right now. Check out Amicus Adventure Sailing for the chance to explore Superior’s water wilderness, or Sea Change Expeditions to learn about the Gordons’ specialized educational trips for teens and young adults.