Post by fishguts on Jul 12, 2008 10:50:25 GMT -5
The Chronicles of Patrick & Thomas Brewer
June 16 – 28, 2008
in Quetico Provincial Park
This trip was long in the planning stage, and was on hold while I recovered from a heart attack in the spring of 2007. We started planning in earnest when the cardiologist gave us the O.K.
Originally this was to be a father son trip with a good friend of mine and his son, but that didn’t pan out and it became just my son Thomas
And I.
On June 16th we flew from Medford, Oregon to Seattle, changed planes, and continued on to Minneapolis. We rented a can and drove to Gardner, MN and stayed the night in the Super 8 Motel near Cabelas. June 17th. We had breakfast at a Denny’s Diner, all chrome and 50’s stuff, and headed over to Cabelas for the 8AM door opening. We shopped for an entire 2 hours getting: head nets, Fishing lures, pole, reel, line, insect repellant, T-shirts, sun glasses…..and more fishing gear.
Next we hit the road for the drive to Ely. Traffic wasn’t bad and we made good time. We stopped for lunch in Hinckley, and then continued on to Ely. We made it by 3 PM and shopped in the Ely stores and outfitters for 1 hour, arriving at Jordan’s Outfitters at 4PM. We unpacked our stuff from the car and from the box we had send in advance by U.P.S.
We met Mark Bland, the new manager-owner of Jordan’s Outfitting, a very helpful and nice guy.
Later on we met with Mark and went over the maps of our trip, checked out our 2 packs with all the gear and food. The office at Jordan’s has been re-modeled and is very professional looking. Mark added up our bill and Thomas paid it. The bill was less than we had thought, but the tow across Lac Lacroix was more than we expected due to gas prices. Thomas and I were getting ready to leave for town and we stopped by the office. Mark and the crew were having dinner in the kitchen (Walleye) and they gave us both a bite…..Yum! Good stuff! We went into town and picked up some tube baits at V.N. Outfitters and then went to dinner at Sir “G”’s (good Italian).
We spent the night in one of Jordan’s Bunk Rooms. It was pleasant with 2 of us in a 4-man room. We slept soundly and it got quite cool in the night so we enjoyed snuggling in the sleeping bags in the bunk beds.
June 18th. I woke up early at 5:30 AM and the sun was up. We had a leisurely pancake and sausages breakfast with coffee, syrup and orange juice. About 8 AM we loaded up the Jordan’s van with our 3 packs, 3 paddles, 3 poles, canoe seats, life vests and cameras and Mark drove us out the Echo Trail to Crane Lake. We had a 10 AM tow scheduled. We got to Scott’s Marina at 9:30 AM and our Zup’s driver was waiting for us. We had thought we were going on the Dawson Portage, but Zup’s put us on the Jet boat. We were by ourselves just Thomas and I that big jet boat.
Off we went to Sand Point Customs. We were met by a male Customs officer who checked out our ID’s and Passport and asked lots of questions, like “are you leaving anything in Canada?”, “Do you have any liqueur, firearms, pepper spray, tobacco, Etc.” He didn’t ask about felonies or DUIIs. While this was going on the female Customs officer was searching a boat of Americans and going through their grocery bags. We took off leaving both officers to continue with the grocery searching.
Zup’s driver took us down Little Vermillion Lake to the Loon River and the two mechanical portages by the Loon River rapids, Beatty Portage and into Lac Lacroix and the short ride to Zup’s Resort. We purchased our fishing licenses here and Mark Zup issued us our Quetico Permit and took our camping fees. This saved us a trip to the Lac Lacroix Ranger Station. There seem to be few people going into Quetico this year so they have the time to treat us like kings. I bought a red Zup’s T-shirt.
While we were in the resort, they had moved our gear from the Jet boat to one of Zup’s smaller boats, and we had a new driver. She took us across Lac Lacroix and up the Brewer River to the Brewer Rapids. Our driver was able to navigate slowly up the lower rapids to the first big Brewer Rapids and Portage. She did a great job in the high water conditions, and we gratefully gave her a tip. As soon as the boat pulled away we noticed that we were being eaten by a swarm of mosquitoes. We madly searched through the packs for some Bug Juice!
Then it was time for our first portage. It was a short one and we single portaged it. The driver had warned us to watch out for the currant at the top of the rapids, so we did and had no problems.
We paddled across Brewer Lake to the big rapids coming out of McAree Lake. There is a campsite right on the portage between Brewer and McAree Lakes and a party with 2 tents and lots of gear occupied it. There was no one in camp, so we hurried across to get out of there…..they had partially blocked the McAree end of the portage with one of their aluminum canoes. We then paddled across McAree Lake through a couple of narrows to Pond Lake. On McAree we saw some people, the last people we were to see for 6 straight days. There is usually a portage into Pond Lake but with the high water we just paddled through.
We were getting hungry so when we reached the portage into Little Gratton we had lunch first. Summer sausage, tortillas, mustard and lemon drink with water we got from the middle of McAree. The Gratton “Long Haul” portage or “Gratton Death March” is one of those Quetico Experiences…beware of portages with names. We decided to double portage this one in stages…carry one load about half way then go back for the second load. This is a 220-rod portage with all the best Quetico has to offer: mud, swamp, steep hills and rock gardens to thread your way through. We had a hard time guessing where the half waypoint was and ended up doing it in 3 stages. Oh! I forgot to mention the nest of downed trees totally blocking the portage about half way across. It was long and difficult but we made it across OK! At least it wasn’t hot!
Now we had to get into the lake. We loaded the canoe and tried to paddle through a boggy spot but couldn’t get through. So we backed up, unloaded the canoe and carried everything overland to another launch area to try again. This time we made it into the lake! Little Gratton! At last! We paddled over to the first island and checked out a campsite. It had big sloping granite down to the lake, pine trees..perfect! We set up camp, took a nap and rested up a bit. Later I was writing and Thomas went fishing around our island, he came back and said, “Grab your pole” he had found fish in the channel between the islands. We both caught some Largemouth Bass and Thomas caught a Northern too. We decided to have dinner early and go fishing afterwards.
Dinner was an 8oz. Steak each with garlic mashed potatoes and corn with a nice chocolate pudding for dessert. We were stuffed!
We did the dishes and took off to fish top water largemouth bass.
We caught about 25 largemouth bass. Thomas caught the largest one on a Hula Popper, I did well with a Skitter Pop. This top water fishing is great fun. Sometimes the fish don’t strike at the lure until it is almost up to the canoe. We got back to camp and had a fire and went to bed.
19th. I woke up refreshed! Fog was on the lake and the water was clear as glass. Thomas slept in; I woke him later for breakfast, 2 kinds of bacon, regular and Canadian, coffee, and pancakes. We are going to do the dishes, pack up and fish our way through Little Gratton, Wicksteed, and Darky to Ballard.
We had a great fishing day getting to Ballard Lake. We started out from our campsite on Little Gratton and fished over to the creek coming in from Gratton. We caught 20 or so Largemouth Bass and Thomas caught a big northern right at Gratton Creek. Then we made the 35-rod portage into Wicksteed Lake where we started to catch Smallmouth Bass. We caught a ton of Smallmouth and on everything, poppers, Countdown Rapalas, stick baits…big ones, medium ones and little ones. Thomas caught a 29-inch Northern Pike and I caught a smaller one on a popper! That’s quite exciting! We went into a bay of Wicksteed that was supposed to have Largemouth Bass, but all we caught were more Smallmouth Bass. We got hungry so we headed across the lower section of Wicksteed to find a lunch spot. We finally found a spot down near the portage into Darky Lake. We had cheese and rye crisp with mustard & Mayo with pineapple-orange drink & gorp. Just off our lunch spot were lots of Smallmouth nesting circles on the lake bottom. The fish lay their eggs in cleared off area and the male guards the area and will attack anything that comes into the area…. Including our lures.
After lunch we paddled over to the portage into Darky Lake, 45 rods and very muddy….Black sucking Moose Mud that might pull your shoes off. We rinsed off a little and continued down Darky past the campsite with the log couch and down to the 16-rod portage into Ballard Lake. This was a steep uphill portage with a waterfall besides the trail. Ballard is a dead-end lake with little traffic and big walleyes. The only campsite is seldom used and not fancy. We took a while to find a spot for the tent. It doesn’t look like anyone has camped here for 5 years or more, but we’ll make it work. The solitude is nice. We rested up, and had an inspection from the resident woodpecker and seagull. The gull has a rock off our site with a nest on it. We are thinking about an early dinner so we can have time to fish afterwards.
We had Curry-Chicken for dinner with an extra pouch of chicken from Fred Meyers at home. With the curry we had peas, lemon drink and lemon pie. We ate it all! We did dishes and hung the food pack and went fishing. We had heard that Ballard has big Walleyes around our island so we trolled around the island 3 times, using different lures at different depths…..nothing! So we broke out the Hula Popper and top water lures and had a blast catching Largemouth Bass along the south shore. We fished until dark with a beautiful sunset. We saw 2 seagulls attacking a Bald Eagle. The eagle roosted in a tree across from our camp and the seagulls continued to dive at him. The eagle would open his beak and lunge at them when they swooped by. We went to bed right after we got back to camp, there were too many bugs and we were too tired for a fire.
. 20th. We woke to clear skies and beautiful sun. We slept till 8 AM when I got up and had 2 cups of coffee and cooked pancakes and 2 kinds of bacon. Thomas got up at 9AM, we ate, packed up, and were on our way across Ballard and the 16-rod portage into Darky. We paddled back towards the north end of Darky and stopped to fish the shoreline for bass. I still had on my trusty Black, White & Red popper from Largemouth fishing and found Smallmouth love it too. I caught a nice one and so did Thomas. Next we trolled between the islands on the north end of Darky for Lake Trout. We had no luck and I lost a nice deep trout lure…Oh! Well! We continued across Darkey, past the Darky River exit to Minn Lake, and into the bay leading to William Creek and the backdoor into William Lake. We knew there were Walleyes in this bay so Thomas trolled a Shad rap while I paddled. Thomas caught a big Smallmouth Bass just as we neared the portage
Now we started the route into William Lake. There are 4 portages, the first and last are easy….the middle two are tough! With lots of up & down climbs, Moose Mud, and tippy rocks. In between the portages is a beautiful river with water lilies and wild rice. We saw 3 deer along this route. The last being a doe and fawn just as we reached William. It was interesting with the high water things had changed. The river and rapids were full, Cloverleaf lake was full and when we got to the last portage into William the beavers had built a new dam and we paddled right through. We saw a beaver here that slapped the water with his tail when he saw us.
Being on William we were eager to see if the old 5 Star Campsite was empty. We paddled down towards the island, no one seemed to be there….empty! Great! As we were setting up camp the clouds kept increasing and we started to hear thunder to the west, so we put up the tent and rain fly and got camp ready for a storm. And the storm came through thunder, rain but no lightning. The storm passed through and there were still a lot of dark thunderheads rolling by….we weren’t sure if it was finished. It wasn’t we had one more set of showers go through and then it cleared and we decided to have dinner. We had potatoes (mashed) and beef with gravy (mostly gravy) and peas with blue berry cobbler for dessert. We ate all of the dinner but saved the cobbler for later and went fishing.
We fished almost all the way to the east end of William and caught a lot of fish, Walleyes, Northerns and Smallmouth Bass. Thomas caught a keeper Walleye about 18 inches and a big Northern, and a huge Smallmouth, maybe 5 Lbs. It was very dark and fat.
When we were down near the end of William we looked back towards camp and saw a huge thunderhead coming so we started paddling back. It was a long paddle but we thought we would make it. We stopped at the island next to our camp to fillet our Walleyes. That took about 8 minutes. Then we went to paddle the short way back to our island, when it started to rain…then it started to pour….then it started to rain cats and dogs, with us madly paddling…we had left our rain gear back in camp. In that short downpour we got drenched! When we got back we started a nice fire and watched the rest of the storm pass by with us hunkered by the fire. Towards the last of the storm there was a huge rainbow. We finished the day sitting by the fire eating blueberry cobbler.
21st. I woke up to a little wind, sun and clouds..a nice day…cool in the morning. I had a couple of cups of coffee and then cooked breakfast, a strip of bacon each, Cache Lake Biscuits and Gravy, and Walleye Fillets. We had 2 fillets left for our lunch. We did the dishes and then Thomas went back to bed for an hour or so. We decided to spend the day here on William and fish the western end of the lake and around the islands.
We had a successful fishing trip and caught lots of fish…”a Bunch” first Smallmouth and some big 4 Lbs and 5 Lbs ones. I caught a big Bass that had bite marks on both sides….it must have taken one huge Northern to do that. Then we started to catch all kinds of fish, Bass, Northerns and Walleye….it was a lot of fun. We fished all the way around the lake to the portage to Brent Lake. Then we paddled back to camp for lunch. The wind had picked up and we fought a stiff breeze. We made lunch, some kind of saucy noodles and crackers with cheese snacks and lemon drink. We took a nap and lazed around camp waiting for the wind to let up but when we got up it was raining. It rained most of the afternoon and we gathered firewood and hung our second tarp and stayed by the fire. We cooked dinner “Turkey Tetrazini” by Natural High. The label said “ A truly unique dining experience” It was good! It had asparagus in it and there were no leftovers. We had “Spicy Apples” for dessert and did the dishes, warmed ourselves by the fire and went to bed.
22nd. It rained in the night and when we got up everything not covered was wet. We had pancakes and bacon for breakfast then packed up camp and headed east on William towards the 150-rod portage into Conmee Lake. On our way we decided to fish along the south shore of William because it was the only part of the lake we hadn’t fished. On the way across the lake we saw something floating on the lake. It was a float on a nylon cord, marking the mid-lake reef. We fished and jigged around the reef but had no success. We fished our way to the campsite on the south side of William, then it started raining and we put on our rain gear and continued to paddle down to the east end of the lake. When we got down to the portage into Conmee there was a rock garden of slippery boulders you had to cross to get from the lake to the portage it self. And guess who was waiting for us when we made it to flat ground?..A host of mosquitoes. We had heard that this portage wasn’t hard, just 150 rods, so we single portaged. The people with that information about this portage neglected to mention the Moose Swamps and wet brush. We made it OK but it was one long, wet, muddy portage.
We fished along on Conmee and caught a Bass and a Northern and that’s all. The wind started to come up and we headed for the 5 star campsite on Conmee. We stopped and had lunch. We considered staying the night but we broke out the maps….the wind wasn’t terrible so we decided to push on to Suzanette. We ducked behind islands and snuck around windy points and fished as much as we could. The last 2 miles down one of the long bays of Conmee we had the wind behind us and fished the whole way. The bite was off, we didn’t catch a thing. At the end of this bay is a 44-rod portage into Suzanette Lake that isn’t marked on the Fisher Maps. It was fairly brushy but not too bad for a “Way-out in the Boonies Quetico Portage”.
This brought us to beautiful Suzanette. At the end of the portage was a large rock cairn and we took pictures and picked up beaver wood for our evening fire. We also found a tiny turtle as big as a nickel; also a small frog and Thomas had caught a big Bullfrog on the portage, quite a trick while carrying the canoe. We were now looking for a nice campsite to stay 2 nights. First we stopped by a site that Tim on the web site had recommended. This site is on top of a cliff and has a message jar and a beautiful view. It was nice but a little too austere for our liking and kinda exposed…especially to wind and rain…so we continued the search. We found our campsite on the second island we came to. It is on a point, at lake level, with a nice rock fireplace and trees for hanging the rain fly. We settled in and set up camp. We aired out the tent and some clothes because it had been wet when we packed up on William. Thomas lay down for a while and later fished from shore and caught a few Smallmouth Bass. You can see their nesting areas all along the shorelines. A couple of rain showers came through in the afternoon and we hunkered under the tarp and had a small fire.
Later in the afternoon it cleared up and the sun came out and we decided to go troll for Lake Trout. We trolled back and forth on the other side of our island but had no luck. On the way back we switched gear and Thomas caught a nice walleye that we invited to dinner. We had Chicken Fajitas, corn, Walleye fillets and blue berry cobbler. It was a great dinner! We washed up and hit the tent. The late evening calling of the loons, echoing off the cliffs of Suzanette was eerie and melodious and will not be forgotten soon. Another wonderful day in Quetico!
23rd. On this morning I sat by the fire drinking my wife Elizabeth’s favorite ”Foffee” hot chocolate and coffee. The lake was still and like a mirror. I know I may have jinxed us but we have started to notice that we haven’t seen anyone since we left McAree. It’s like Quetico is empty….just us…deserted! Day after day lake after lake, not a soul, just us. The solitude is wonderful!
Yesterday on our fishing trip we visited another campsite. It is down across from the lower tip of our island. It is a big open site with pines and a nice fireplace but it is remarkable for the big Moose Skull and antlers that are there. We took our pictures holding the antlers we hope they come out! As I fixed breakfast there was not a cloud in the sky and not a breeze. We think we will stay here a second night. We took off after breakfast and fished down the arm of Suzanette that goes towards the Brent portages but we had little luck. So we paddled back to the Moose Skull Camp and went down the arm of Suzanette that goes to the Darky River and Burt Lake. We caught a few Smallmouth Bass and then came to the first rapids, here Thomas caught a giant Smallmouth in the 5 Lbs. range. Then a big Northern followed Thomas’ lure right up to the canoe but didn’t bite. I was fishing in the same spot with a Zulu and another big Northern jumped out of the water and snapped off my Zulu. This was really exciting fishing! Later the wind picked up and we paddled back to Moose Skull Camp and had lunch, Peanut butter and jelly on tortillas and rye crisp and lemon drink. Then we headed back to our camp to bathe and read and nap. Thomas has been going through the snack bag and says we have to increase our consumption of candy bars and gorp. He says we can’t take any home. Ah! The bath and shampoo was wonderful! It was a warm afternoon with warm breezes and we some laundry that we dried on the rain tarp line.
We had a dinner of chicken gravy and mashed potatoes..lots of mashed potatoes. There was also apple sauce that was weird….ground too fine, like apple flour paste or wallpaper paste. Ugh! And a dessert of strawberry cheesecake. After dinner we went fishing, we caught lots of little bas. Then we saw fish rising out in the middle of Suzanette. The wind had stopped and the lake was smooth as glass and there was a strange overcast sky. We trolled out in the middle of the lake with the only ripples being ours. Thomas hooked something, he reeled it in and right next to the canoe it jumped and thrashed and out came the barb less hooks… it was a nice Lake Trout. We fished some more but didn’t get another bite. We trolled around on the glassy lake and then went back to camp and had our strawberry cheesecake.
24th. I got up and had coffee by the campfire, Thomas got up and had hot chocolate and then went back to bed. I made breakfast and then we packed up and headed up the Darky River toward Burt and Paulene. As we were packing up a black cloud came rolling over our camp with thunder then rain. Thomas was back in the tent where he had taken both sleeping mattresses and both pillows and was taking it easy. The thunder roused him from his lethargy. We did get the tent packed before the rain hit and we stood under the rain fly and watched the storm roll through. When the rain stopped we loaded the canoe and headed out for the Darky River. We paddled down to the first rapids and tried fishing again. Thomas caught another big Smallmouth Bass and Northern and I caught a bunch of fish too and took pictures. Then we made the short 40-rod portage into the next section of the Darky River and paddled up to the next rapids. We had great luck fishing here too fish after fish, mostly Smallmouth but with a few Northern Pike thrown in for fun. I lost a couple of Zulus because my line was getting funky. So while I messed around with re tying, Thomas crossed the 24-rod portage and fished the pool above the rapids and caught a beautiful 21-inch Walleye…We would have a fish dinner tonight!
We then paddled up the Darky River to where it Ys with one are going into Burt Lake and the other going to the portage to Paulene. We found a nice campsite here and stopped for lunch. Peanut butter and jelly on tortillas & rye crisp. Thomas changed out my fishing line and put on some new tri-lean. He also adjusted my reel that had gotten sloppy with all the fish we had caught. After lunch we headed into Burt Lake fishing along the way and looking for the Indian Pictographs on the cliff entering Burt. We found the cliff; it had a big bird nest towards the top…an Eagle or vulture maybe. We looked all over and only found some red smudges that could have been pictographs. Maybe we were looking in the wrong area??? We gave up and paddled into Burt to check out a campsite. The wind was blowing and Burt is a huge lake. We didn’t find that campsite but we did get a good view of Burt and saw the area where Gamble Mater is located. We decided to go check out Paulene. So back we paddled to the Y in the Darky River and down to the portage to Paulene. This portage is marked 39 rods but seemed much longer and had some nasty rock gardens to negotiate and moose mud too. We were looking for a campsite and found one marginal one but the map had one marked at the other end of the lake so we went down there to check it out. We didn’t find a site so we decided to keep going. This meant we had to cross the 112-rod portage into McIntyre Lake. We single portaged this one and it was no problem, it was quite a nice portage, only a little moose mud at the very end of the portage. We were still on the hunt for a good campsite so we continued into the narrows of McIntyre. This is where we saw a canoe. This was the first person we had seen since leaving McAree. We had 6 full days in Quetico without seeing another human. Talk about solitude! It has been wonderful; the lakes have been all ours!
Since that site was taken we decided to head down toward Cedar Point Camp where we had stayed in 05. It was a long paddle with some wind to contend with but we finally rounded the last point and there it was, Cedar Point Camp, un-occupied. This is a beautiful campsite and has a message jar back in the woods behind camp. We set up camp and retrieved the message jar, it is good to see some of my acquaintances from the BWCA.com have made it here and left messages. We had a great dinner of Darky River Walleye with macaroni and cheese and peas with lemon pie for dessert. We did the dishes and hung the food pack and went to bed. We were pooped!
25th. I got up this morning to gray overcast. Last night we had “Whipper Wills” who sang their 4-note song over and over and over……. .. …..and then in the middle of the night they had their buddies come and join them in a late night Jamb-o-ree….. .over and Over and,,,you know! This is the only spot in the Canoe Country we have ever had these darn “Whipper Wills”…we have camped here 3 nights and had them every time. Anyway, after getting up I started a small fire and had coffee. Then I heard thunder rumbling to the west and I set up a rain-fly just in case it might rain. The thunder was getting closer… Then the rain started. I thought I was pretty clever sitting under the rain-fly with my little fire and coffee. Then the storm hit! Lightning, thunder, wind, it poured, it hailed ices the size of pennies. The wind caught the rain-fly and I had to hold on with both hands, the rain and hail came in sideways, pools formed on the ground. Thomas came out of the tent wearing his rain gear to report the water was coming in on one side of the tent. Wow! What a storm! Everything got wet or damp. The only dry spot was where my butt was under the tarp.. …I kept that spot dry but I was soaked.
30 minutes later the sun came out, another beautiful day in Quetico. I dried out a few things and made breakfast. We had peasant eggs and hash browns with leftover Walleye fillets. We did the dishes and went over to the little waterfall in the bay behind camp. We caught a bunch of Smallmouth Bass just below the falls and then returned to camp to pack and write a note for the message jar. We returned the jar to its cairn in the woods. Then we loaded up and paddled out to the left hand point of the bay and started trolling for trout. We both had Rapala Deep Tail Dancers on, mine was Purplesent and Thomas’ was Perch color. No sooner had we started trolling than Thomas had one on his line. It took quite a while for him to bring it in and we couldn’t find the net, it was in the bottom of the gear pack. Thomas did land this Lake Trout without a net. It was a beautiful 7-9 Lbs. fish and we decided that it was too big for just the 2 of us to eat, so Thomas let him go.
We continued to troll and Thomas hooked another smaller one that flipped off the barbless hooks right beside the canoe. We put up our poles and decided to continue our travels. We headed south on McIntyre towards the portages into Sarah Lake. The weather was sunny and had turned hot and humid after the morning storm. As we approached the end of McIntyre we discussed which portage to take and we decided to try the “Wall Portage” this time, we had taken the alternative portage last time through here. The “Wall” portage turned out to be not so bad as we were going down hill and we had seen steeper portages like the one into Little Gratton. We met a group of Scouts on this portage who were going up it and they were complaining and sweating. We continued down Sarah and were looking for a lunch campsite and found one about half way down the lake at a narrows. We had a pleasant lunch. It was warm and sunny then we heard thunder from the west. Here came a huge dark thunderstorm right over us. We got out the rain gear and tarps and covered our stuff as best we could. Thomas and I crawled under a tarp and waited out the squall. When it lessened we came out and looked around. Then to the west came more dark storm, this time with lightning striking the ground. Thomas tied a little tarp between 2 trees and we hunkered down under it. The rain poured down, it blotted out the view of the lake it was so hard. We got soaked; there was no way to stay dry. I had water running down the inside of my rain jacket. Then the lightning strikes got close with one just to the west of us and then to the east…..Booom!!…! 15 minutes later the sun came out and we were back in the canoe headed south.
We didn’t know how far we could get this day, especially with all the rain delays. In front of us was a particularly difficult set of portages first into Side Lake through a grassy river with lots of loading and un-loading. Then came “Heart Attack Hill” which not only had a steep hill but also was brushy and had some “Moose Mud” too. This portage was particularly poignant because of my heart attack in 2007 and was on my mind. Then came the two small portages in and out of the ponds before Isabella. These two were bad with mud and brush and downed trees. We finally made it to Isabella Lake! We found the nice campsite at the narrows empty and grabbed it. We had a beaver swim across the lake in front of us and slap his tail 3 or 4 times. Later he swam right by us and we took pictures of him. We set up camp and made dinner and hit the sack. We had a long and eventful day.
26th. I got up to clear skies with dew from overnight. I made a little campfire and coffee and wrote of yesterday’s adventures. We thought this campsite would have lots of traffic but the only traffic has been the beaver and a loon so far. We fixed breakfast and packed up ready to head for Bayley Bay of Basswood Lake for our last campsite of the trip. Little puffy clouds are building to the west. We saw a couple of parties of 2 &4 paddle by, as we were packing. We headed down to the east end of Isabella and made the portage into the river flowing into Basswood. Somehow this portage has gotten messed up and we took the wrong fork and went steeply up and then down through a bunch of brush and muck and then back to the old portage and river. With the high water we were able to paddle all the way to Basswood through rapids and 1 beaver dam pull through.
We entered The North Bay of Basswood Lake and turned right to paddle down that shore till we were directly across and closest to Bear Island and the portage into Burke Lake. Then we paddled across this big reach of lake without getting turned around like we did in 2005. When we got towards the backside of Bear Island we ran into a party fishing. They asked where we came in from and we answered; McAree, they said isn’t that a long way? And we said “Sorta”…then we asked where the portage to Burke was and they pointed it out. Now we were going up-stream against the currant with a couple of smallish but rocky portages in and out of a small stream with one rapid we waded through. Burke is where we got bind bound back in 93, but this day was hot and sunny with a slight breeze for the long paddle across Burke. This brought us to the famous “Yellow Brick Road” portage over to Bayley Bay of Basswood Lake. Thomas had talked of switching and having me carry the canoe on this portage. So I carried the canoe and Thomas took pictures. 84 rods and sandy with hardly any stones and no mud.
I think this is the easiest portage in Quetico. We decided to hold off lunch till we found a campsite. It was hot and humid at the end of the “Yellow Brick Road” so Thomas went swimming on the sandy beach. We then loaded the canoe and headed down Bayley Bay looking for our last campsite. We passed a couple of occupied sites, and finally found one before Inlet Bay. We set up camp and had a late lunch of Chili (cooked on the stove) with crackers. Then we both took a nap in the tent even though it was hot and humid, it felt good to lie down. After 6PM it started cooling down and the loons started to sing. Also we can hear the distant motorboats on the US side of the lake. We heard a radio playing for a while..Country western music…civilization draws near. It is Japanese night and we had beef teriyaki and a pouch of tuna from Fred Meyers from home. The tuna was good but the teriyaki dinner was foul, neither one of us could finish our portion. We had a berry cobbler that was good, then off to the tent for a little reading and sleep.
27th. I awoke in the night to a snorting noise. Thomas said it was a deer and that it came back later in the night and snorted and stomped its hooves. I had a dream of a bear ripping open the tent because ZI had the last Snickers Bar by my head…Ug! So we woke up and I had a small fire and coffee and then fixed the last pancakes and a western omelet. We did the dishes and made sure we had all our stuff in our pack and all Jordan’s stuff in their packs. It had been overcast all morning. We loaded up and headed for Prairie Portage. It started sprinkling half way across Inlet Bay and we put on our rain gear. We made it to Prairie Portage and took pictures of the Quetico sign and went to the Quetico Store and bought shirts and hats. Then we crossed the portage to the Sucker Lake side. We were 2 hours early so we sat in the rain..under a birch tree with thunder, lightning and rain off and on. There seemed to be far fewer people coming through this year compared to 2005. We amused ourselves looking at the dam and the high water in the falls and creek. Then there were a few groups that came in, boy scouts and a father & son group from Ohio who had been up Agnes way. I talked to them about good places to eat in Ely, and told them about the Ely Steak House. Then our tow from LaTourrell’s showed up, he got slowed down from the lightning and rain. We enjoyed the tow down the Moose chain and passed some people who left us at Prairie Portage earlier. Jordan’s van was waiting for us at LaTourrell’s and we piled in and whisked back to the outfitters base. We check out with Mark and headed into town and checked in at our motel the “Adventure Inn” Nice!! After showering and spiffing up we headed to the Ely Steak House for a great dinner. We saw our friends from Ohio who we had talked to earlier and the Journeyman from the BWCA.com showed up and we arraigned to meet later to go over our maps. Later Journeyman did show up and we had a great time passing on information on the lakes we just came out from.
All in all this was probably the best canoe trip I can remember, we had a great time! Experienced solitude for 6 days! Caught a ton of fish! Saw a lot of new territory! Had all kinds of weather. We couldn’t asked for anything more.
28th. We left town early and drove back to Minneapolis in our rental car. We made the drive fine and our flights back to the west coast were on time. We made it back to home by 11 PM Minnesota time.
June 16 – 28, 2008
in Quetico Provincial Park
This trip was long in the planning stage, and was on hold while I recovered from a heart attack in the spring of 2007. We started planning in earnest when the cardiologist gave us the O.K.
Originally this was to be a father son trip with a good friend of mine and his son, but that didn’t pan out and it became just my son Thomas
And I.
On June 16th we flew from Medford, Oregon to Seattle, changed planes, and continued on to Minneapolis. We rented a can and drove to Gardner, MN and stayed the night in the Super 8 Motel near Cabelas. June 17th. We had breakfast at a Denny’s Diner, all chrome and 50’s stuff, and headed over to Cabelas for the 8AM door opening. We shopped for an entire 2 hours getting: head nets, Fishing lures, pole, reel, line, insect repellant, T-shirts, sun glasses…..and more fishing gear.
Next we hit the road for the drive to Ely. Traffic wasn’t bad and we made good time. We stopped for lunch in Hinckley, and then continued on to Ely. We made it by 3 PM and shopped in the Ely stores and outfitters for 1 hour, arriving at Jordan’s Outfitters at 4PM. We unpacked our stuff from the car and from the box we had send in advance by U.P.S.
We met Mark Bland, the new manager-owner of Jordan’s Outfitting, a very helpful and nice guy.
Later on we met with Mark and went over the maps of our trip, checked out our 2 packs with all the gear and food. The office at Jordan’s has been re-modeled and is very professional looking. Mark added up our bill and Thomas paid it. The bill was less than we had thought, but the tow across Lac Lacroix was more than we expected due to gas prices. Thomas and I were getting ready to leave for town and we stopped by the office. Mark and the crew were having dinner in the kitchen (Walleye) and they gave us both a bite…..Yum! Good stuff! We went into town and picked up some tube baits at V.N. Outfitters and then went to dinner at Sir “G”’s (good Italian).
We spent the night in one of Jordan’s Bunk Rooms. It was pleasant with 2 of us in a 4-man room. We slept soundly and it got quite cool in the night so we enjoyed snuggling in the sleeping bags in the bunk beds.
June 18th. I woke up early at 5:30 AM and the sun was up. We had a leisurely pancake and sausages breakfast with coffee, syrup and orange juice. About 8 AM we loaded up the Jordan’s van with our 3 packs, 3 paddles, 3 poles, canoe seats, life vests and cameras and Mark drove us out the Echo Trail to Crane Lake. We had a 10 AM tow scheduled. We got to Scott’s Marina at 9:30 AM and our Zup’s driver was waiting for us. We had thought we were going on the Dawson Portage, but Zup’s put us on the Jet boat. We were by ourselves just Thomas and I that big jet boat.
Off we went to Sand Point Customs. We were met by a male Customs officer who checked out our ID’s and Passport and asked lots of questions, like “are you leaving anything in Canada?”, “Do you have any liqueur, firearms, pepper spray, tobacco, Etc.” He didn’t ask about felonies or DUIIs. While this was going on the female Customs officer was searching a boat of Americans and going through their grocery bags. We took off leaving both officers to continue with the grocery searching.
Zup’s driver took us down Little Vermillion Lake to the Loon River and the two mechanical portages by the Loon River rapids, Beatty Portage and into Lac Lacroix and the short ride to Zup’s Resort. We purchased our fishing licenses here and Mark Zup issued us our Quetico Permit and took our camping fees. This saved us a trip to the Lac Lacroix Ranger Station. There seem to be few people going into Quetico this year so they have the time to treat us like kings. I bought a red Zup’s T-shirt.
While we were in the resort, they had moved our gear from the Jet boat to one of Zup’s smaller boats, and we had a new driver. She took us across Lac Lacroix and up the Brewer River to the Brewer Rapids. Our driver was able to navigate slowly up the lower rapids to the first big Brewer Rapids and Portage. She did a great job in the high water conditions, and we gratefully gave her a tip. As soon as the boat pulled away we noticed that we were being eaten by a swarm of mosquitoes. We madly searched through the packs for some Bug Juice!
Then it was time for our first portage. It was a short one and we single portaged it. The driver had warned us to watch out for the currant at the top of the rapids, so we did and had no problems.
We paddled across Brewer Lake to the big rapids coming out of McAree Lake. There is a campsite right on the portage between Brewer and McAree Lakes and a party with 2 tents and lots of gear occupied it. There was no one in camp, so we hurried across to get out of there…..they had partially blocked the McAree end of the portage with one of their aluminum canoes. We then paddled across McAree Lake through a couple of narrows to Pond Lake. On McAree we saw some people, the last people we were to see for 6 straight days. There is usually a portage into Pond Lake but with the high water we just paddled through.
We were getting hungry so when we reached the portage into Little Gratton we had lunch first. Summer sausage, tortillas, mustard and lemon drink with water we got from the middle of McAree. The Gratton “Long Haul” portage or “Gratton Death March” is one of those Quetico Experiences…beware of portages with names. We decided to double portage this one in stages…carry one load about half way then go back for the second load. This is a 220-rod portage with all the best Quetico has to offer: mud, swamp, steep hills and rock gardens to thread your way through. We had a hard time guessing where the half waypoint was and ended up doing it in 3 stages. Oh! I forgot to mention the nest of downed trees totally blocking the portage about half way across. It was long and difficult but we made it across OK! At least it wasn’t hot!
Now we had to get into the lake. We loaded the canoe and tried to paddle through a boggy spot but couldn’t get through. So we backed up, unloaded the canoe and carried everything overland to another launch area to try again. This time we made it into the lake! Little Gratton! At last! We paddled over to the first island and checked out a campsite. It had big sloping granite down to the lake, pine trees..perfect! We set up camp, took a nap and rested up a bit. Later I was writing and Thomas went fishing around our island, he came back and said, “Grab your pole” he had found fish in the channel between the islands. We both caught some Largemouth Bass and Thomas caught a Northern too. We decided to have dinner early and go fishing afterwards.
Dinner was an 8oz. Steak each with garlic mashed potatoes and corn with a nice chocolate pudding for dessert. We were stuffed!
We did the dishes and took off to fish top water largemouth bass.
We caught about 25 largemouth bass. Thomas caught the largest one on a Hula Popper, I did well with a Skitter Pop. This top water fishing is great fun. Sometimes the fish don’t strike at the lure until it is almost up to the canoe. We got back to camp and had a fire and went to bed.
19th. I woke up refreshed! Fog was on the lake and the water was clear as glass. Thomas slept in; I woke him later for breakfast, 2 kinds of bacon, regular and Canadian, coffee, and pancakes. We are going to do the dishes, pack up and fish our way through Little Gratton, Wicksteed, and Darky to Ballard.
We had a great fishing day getting to Ballard Lake. We started out from our campsite on Little Gratton and fished over to the creek coming in from Gratton. We caught 20 or so Largemouth Bass and Thomas caught a big northern right at Gratton Creek. Then we made the 35-rod portage into Wicksteed Lake where we started to catch Smallmouth Bass. We caught a ton of Smallmouth and on everything, poppers, Countdown Rapalas, stick baits…big ones, medium ones and little ones. Thomas caught a 29-inch Northern Pike and I caught a smaller one on a popper! That’s quite exciting! We went into a bay of Wicksteed that was supposed to have Largemouth Bass, but all we caught were more Smallmouth Bass. We got hungry so we headed across the lower section of Wicksteed to find a lunch spot. We finally found a spot down near the portage into Darky Lake. We had cheese and rye crisp with mustard & Mayo with pineapple-orange drink & gorp. Just off our lunch spot were lots of Smallmouth nesting circles on the lake bottom. The fish lay their eggs in cleared off area and the male guards the area and will attack anything that comes into the area…. Including our lures.
After lunch we paddled over to the portage into Darky Lake, 45 rods and very muddy….Black sucking Moose Mud that might pull your shoes off. We rinsed off a little and continued down Darky past the campsite with the log couch and down to the 16-rod portage into Ballard Lake. This was a steep uphill portage with a waterfall besides the trail. Ballard is a dead-end lake with little traffic and big walleyes. The only campsite is seldom used and not fancy. We took a while to find a spot for the tent. It doesn’t look like anyone has camped here for 5 years or more, but we’ll make it work. The solitude is nice. We rested up, and had an inspection from the resident woodpecker and seagull. The gull has a rock off our site with a nest on it. We are thinking about an early dinner so we can have time to fish afterwards.
We had Curry-Chicken for dinner with an extra pouch of chicken from Fred Meyers at home. With the curry we had peas, lemon drink and lemon pie. We ate it all! We did dishes and hung the food pack and went fishing. We had heard that Ballard has big Walleyes around our island so we trolled around the island 3 times, using different lures at different depths…..nothing! So we broke out the Hula Popper and top water lures and had a blast catching Largemouth Bass along the south shore. We fished until dark with a beautiful sunset. We saw 2 seagulls attacking a Bald Eagle. The eagle roosted in a tree across from our camp and the seagulls continued to dive at him. The eagle would open his beak and lunge at them when they swooped by. We went to bed right after we got back to camp, there were too many bugs and we were too tired for a fire.
. 20th. We woke to clear skies and beautiful sun. We slept till 8 AM when I got up and had 2 cups of coffee and cooked pancakes and 2 kinds of bacon. Thomas got up at 9AM, we ate, packed up, and were on our way across Ballard and the 16-rod portage into Darky. We paddled back towards the north end of Darky and stopped to fish the shoreline for bass. I still had on my trusty Black, White & Red popper from Largemouth fishing and found Smallmouth love it too. I caught a nice one and so did Thomas. Next we trolled between the islands on the north end of Darky for Lake Trout. We had no luck and I lost a nice deep trout lure…Oh! Well! We continued across Darkey, past the Darky River exit to Minn Lake, and into the bay leading to William Creek and the backdoor into William Lake. We knew there were Walleyes in this bay so Thomas trolled a Shad rap while I paddled. Thomas caught a big Smallmouth Bass just as we neared the portage
Now we started the route into William Lake. There are 4 portages, the first and last are easy….the middle two are tough! With lots of up & down climbs, Moose Mud, and tippy rocks. In between the portages is a beautiful river with water lilies and wild rice. We saw 3 deer along this route. The last being a doe and fawn just as we reached William. It was interesting with the high water things had changed. The river and rapids were full, Cloverleaf lake was full and when we got to the last portage into William the beavers had built a new dam and we paddled right through. We saw a beaver here that slapped the water with his tail when he saw us.
Being on William we were eager to see if the old 5 Star Campsite was empty. We paddled down towards the island, no one seemed to be there….empty! Great! As we were setting up camp the clouds kept increasing and we started to hear thunder to the west, so we put up the tent and rain fly and got camp ready for a storm. And the storm came through thunder, rain but no lightning. The storm passed through and there were still a lot of dark thunderheads rolling by….we weren’t sure if it was finished. It wasn’t we had one more set of showers go through and then it cleared and we decided to have dinner. We had potatoes (mashed) and beef with gravy (mostly gravy) and peas with blue berry cobbler for dessert. We ate all of the dinner but saved the cobbler for later and went fishing.
We fished almost all the way to the east end of William and caught a lot of fish, Walleyes, Northerns and Smallmouth Bass. Thomas caught a keeper Walleye about 18 inches and a big Northern, and a huge Smallmouth, maybe 5 Lbs. It was very dark and fat.
When we were down near the end of William we looked back towards camp and saw a huge thunderhead coming so we started paddling back. It was a long paddle but we thought we would make it. We stopped at the island next to our camp to fillet our Walleyes. That took about 8 minutes. Then we went to paddle the short way back to our island, when it started to rain…then it started to pour….then it started to rain cats and dogs, with us madly paddling…we had left our rain gear back in camp. In that short downpour we got drenched! When we got back we started a nice fire and watched the rest of the storm pass by with us hunkered by the fire. Towards the last of the storm there was a huge rainbow. We finished the day sitting by the fire eating blueberry cobbler.
21st. I woke up to a little wind, sun and clouds..a nice day…cool in the morning. I had a couple of cups of coffee and then cooked breakfast, a strip of bacon each, Cache Lake Biscuits and Gravy, and Walleye Fillets. We had 2 fillets left for our lunch. We did the dishes and then Thomas went back to bed for an hour or so. We decided to spend the day here on William and fish the western end of the lake and around the islands.
We had a successful fishing trip and caught lots of fish…”a Bunch” first Smallmouth and some big 4 Lbs and 5 Lbs ones. I caught a big Bass that had bite marks on both sides….it must have taken one huge Northern to do that. Then we started to catch all kinds of fish, Bass, Northerns and Walleye….it was a lot of fun. We fished all the way around the lake to the portage to Brent Lake. Then we paddled back to camp for lunch. The wind had picked up and we fought a stiff breeze. We made lunch, some kind of saucy noodles and crackers with cheese snacks and lemon drink. We took a nap and lazed around camp waiting for the wind to let up but when we got up it was raining. It rained most of the afternoon and we gathered firewood and hung our second tarp and stayed by the fire. We cooked dinner “Turkey Tetrazini” by Natural High. The label said “ A truly unique dining experience” It was good! It had asparagus in it and there were no leftovers. We had “Spicy Apples” for dessert and did the dishes, warmed ourselves by the fire and went to bed.
22nd. It rained in the night and when we got up everything not covered was wet. We had pancakes and bacon for breakfast then packed up camp and headed east on William towards the 150-rod portage into Conmee Lake. On our way we decided to fish along the south shore of William because it was the only part of the lake we hadn’t fished. On the way across the lake we saw something floating on the lake. It was a float on a nylon cord, marking the mid-lake reef. We fished and jigged around the reef but had no success. We fished our way to the campsite on the south side of William, then it started raining and we put on our rain gear and continued to paddle down to the east end of the lake. When we got down to the portage into Conmee there was a rock garden of slippery boulders you had to cross to get from the lake to the portage it self. And guess who was waiting for us when we made it to flat ground?..A host of mosquitoes. We had heard that this portage wasn’t hard, just 150 rods, so we single portaged. The people with that information about this portage neglected to mention the Moose Swamps and wet brush. We made it OK but it was one long, wet, muddy portage.
We fished along on Conmee and caught a Bass and a Northern and that’s all. The wind started to come up and we headed for the 5 star campsite on Conmee. We stopped and had lunch. We considered staying the night but we broke out the maps….the wind wasn’t terrible so we decided to push on to Suzanette. We ducked behind islands and snuck around windy points and fished as much as we could. The last 2 miles down one of the long bays of Conmee we had the wind behind us and fished the whole way. The bite was off, we didn’t catch a thing. At the end of this bay is a 44-rod portage into Suzanette Lake that isn’t marked on the Fisher Maps. It was fairly brushy but not too bad for a “Way-out in the Boonies Quetico Portage”.
This brought us to beautiful Suzanette. At the end of the portage was a large rock cairn and we took pictures and picked up beaver wood for our evening fire. We also found a tiny turtle as big as a nickel; also a small frog and Thomas had caught a big Bullfrog on the portage, quite a trick while carrying the canoe. We were now looking for a nice campsite to stay 2 nights. First we stopped by a site that Tim on the web site had recommended. This site is on top of a cliff and has a message jar and a beautiful view. It was nice but a little too austere for our liking and kinda exposed…especially to wind and rain…so we continued the search. We found our campsite on the second island we came to. It is on a point, at lake level, with a nice rock fireplace and trees for hanging the rain fly. We settled in and set up camp. We aired out the tent and some clothes because it had been wet when we packed up on William. Thomas lay down for a while and later fished from shore and caught a few Smallmouth Bass. You can see their nesting areas all along the shorelines. A couple of rain showers came through in the afternoon and we hunkered under the tarp and had a small fire.
Later in the afternoon it cleared up and the sun came out and we decided to go troll for Lake Trout. We trolled back and forth on the other side of our island but had no luck. On the way back we switched gear and Thomas caught a nice walleye that we invited to dinner. We had Chicken Fajitas, corn, Walleye fillets and blue berry cobbler. It was a great dinner! We washed up and hit the tent. The late evening calling of the loons, echoing off the cliffs of Suzanette was eerie and melodious and will not be forgotten soon. Another wonderful day in Quetico!
23rd. On this morning I sat by the fire drinking my wife Elizabeth’s favorite ”Foffee” hot chocolate and coffee. The lake was still and like a mirror. I know I may have jinxed us but we have started to notice that we haven’t seen anyone since we left McAree. It’s like Quetico is empty….just us…deserted! Day after day lake after lake, not a soul, just us. The solitude is wonderful!
Yesterday on our fishing trip we visited another campsite. It is down across from the lower tip of our island. It is a big open site with pines and a nice fireplace but it is remarkable for the big Moose Skull and antlers that are there. We took our pictures holding the antlers we hope they come out! As I fixed breakfast there was not a cloud in the sky and not a breeze. We think we will stay here a second night. We took off after breakfast and fished down the arm of Suzanette that goes towards the Brent portages but we had little luck. So we paddled back to the Moose Skull Camp and went down the arm of Suzanette that goes to the Darky River and Burt Lake. We caught a few Smallmouth Bass and then came to the first rapids, here Thomas caught a giant Smallmouth in the 5 Lbs. range. Then a big Northern followed Thomas’ lure right up to the canoe but didn’t bite. I was fishing in the same spot with a Zulu and another big Northern jumped out of the water and snapped off my Zulu. This was really exciting fishing! Later the wind picked up and we paddled back to Moose Skull Camp and had lunch, Peanut butter and jelly on tortillas and rye crisp and lemon drink. Then we headed back to our camp to bathe and read and nap. Thomas has been going through the snack bag and says we have to increase our consumption of candy bars and gorp. He says we can’t take any home. Ah! The bath and shampoo was wonderful! It was a warm afternoon with warm breezes and we some laundry that we dried on the rain tarp line.
We had a dinner of chicken gravy and mashed potatoes..lots of mashed potatoes. There was also apple sauce that was weird….ground too fine, like apple flour paste or wallpaper paste. Ugh! And a dessert of strawberry cheesecake. After dinner we went fishing, we caught lots of little bas. Then we saw fish rising out in the middle of Suzanette. The wind had stopped and the lake was smooth as glass and there was a strange overcast sky. We trolled out in the middle of the lake with the only ripples being ours. Thomas hooked something, he reeled it in and right next to the canoe it jumped and thrashed and out came the barb less hooks… it was a nice Lake Trout. We fished some more but didn’t get another bite. We trolled around on the glassy lake and then went back to camp and had our strawberry cheesecake.
24th. I got up and had coffee by the campfire, Thomas got up and had hot chocolate and then went back to bed. I made breakfast and then we packed up and headed up the Darky River toward Burt and Paulene. As we were packing up a black cloud came rolling over our camp with thunder then rain. Thomas was back in the tent where he had taken both sleeping mattresses and both pillows and was taking it easy. The thunder roused him from his lethargy. We did get the tent packed before the rain hit and we stood under the rain fly and watched the storm roll through. When the rain stopped we loaded the canoe and headed out for the Darky River. We paddled down to the first rapids and tried fishing again. Thomas caught another big Smallmouth Bass and Northern and I caught a bunch of fish too and took pictures. Then we made the short 40-rod portage into the next section of the Darky River and paddled up to the next rapids. We had great luck fishing here too fish after fish, mostly Smallmouth but with a few Northern Pike thrown in for fun. I lost a couple of Zulus because my line was getting funky. So while I messed around with re tying, Thomas crossed the 24-rod portage and fished the pool above the rapids and caught a beautiful 21-inch Walleye…We would have a fish dinner tonight!
We then paddled up the Darky River to where it Ys with one are going into Burt Lake and the other going to the portage to Paulene. We found a nice campsite here and stopped for lunch. Peanut butter and jelly on tortillas & rye crisp. Thomas changed out my fishing line and put on some new tri-lean. He also adjusted my reel that had gotten sloppy with all the fish we had caught. After lunch we headed into Burt Lake fishing along the way and looking for the Indian Pictographs on the cliff entering Burt. We found the cliff; it had a big bird nest towards the top…an Eagle or vulture maybe. We looked all over and only found some red smudges that could have been pictographs. Maybe we were looking in the wrong area??? We gave up and paddled into Burt to check out a campsite. The wind was blowing and Burt is a huge lake. We didn’t find that campsite but we did get a good view of Burt and saw the area where Gamble Mater is located. We decided to go check out Paulene. So back we paddled to the Y in the Darky River and down to the portage to Paulene. This portage is marked 39 rods but seemed much longer and had some nasty rock gardens to negotiate and moose mud too. We were looking for a campsite and found one marginal one but the map had one marked at the other end of the lake so we went down there to check it out. We didn’t find a site so we decided to keep going. This meant we had to cross the 112-rod portage into McIntyre Lake. We single portaged this one and it was no problem, it was quite a nice portage, only a little moose mud at the very end of the portage. We were still on the hunt for a good campsite so we continued into the narrows of McIntyre. This is where we saw a canoe. This was the first person we had seen since leaving McAree. We had 6 full days in Quetico without seeing another human. Talk about solitude! It has been wonderful; the lakes have been all ours!
Since that site was taken we decided to head down toward Cedar Point Camp where we had stayed in 05. It was a long paddle with some wind to contend with but we finally rounded the last point and there it was, Cedar Point Camp, un-occupied. This is a beautiful campsite and has a message jar back in the woods behind camp. We set up camp and retrieved the message jar, it is good to see some of my acquaintances from the BWCA.com have made it here and left messages. We had a great dinner of Darky River Walleye with macaroni and cheese and peas with lemon pie for dessert. We did the dishes and hung the food pack and went to bed. We were pooped!
25th. I got up this morning to gray overcast. Last night we had “Whipper Wills” who sang their 4-note song over and over and over……. .. …..and then in the middle of the night they had their buddies come and join them in a late night Jamb-o-ree….. .over and Over and,,,you know! This is the only spot in the Canoe Country we have ever had these darn “Whipper Wills”…we have camped here 3 nights and had them every time. Anyway, after getting up I started a small fire and had coffee. Then I heard thunder rumbling to the west and I set up a rain-fly just in case it might rain. The thunder was getting closer… Then the rain started. I thought I was pretty clever sitting under the rain-fly with my little fire and coffee. Then the storm hit! Lightning, thunder, wind, it poured, it hailed ices the size of pennies. The wind caught the rain-fly and I had to hold on with both hands, the rain and hail came in sideways, pools formed on the ground. Thomas came out of the tent wearing his rain gear to report the water was coming in on one side of the tent. Wow! What a storm! Everything got wet or damp. The only dry spot was where my butt was under the tarp.. …I kept that spot dry but I was soaked.
30 minutes later the sun came out, another beautiful day in Quetico. I dried out a few things and made breakfast. We had peasant eggs and hash browns with leftover Walleye fillets. We did the dishes and went over to the little waterfall in the bay behind camp. We caught a bunch of Smallmouth Bass just below the falls and then returned to camp to pack and write a note for the message jar. We returned the jar to its cairn in the woods. Then we loaded up and paddled out to the left hand point of the bay and started trolling for trout. We both had Rapala Deep Tail Dancers on, mine was Purplesent and Thomas’ was Perch color. No sooner had we started trolling than Thomas had one on his line. It took quite a while for him to bring it in and we couldn’t find the net, it was in the bottom of the gear pack. Thomas did land this Lake Trout without a net. It was a beautiful 7-9 Lbs. fish and we decided that it was too big for just the 2 of us to eat, so Thomas let him go.
We continued to troll and Thomas hooked another smaller one that flipped off the barbless hooks right beside the canoe. We put up our poles and decided to continue our travels. We headed south on McIntyre towards the portages into Sarah Lake. The weather was sunny and had turned hot and humid after the morning storm. As we approached the end of McIntyre we discussed which portage to take and we decided to try the “Wall Portage” this time, we had taken the alternative portage last time through here. The “Wall” portage turned out to be not so bad as we were going down hill and we had seen steeper portages like the one into Little Gratton. We met a group of Scouts on this portage who were going up it and they were complaining and sweating. We continued down Sarah and were looking for a lunch campsite and found one about half way down the lake at a narrows. We had a pleasant lunch. It was warm and sunny then we heard thunder from the west. Here came a huge dark thunderstorm right over us. We got out the rain gear and tarps and covered our stuff as best we could. Thomas and I crawled under a tarp and waited out the squall. When it lessened we came out and looked around. Then to the west came more dark storm, this time with lightning striking the ground. Thomas tied a little tarp between 2 trees and we hunkered down under it. The rain poured down, it blotted out the view of the lake it was so hard. We got soaked; there was no way to stay dry. I had water running down the inside of my rain jacket. Then the lightning strikes got close with one just to the west of us and then to the east…..Booom!!…! 15 minutes later the sun came out and we were back in the canoe headed south.
We didn’t know how far we could get this day, especially with all the rain delays. In front of us was a particularly difficult set of portages first into Side Lake through a grassy river with lots of loading and un-loading. Then came “Heart Attack Hill” which not only had a steep hill but also was brushy and had some “Moose Mud” too. This portage was particularly poignant because of my heart attack in 2007 and was on my mind. Then came the two small portages in and out of the ponds before Isabella. These two were bad with mud and brush and downed trees. We finally made it to Isabella Lake! We found the nice campsite at the narrows empty and grabbed it. We had a beaver swim across the lake in front of us and slap his tail 3 or 4 times. Later he swam right by us and we took pictures of him. We set up camp and made dinner and hit the sack. We had a long and eventful day.
26th. I got up to clear skies with dew from overnight. I made a little campfire and coffee and wrote of yesterday’s adventures. We thought this campsite would have lots of traffic but the only traffic has been the beaver and a loon so far. We fixed breakfast and packed up ready to head for Bayley Bay of Basswood Lake for our last campsite of the trip. Little puffy clouds are building to the west. We saw a couple of parties of 2 &4 paddle by, as we were packing. We headed down to the east end of Isabella and made the portage into the river flowing into Basswood. Somehow this portage has gotten messed up and we took the wrong fork and went steeply up and then down through a bunch of brush and muck and then back to the old portage and river. With the high water we were able to paddle all the way to Basswood through rapids and 1 beaver dam pull through.
We entered The North Bay of Basswood Lake and turned right to paddle down that shore till we were directly across and closest to Bear Island and the portage into Burke Lake. Then we paddled across this big reach of lake without getting turned around like we did in 2005. When we got towards the backside of Bear Island we ran into a party fishing. They asked where we came in from and we answered; McAree, they said isn’t that a long way? And we said “Sorta”…then we asked where the portage to Burke was and they pointed it out. Now we were going up-stream against the currant with a couple of smallish but rocky portages in and out of a small stream with one rapid we waded through. Burke is where we got bind bound back in 93, but this day was hot and sunny with a slight breeze for the long paddle across Burke. This brought us to the famous “Yellow Brick Road” portage over to Bayley Bay of Basswood Lake. Thomas had talked of switching and having me carry the canoe on this portage. So I carried the canoe and Thomas took pictures. 84 rods and sandy with hardly any stones and no mud.
I think this is the easiest portage in Quetico. We decided to hold off lunch till we found a campsite. It was hot and humid at the end of the “Yellow Brick Road” so Thomas went swimming on the sandy beach. We then loaded the canoe and headed down Bayley Bay looking for our last campsite. We passed a couple of occupied sites, and finally found one before Inlet Bay. We set up camp and had a late lunch of Chili (cooked on the stove) with crackers. Then we both took a nap in the tent even though it was hot and humid, it felt good to lie down. After 6PM it started cooling down and the loons started to sing. Also we can hear the distant motorboats on the US side of the lake. We heard a radio playing for a while..Country western music…civilization draws near. It is Japanese night and we had beef teriyaki and a pouch of tuna from Fred Meyers from home. The tuna was good but the teriyaki dinner was foul, neither one of us could finish our portion. We had a berry cobbler that was good, then off to the tent for a little reading and sleep.
27th. I awoke in the night to a snorting noise. Thomas said it was a deer and that it came back later in the night and snorted and stomped its hooves. I had a dream of a bear ripping open the tent because ZI had the last Snickers Bar by my head…Ug! So we woke up and I had a small fire and coffee and then fixed the last pancakes and a western omelet. We did the dishes and made sure we had all our stuff in our pack and all Jordan’s stuff in their packs. It had been overcast all morning. We loaded up and headed for Prairie Portage. It started sprinkling half way across Inlet Bay and we put on our rain gear. We made it to Prairie Portage and took pictures of the Quetico sign and went to the Quetico Store and bought shirts and hats. Then we crossed the portage to the Sucker Lake side. We were 2 hours early so we sat in the rain..under a birch tree with thunder, lightning and rain off and on. There seemed to be far fewer people coming through this year compared to 2005. We amused ourselves looking at the dam and the high water in the falls and creek. Then there were a few groups that came in, boy scouts and a father & son group from Ohio who had been up Agnes way. I talked to them about good places to eat in Ely, and told them about the Ely Steak House. Then our tow from LaTourrell’s showed up, he got slowed down from the lightning and rain. We enjoyed the tow down the Moose chain and passed some people who left us at Prairie Portage earlier. Jordan’s van was waiting for us at LaTourrell’s and we piled in and whisked back to the outfitters base. We check out with Mark and headed into town and checked in at our motel the “Adventure Inn” Nice!! After showering and spiffing up we headed to the Ely Steak House for a great dinner. We saw our friends from Ohio who we had talked to earlier and the Journeyman from the BWCA.com showed up and we arraigned to meet later to go over our maps. Later Journeyman did show up and we had a great time passing on information on the lakes we just came out from.
All in all this was probably the best canoe trip I can remember, we had a great time! Experienced solitude for 6 days! Caught a ton of fish! Saw a lot of new territory! Had all kinds of weather. We couldn’t asked for anything more.
28th. We left town early and drove back to Minneapolis in our rental car. We made the drive fine and our flights back to the west coast were on time. We made it back to home by 11 PM Minnesota time.