After introducing my wife to Canoe Country with a 5-day trip to the BWCA in 1997, we began planning a more ambitious trip back to Quetico for 1999. Though this would be my third trip, we still didn't feel comfortable without some extra warm bodies to help out in case someone got sick or injured. Knowing that taking such a trip would either cement or break a friendship, we proceeded cautiously.
During any gathering of our social circle (mostly friends at church) we pushed the conversation towards our previous trips and gauged the reactions, looking for those who seemed to express a genuine interest. By November of '98 we thought we had found two couples ("Doug & Debbie" and "Alan & Melanie") who showed more than a passing interest in our tales of previous trips, and who we felt would make a compatible crew. We sent them a letter explaining the trip and offering a formal invitation to join us. Both couples accepted. Debbie wanted to bring their 17-year old daughter and another girl (friend of daughter). After some serious discussions where I laid down some ground rules and received assurances from Debbie, I agreed. This gave us a crew of eight. Now my planning went into high gear.
I obtained an Agnes Lake entry permit for July 5th, 1999. The original plan was to go up the S-chain and come back down Agnes. What follows is based on the journal I kept during that trip.
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Picked up crew (3 couples and 2 daughters, age 17 and 18) and departed Murfreesboro, TN at 5:30am in 2 vehicles. On past trips I had taken the "eastern" route -- I-65 out of Nashville and north through Indiana. This time we took the "western" route of I-24 out of Nashville and up through Illinois. This route hit fewer large cities and avoided Chicago completely. Arrived at Motel-6 in Madison, WI that evening. The desk clerk was a dim bulb (we said that Tom Bodette must have turned his light out!) and the property was in serious need of renovation. Better yet -- razing. Ed's Travel Tip: Avoid this place.
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Grabbed a rolling breakfast from the drive-up at McD's at 6:00am and headed north. Had lunch in Duluth and did some shopping at Gander Mountain. As we were getting out of the car for lunch there were some wicked looking clouds moving in. I remarked to the others that if this were in Oklahoma (where I grew up) I would keep a serious watch on those clouds.
Stopped in Ely to introduce the others to Piragis and get some fresh eggs at Zup's. As we headed out the Fernberg road there were a couple of places where it looked as if some trees had been recently cleared from the road. Hmm. When we turned onto the Moose Lake road things quickly got worse and we began to wonder if we could even get to our outfitter. They had cleared the road enough to get in and out, but what a mess! An RV in the outfitter's campground had been cut in half by a falling tree. Many of the customers' cars were damaged to varying degrees by falling trees. A large pine had fallen on the lodge (which may have been a blessing in disguise; that roof has been sagging for years, maybe the insurance will help replace it.) Most other buildings had trees leaning against them. The steel flagpole was bent at about a 30-deg. angle. Several twisted canoes lay about. They said they had been hit by a tornado. I doubted that it was actually a tornado, but obviously had been a severe windstorm. Power (and thus, water) was out and most of the bunkhouses were under trees. No one was injured. We checked in, then went back to town for dinner while they tried to find a place to put us up for the night. When we returned, they had moved some staff into the outfitting shack and gave us a couple of rooms in the staff lodge. I spoke with one party that had gone out, gotten caught on Moose, spent an hour in the water before being rescued, and decided that was enough adventure for one trip.
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Peter (the outfitting manager) had set out some single-serve pastries and juices and was putting together an outdoor kitchen from his outfitting equipment to put on a decent pancake breakfast. We ate, drew our packs and canoes, finished packing and headed up Moose Lake. Amazing! Arriving at Prairie Portage, we ate lunch, got in line, paid fees and bought fishing licenses, then huddled under the shelter while a small thunderstorm passed. I'm already suspecting there might be problems with the food packs. They are AWFULLY heavy, and Doug had to drop one coming down the steps toward the beach. Add that to the fact that many portages are closed and the rest are worse than normal. Hmm.
We headed on out and stopped at the first campsite going into the narrows between Inlet Bay and the main body of Basswood. Doug's boat was trimmed way too light in front, making it even more difficult for him to fight the headwind the last stretch into the campsite. We set up camp and I made pizzas for supper. I knew what to expect in terms of exhaustion and dehydration and had been making sure I kept the Gatorade flowing, but still felt pretty rotten. I had warned the rest, but apparently Doug didn't believe me and didn't start pushing fluids until after he had tossed his cookies after supper. We all went to bed ready for a good night's sleep. The camp joke is already "this wasn't in the brochure!"
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Woke up at 5:00 to see the whitecaps ("horses", as Sig Olson likes to call them) racing into the channel from Basswood. We were pinned down and spent the day sitting around, napping, cursing the wind, and at the same time grateful that it kept the flies away. I made the decision to abort the original plan and just set up a base camp on Burke or Sunday as soon as we could get there. We were treated to a pair of Bald Eagles swooping right over the treetops above our camp. That evening I told everyone to go to bed as packed as they could get and be ready to move first thing in the morning.
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Up at 5:00, wind was back to normal, no "horses" in the channel. I gave everyone a piece of "moose bread" and we loaded up and shoved off. The wind was out of the west and was pretty mild for Basswood, but it was still a shock to the newbies when we rounded the corner and faced the full expanse of the lake. We paddled behind Green Island, then took a short break on the lee side of Sunday Island, visiting the campsite I used in '95. After landing on the beach in Bayley Bay, we broke out the stove and food packs and I made coffee and egg muffins before portaging to Burke.
On the portage to Burke I ran into an alumni of my Scout troop. He had just turned 18 on the '95 trip (which was his second), worked the next year as a Charlie Guide, and is doing it again this summer.
When we arrived at Burke the weather was perfect with temps in the upper-60's (guessing) and the sky perfectly blue with just a few puffy clouds for contrast. Debbie is moved to tears by the beauty of it and I paddled over to assure her it was OK, reminding her that I had gotten moist-eyed myself when I was describing this at the a crew meeting a couple of months ago. THIS was in the brochure!
We took our time on Burke, just soaking in the sheer beauty of it, then went across Singing Brook portage to Sunday. There were at least two groups camped there, one on each side of the brook. I didn't count noses, but would be willing to bet a Linies that they are over limit. We headed south and made camp on the island at the lower end of Sunday. The girls pitched their tent behind the east facing bluff, and the adults pitched two tents down in the woods. Lots of blueberries and lots of freshly downed wood, which it turned out, we needed.
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Cold and rainy morning. I added the fresh blueberries to the pancake batter and cooked all the Canadian bacon left over from the egg muffins. It was a real hit. It continued to rain all day, with a cool wind out of the east. We alternated between sitting under the tarps (by now I had rigged two, overlapping to give more usable dry space) drinking hot tea and catching naps in the tents. After supper I broke out some GooGoo clusters that I had squirreled away for just such a low-morale moment.
A little after midnight I woke up and heard distant thunder and a steady rain on the tent. I didn't want to take any chances, so got up and got the girls out of their tent on the point and put them in the adult tents down in the woods. The thunderstorm never got any closer, but I didn't want to take the risk.
This day wasn't in the brochure.
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Still cold and wet. Breakfast of oatmeal with chopped nuts, dried fruit, brown sugar and spices. Good and filling. By now we're getting real sensitive to the slightest change in wind or lighting. By mid-afternoon the rain had stopped and the wind had moved around to the north, so we all got out and explored the nearby coves, and fished. By the time we arrived back at camp, the clouds were breaking up and the wind was straight out of the northwest. This is a good thing. Everyone was dumbstruck by the beauty of the sunset. The girls wanted a campfire and roasted marshmallows (ah, the callowness of youth) and so the rest went to do that, leaving my wife and I to have the sunset to ourselves. This time, I'm the one moved to tears by the beauty of the place, not to mention relief that I didn't bring these people up here just to experience bad weather.
About 10:00pm the girls and women have gone to the tents to escape the mosquitoes. I grabbed Doug, Allen, and one of the canoes and took them for a slow, quiet paddle around the island. They agreed that this was "beyond the brochure."
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After breakfast we broke camp then began exploring the lake and fishing. As we worked our way back out of the cove leading to North Portage we noticed that the water was littered with "trash." I scooped up a piece to see what it was and discovered they were the husks of stonefly nymphs - thousands and thousands of them! Must have been a huge emergence. Wish I could have seen it. The fish were probably stuffed on stoneflys. They sure weren't hitting anything we were offering!
We fished up the cove just north of Singing Brook and had lunch on a rock ledge. Up the hill we found a nice "solo" campsite that hadn't been used in a while. Doug and Debbie caught a couple of nice smallmouths and we portaged back to Burke. Fishing our way back, the first island had nice tent and kitchen sites and lots of blueberries, but no good latrine site. We moved to the next island and set up camp there. Doug and Debbie went fishing and Dorothy (my wife) and Allen went back to the first island to gather blueberries. I stayed in camp, strung up a hammock and took a nap.
Doug and Debbie came back with a third smallmouth. Not enough for a full fish dinner, but some nice appetizers. I fixed curried rice for the main course. I love it, but it got a polite so-so review from the others. Jello cheesecake for dessert was popular.
After sunset, but still quite light, I took Dorothy for an evening paddle. We went to bed this final night content and happy.
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I'm was up at first light, making coffee and fresh blueberry pancakes. We struck camp, loaded the canoes, and had a Sunday morning devotional before shoving off. Everyone agreed that the beauty of the last two days was worth every penny of expense and every hardship suffered getting there.
On the portage back to Bayley Bay we saw lots of fresh moose tracks. Debbie saw a "brown mass" in the woods off the trail, but even after looking for several minutes couldn't be sure. However, it was not there on her next trip across.
Basswood was dead calm. I couldn't believe it! We took advantage and didn't stop paddling until we reached Prairie Portage. It was really jammed up and we had a hard time finding a "parking place" to unload. Finally got across and headed back to the outfitter. On Sucker Lake we stopped to watch an eagle perched on top of a broken pine. Later we passed two canoes headed north. They look like garbage scows, with piles of black garbage bags holding all their gear. Later we passed another group of 4 (two boats). One stern paddler was grossly overweight and they all have that pained, "what am I doing here" look on their faces, and they hadn't even gotten off Moose Lake! Still later we passed another group of northbound Scouts and I thought I hear a familiar voice singing a chanson. They were a bit across the lake from us so I yelled across at them and asked. Sure enough, it was my Scout alumnus, leading another crew!
As a final coup de grace, as we passed the last island, with the outfitter in sight, a DeHaviland Beaver circled and came in for a landing. It came right over the top of Doug and Debbie's boat and executed a perfect landing not 75 yards from the rest of us. Allen was especially excited over that as he is part owner of an executive charter service and has his pontoon rating. The plane pulled up to our outfitter's dock and Allen was anxious to get a chance to talk to the pilot.
My boat had been a "virgin" Minnesota-III. When we had put in, I had promised Peter I would do my best to return it in good shape. When he pulled it out of the water and looked it over, he said it was the cleanest he had ever seen a new boat come back.
After turning in gear and settling the bill, we headed to Ely and got rooms at the Super-8. It was more expensive than I expected for a Super-8, but no one was complaining. After hot showers and clean clothes, we hit "the strip" to do some serious shopping. We finished the evening at the Ely Steak House with a sirloin and walleye dinner, washed down with Linies Red and topped with a huge slab of blueberry pie. The perfect end to the perfect trip. Tonight we will sleep on clean sheets and tomorrow begin a two-day drive home via the north shore, with a visit to Split Rock lighthouse.
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If anyone tells you they aren't a picky eater, don't believe them.
I took WAY too much food. This is the first time I had planned for a trip this extensive, both in terms of time and crew size. I used my rule of thumb for backpacking, where "serves two" only serves one. I especially over packed on trail mix. I brought back more than a grocery sack full of un-opened packets. And even though I packed it in individual, single-person/single-day portions (about a cup and a half per zip-lock) what was opened still got "high-graded" and we ended up with several pounds of peanuts going to the "yummy bag." I've got to do some serious re-thinking about trail mix before the next trip. On the other hand, in light of the discussions about slipping extra weight into a friend's pack, I discovered the perfect "stealth" weight: an extra 15 pounds of trail mix! It will never even be identified as being purposely dead weight!
There's no substitute for quality gear. Before the trip I wrestled with myself over the money I spent on new tarps and woods tools, when much cheaper versions were available. Those doubts were dissolved by the days of wind and rain. In the clutch, there's so substitute for quality equipment.
Dorothy put her new L.L. Bean Canoe shoes to the test and was pleased. I picked up a pair of ThorLo "hiking" socks in Duluth to give them a try in place of my old G.I. issue wool. I'll stick with the wool. I've always been a "wet-foot" paddler. I had no regrets over that on this trip, but realized that I never had to step in water so deep that I couldn't have gone "dry foot" if I had planned for it. I may convert for the next trip.
This trip was the inauguration of the ash beavertail paddle Dorothy got me for Father's Day last year. I really like it.
I think a crew of eight is a little too large. Makes it more difficult to find an adequate campsite, and too many people who can't appreciate the silence and feel compelled to talk instead of listening to the loons and the white-throated sparrows. I'll try to limit future trips to 6 or less.
As mentioned, this was by far the most extensive wilderness trip I've ever executed, both in terms of time and crew size. I knew I had all the individual skills, but had never put them to such a complete test. It was very gratifying to see that I could, indeed, lead a group of people on a trip of this scale, provide good food and comfortable shelter, and respond appropriately to less than ideal conditions. I was disappointed that we couldn't get further into the interior. On Sunday Lake we could still hear motors on Basswood and there was a steady progression of Beavers flying along the border.
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