I stifle my "whoop" of amazement and delight when I see the creature, standing about six feet tall at the shoulder, dipping her powerful head into Cherokee Creek. My first moose. With humped back, slender legs, huge snout, large flabby lips and prominent ears, she looks like a buffalo-camel-mule mix rising from the creek.

Unalarmed by our intrusion, she simply lifts her head and gazes at us as we paddle to a halt about fifty yards from where she stands, her hooves submerged in the muck by the water's edge. Aquatic plants drip from her dark brown, velvety muzzle, her dewlap swaying a bit as she slowly works her jaws, grinding the vegetation with her teeth, keeping her eyes on our canoe.

So unwilling to move a muscle, blink an eye, shift my sights from the creature before us, I don't immediately see the calf standing to her left, a bit behind her. Gangly and woolly, with long ears like those of a mule deer, the little moose nonchalantly munches its meal of twigs and greens amidst the birch and alders, marsh marigolds and bloodroot, while the mother keeps watch.

For fifteen minutes, my husband and I sit in the canoe, as erect and motionless as the stand of spruce near by. All our attention is on the moose, hands raised to shade our faces when the reflection of the sun on the water becomes so sharp it hurts our eyes. Finally, the mother's grazing and chewing stops. Turning, she drifts off into the trees, the calf close behind her.

Soon enough, I'll leave the Boundary Waters for home in Iowa with my two young children. Mosquito net headdress, Deet, and shrink-wrapped, dehydrated food will be packed in a box in the basement along with the rest of our camping gear. Then, the physicality of seven-hour paddling days and portaging over rocky, rooty foot trails with two twenty-five pound packs lashed to my back and chest will give way to tender, suspended nights of reading James Stevenson to my son, while I sit on his bed and wait for him to wander into sleep. Soon enough, days of near-complete silence—in a place where even the sky is off limits to any but emergency aircraft—where afternoon sun dapples amber on vertical cliffs and sandy beaches lead to cerulean, glacial lakes—will give way to calendars—color-coded to each child—and racing home from work to drive them to their after-school activities: dance and art classes, Scouts, piano and trombone lessons, soccer, band practice, drama workshops, gymnastics.

I stifle my "whoop" of amazement and delight when I see the creature, standing about six feet tall at the shoulder, dipping her powerful head into Cherokee Creek. My first moose. With humped back, slender legs, huge snout, large flabby lips and prominent ears, she looks like a buffalo-camel-mule mix rising from the creek.

Unalarmed by our intrusion, she simply lifts her head and gazes at us as we paddle to a halt about fifty yards from where she stands, her hooves submerged in the muck by the water's edge. Aquatic plants drip from her dark brown, velvety muzzle, her dewlap swaying a bit as she slowly works her jaws, grinding the vegetation with her teeth, keeping her eyes on our canoe.

So unwilling to move a muscle, blink an eye, shift my sights from the creature before us, I don't immediately see the calf standing to her left, a bit behind her. Gangly and woolly, with long ears like those of a mule deer, the little moose nonchalantly munches its meal of twigs and greens amidst the birch and alders, marsh marigolds and bloodroot, while the mother keeps watch.

For fifteen minutes, my husband and I sit in the canoe, as erect and motionless as the stand of spruce near by. All our attention is on the moose, hands raised to shade our faces when the reflection of the sun on the water becomes so sharp it hurts our eyes. Finally, the mother's grazing and chewing stops. Turning, she drifts off into the trees, the calf close behind her.

Soon enough, I'll leave the Boundary Waters for home in Iowa with my two young children. Mosquito net headdress, Deet, and shrink-wrapped, dehydrated food will be packed in a box in the basement along with the rest of our camping gear. Then, the physicality of seven-hour paddling days and portaging over rocky, rooty foot trails with two twenty-five pound packs lashed to my back and chest will give way to tender, suspended nights of reading James Stevenson to my son, while I sit on his bed and wait for him to wander into sleep. Soon enough, days of near-complete silence—in a place where even the sky is off limits to any but emergency aircraft—where afternoon sun dapples amber on vertical cliffs and sandy beaches lead to cerulean, glacial lakes—will give way to calendars—color-coded to each child—and racing home from work to drive them to their after-school activities: dance and art classes, Scouts, piano and trombone lessons, soccer, band practice, drama workshops, gymnastics.

But for now, I surrender to the pull of this place and its inhabitants: grand—like the moose—and small—iridescent dragonflies who eat mosquitoes and hatch right on nature's schedule, gobbling the blood-sucking insects in midair, making our camp and portage pest free; tiny butterflies, a butter and eggs yellow, who bloom on boulders we pass on these portages where they settle for the few minutes it takes to dry their new wings.

We travel through regions the Ojibwa Indians had traveled for centuries and sit on promontories that might be billions of years old, watching mergansers diving for their dinner and herons spearing fish that they swallow in an instant. Paddling across lakes with names like Kinogami, Lichen, Kawishiwi, and Smoke, we spot loons before they dive under the water near our canoe, elusive birds with brilliant black and white plumage, who resurface at dusk, the echo of their yodels bouncing off the dark, ancient rock of the island where we pitch our tent at day's end. Soon enough, my moose and the treasures that this place holds will pack themselves into memory, images to conjure when I most need those dreams in the night.