Sen: Hello and welcome to our podcast English Trips. I’m Sen, and I’ll give you expert guidance on how to make the most of these episodes as a language learning tool.

Today we’re taking a trip to the wilderness in the north of the USA!

Are you learning English at the moment? Then this podcast is perfect for you. In each episode, we’ll take a virtual trip to a different part of the English-speaking world, where you’ll hear a real story from a real person… in English, of course!

Each episode focuses on a specific part of the language, such as a grammar topic. But don’t worry, this isn’t a grammar podcast. The main thing is that our stories are fun and interesting, and they also get you more comfortable with understanding the language!

And did you know that you can read along while you listen using our dynamic transcript? You’ll find the link in our show notes. Here’s a tip just for you: the first time you listen to the episode, follow along with the transcript. This will help you understand more of the story, and identify any difficult words or expressions. Then, listen a second, or even third time without the transcript, and see how much more you understand!

In today’s episode, you’re going to hear a lot of adjectives. If you need a little reminder, adjectives are words that describe things, like big, small, relaxing and beautiful. See how many others you can hear during the story. Like I said, there are a lot.

So, let’s join Todd in the Boundary Waters, a wilderness area between Canada and the state of Minnesota. His story is full of adventure, wilderness and the power of Mother Nature. I hope you’re ready!

Todd: In the spring of 2003, my five college housemates and I were one month from graduation. This was our last chance to have a big adventure.

We decided to go camping in the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota, on the Canadian border.

The Boundary Waters is a huge wilderness area, almost twice the size of Luxembourg, and it has more than 1,000 lakes. You can’t drive a motorboat there – you can only use a canoe and your own two feet.

There are no houses, no cabins and no shops – only clean lakes, tall trees and lots of wilderness. Campers bring everything they need, and take out all the garbage and anything they don’t use.

We prepared for our long trip – we bought food, collected our things and planned our route. We loaded our canoes onto the tops of our cars, and drove north.

After four hours, we arrived and breathed in the cool, crisp air. We were ready to paddle. 

We paddled over calm waters and enjoyed the sunny skies and the peaceful sounds of nature. Then…

A big beaver slapped his tail on the water. 

A warning – we were too close to his cozy home. We reached the other side of the first small lake, and then it was time to portage.

To portage, you take all of your heavy things out of the canoe, carry them to the next lake, and then go back to get your empty canoe.

After five hours and three more long lakes, we finally arrived at our campsite. We only saw four other people the whole day!

The weather was still perfect, so we unpacked our gear and set up our tents.

Then we took our dirty clothes off, ran to the lake and jumped into the cold, crystal clear water. It was so cold, but so relaxing after all the hard work.

Then we climbed back on shore to relax in the warm sun. We almost fell asleep right there, when my friend John suddenly gasped.

“A moose!” he said. 

We all looked, and saw a beautiful female with two young ones. We all stopped. The 2-meter tall moose looked at us, and we looked at the moose.

Then the mother ran toward us – fast (an angry mother moose with her babies is verrry dangerous). So we jumped back into the water – even faster!

Moose can swim, but we were lucky. The mother stopped near the water. We escaped – for now.

We put our dry clothes on again and took a deep breath. But we had a new problem: the sky was now very dark, and on the horizon we saw a huge, whirling storm cloud.

It was a strong storm, and it was coming fast. We ran back to our tents and put everything inside for the night. We were all scared – we were far away from any building, civilization or help.

The heavy rain, wind, thunder and lightning were super loud inside the tents, but we were really tired, so we all fell asleep.

I woke up in the morning with wet feet and sore arms. The storm was gone, but my old tent was lying on its side, and lots of water was on the floor.

I crawled out and was relieved to see the blue sky. But I smelled something strange – and then, I heard a strange voice!

“Hey, is anybody there?!” I walked out to the shoreline and saw two park rangers in a canoe – and then I saw the fire! Just 10 meters from my tent, a huge tree was split in two.

It was hit by lightning in the night… and was still on fire. The park rangers said: “We saw that tree on fire and wanted to make sure everything is OK!”

Boy, were we lucky! The lightning just missed us and our tents. After two dangerous situations with a mother moose and a bolt of lightning, we enjoyed the rest of our wilderness adventure.

But now we had a new respect for the power of Mother Nature!

Sen: Moose, lightning and fires, oh my! This place sounds beautiful, but dangerous too! I don’t know what I would do if a moose ran at me, or if I was that close to a lightning strike. Luckily for Todd and his roommates, nothing really bad happened, and they were able to enjoy the rest of their trip.

Today’s episode is finished! Were you able to pick up some of the adjectives Todd used? If you feel like you want some more practice, check out the beginner courses in the Babbel app!

Finally, we’d love to hear what you think of the podcast. You can write us an email at podcasting@babbel.com, or simply leave a comment in your podcast app and we’ll see it. Thanks for listening, and see you next time for another exciting English trip!