Jan 2002
MCA Women’s Annual Halloween Cruise
by Shirley Kysilko
One of the MCA cruises I always enjoy is the annual Women’s Halloween Cruise on the St. Croix River. So, when the community orchestra I play with scheduled their fall concert for the same evening, I was in a real quandary. I was thinking of skipping the concert, since we have plenty of cellos, but I didn’t want to miss performing Dvorak’s 9th Symphony. I thought of paddling during the day, then getting back to play the concert, but we had an early call to be on stage, so not enough time to cruise. When some other friends in the orchestra said they also wanted to go on the cruise, we hatched the idea of paddling out after the concert to join the campers. Then at least we wouldn’t miss out on the whole cruise!
Saturday morning, while the cruisers were meeting at Jackie Kanthak’s house to set off for William O’Brien State Park, Debbie Nonemaker, Kristin Snow, Kristen Sammartano, and I loaded up my car with boats and gear and pumpkins, then parked it in my driveway. That afternoon, while Jackie Kanthak, Jackie Slivko, Mary Miley, Katie Bell, Carol Davidson, and Aylene Lively were enjoying a beautiful sunny day on the St. Croix River, the orchestra contingent, dressed in our formal concert black, headed over to the concert hall for warm-up then played our concert.
Immediately after the final bows, we loaded all our instruments into Kristen’s car, drove back to my house, dropped off our instruments, and changed into paddling clothes. Armed with a bag of snacks, we hopped into the car, drove over to Stillwater, and launched our boats at the Boomsite access at 11:00 pm. With a clear night, an almost-full moon, and an upriver wind, we took less than an hour to reach the island campsite the rest of the group had paddled down to from William O’Brien State Park earlier that day. Any doubt we had about being able to find them in the dark evaporated when we saw four glowing pumpkins on the beach next to a line of canoes and kayaks.
By the time we got to camp, everyone else had retired for the evening. But they left us a good bed of glowing coals and a nice stack of firewood, so we soon had a cheerful little blaze going and got our tent set up. As we were unwinding by the fire and cooking a late night snack, we began to notice an eerie green glow coming from upriver that alternated between subtle sheets of green pulsating across the horizon and bright spiky green lights. Not knowing who was in which tents or how they would respond to being awakened, we tapped on the tent poles and quietly announced the northern lights. Jackie S. answered promptly and joined us by the fire. (Mary told us the next morning that she had had a dream that someone was trying to break into her tent!) After a couple of hours, as the lights and our post-concert energy faded, we turned in for the night.
In the morning, there were still a few coals left, so we built a little fire to toast bagels and enjoy the warmth and the company. After everyone found tree perches for the pumpkin heads, we all headed downriver to the take-out at Boomsite. The upriver wind was raising whitecaps on the water, so we paddled behind some islands to get out of the wind. When the channel outlet turned out to be just a little too shallow to paddle, we used the "portage" as an excuse to swap around boats and do a little hiking in the mud. All too soon, we reached the landing and the end of another fun cruise. We definitely want to go again next year, but I plan to lobby the orchestra to have our concert on a different night. (On the other hand, we did get to have a wonderful moonlight cruise!)
