My Life as a Backcountry Glutton

By Hansi Johnson

You have your traditionalists who slowly and gracefully glide across the lakes in wooden canoes and wool toques.  Or your ultra-lightweight weenies riding slender Kevlar rockets wearing only waist packs and armed with the heart rates of hummingbirds.  You also have your Noobs slaving and sweating under massive packs of gear, carrying way too much as they are just learning the ropes….. and then you have the Backcountry gluttons.

These are the folks that traipse into the backcountry for one reason only, to eat and to eat like Medieval Royalty.  These people might carry camp stoves, but they also carry cast iron skillets. They might be touring a wee bit, but generally they basecamp in the best spot possible for finding their fare, and then they settle in….way, way in.

I would say that in general, most backcountry adventures tally a caloric deficit at the end. Meaning you burn more calories than you consume, mainly because you are working so hard to stay alive.  It’s a pretty simple formula that every wild being has to consider for survival in the wilderness. How much energy output can you warrant based on your energy input?

This formula is irrelevant to the Backcountry glutton.  No, this is about eating way, way more calories than you could ever burn.  Being a Backcountry glutton is NOT about instant meals or freeze-dried prepackaged dinners, this is about bacon grease and finger-licking.

Being a “BG” is about reaching out and plucking the fruits of the land and just Noshing the heck out of them.  This is about truly being the Apex predator……and a lot of burping.

Being a Backcountry glutton can occur in practically any season you can make it into the BWCA.  Fall, of course, is the best, due to the availability of all the food groups.  Those being things that swim and things that fly and things that run.

However, spring and winter have their own allure and for me and my buddies, that allure is lake trout.  There is just something about a nice fat, fresh wild lake trout pulled from the icy water and cooked in, or on a fire that just blows my mind.

While I am no culinary expert, you just don’t seem to need to be.  Just filet those bad boys toss ’em in a pan with some butter add a little salt and damn……….

However, varying them from breakfast to lunch can require a tiny bit of creativity.  At lunch, we slap some Yker Acres Porketta or thick-cut bacon on top of those slabs.

For dinner, it’s my buddy Eric’s lake trout pasta with lemon zest and capers.  Or it’s just back to slapping them in foil, adding onions, peppers, butter (of course), and seasoning.  This year my go-to was to add Wasabi Salt and hand-roasted Wasabi Sesame seeds I bought last winter in a street market in Tokyo.

It’s funny but my food pack has shrunk every time I go into the BWCA now.  It’s pretty much staples.  Some vegetables, some butter, a few energy bars, chocolate, and coffee.  I just add critters once I catch them.  So far I have to have a visit to the wilderness where I have not come up with something to toss in the pot.

The 2021 Winter Lake Trout opener found us in peak Backcountry glutton form. Matt Weik of Yker Acres, my buddy Dave Stenehjem and I base camped our Snowtrekker hot tents just off some prime BWCA Lake Trout structure.

Basically, we looked for an underwater wall with some flats on either side of it.  In the shallows, I cut a wide window of ice out and placed a pop-up shack over it, and sight fished for Lakers in the crystal clear water.  Literally watching the tasty critters come sailing in to ravage my copper spoon.

Once a fish was caught it was straight from the ice shack to the preheated cast iron skillet that had been sitting on the small wood stove of our tents, then the fish was cooked and consumed.  This whole cycle of life was repeated for three days in a zone that was never more than 50 feet from an ice hole to a hot stove, to bed.

Catch, cook, eat, sit in folding chair and bask in sun, repeat….burp!  Those individuals who were out there for the BWCA opener (and there were many) will most likely never forget the perfect weather, the lack of wind, the insanely bright moon, and of course the lip-smacking taste of lake trout!  Each night I retired to the warm, cozy hot tent for a nightcap.

Somebody told me once that you don’t need a hot tent for winter camping, and they are correct. However, I also don’t need to sit with my feet up by the nice hot wood stove, sipping a nice Scotch and reading The Drake Magazine until Midnight either…but it was sure nice too and it’s the only way a true Backcountry glutton rolls.

About the author: Hansi lives in Thomson, Minnesota with his wife Margaret and 12-year-old son Tae. “I am lucky enough to work for the Minnesota Land Trust and I am focused on our Engagement effort. The BWCA is a place we visit as many times as our lives allow both as a family and as individuals, year-round and we love it deeply both when we are there and when we are not.” Hansi Johnson

Categorised in: Blog, Fishing, Hunting