By the time I reached this campsite on Winchell Lake, the trip had become something very different from the one I had planned. I was on a four-night solo trip through the Boundary Waters when, near the end of my first day, I badly sprained my ankle. I managed to drag myself the rest of the way to this campsite, but as darkness settled over the lake, I still didn’t know exactly how I was going to get myself out.

Cold winds blew steadily from the east that night. I built a fire and stayed close to it, feeding it piece by piece as the wind moved through camp. There was something reassuring about that fire. It didn’t solve the problem waiting for me in the morning, but for a while, it gave me warmth, light, and something simple to concentrate on. This long exposure captured the wind carrying sparks from the fire into the darkness, stretching them into long trails of light. My own movement became almost ghostlike as I tended the flames. There was still uncertainty beyond the firelight. There was still a long way home. But for that night, on the shore of Winchell Lake, there was warmth in the wind.