Tucker Lake Chronicle: Thirteen Months in the North Woods

Fifty years ago, Joan Crosby and her husband, Dick, moved from the Minneapolis suburbs to spend a winter on the outskirts of the BWCAW in a primitive one-room cabin without road access or modern conveniences. She baked pies in a Dutch oven while Dick kept the woodpile topped up. They heard the wolves howl and the loons call, watched the seasons change, entertained occasional visitors—invited or not—and made periodic trips across two lakes and a connecting portage to their vehicle, then on into Grand Marias to do laundry and replenish supplies. They also blazed a trail through the woods to the road in anticipation of those difficult weeks when the lakes would be half-frozen, hence impassible. Dick added a room to the structure, doubling its size, but they dropped the idea of erecting walls around the privy. Why bother? The arrival of a new stove revolutionized their meals. Visits to new-found friends at nearby lodges and wildlife adventures stirred up by their malamute, Nooky, punctuate