Boundary Waters Canoe Area 2022

July 16 – 23

Wow, I think I had an honest to goodness vacation! I mean, it wasn’t a fruity drinks delivered to me on a beach sort of vacation, but compared to our normal shenanigans, this trip was way more vacation than adventure! The BWCA and the Quetico hold a special place in my heart since that was were Steve proposed back in 2005. We have had loads of adventures since then but hadn’t returned to the area. Sadly, we were still not allowed to cross into the Canadian waters but that just means we’ll have to make another trip back! Our party for this vacation was Steve, myself, Tserka, and Josh. With Steve working a summer job, we ended up leaving Columbus late on Friday, making it to Madison WI around 11 pm. Breakfast at the same diner we found on our way up to Nationals last year and then back on the road. We made it to Ely MN and our fab outfitter, Voyager North, around 3:30 pm Saturday, after a short stop to dip our toes in Lake Superior.

Lake Superior, completing Josh’s visit to all the Great Lakes!

Day 1 – July 16th – Starting late on a Saturday, on a popular put in lake, meant we might have a long night paddle to find an open site. We hit the water around 5:30 pm and found our rhythm. Tserka and Josh in one boat, Steve and I in the other. The water was so calm and flat!

We made our way into the main lake, seeing and hearing several beavers as we went. My original route had us paddling 11 miles from Lake One to Fire Lake, assuming all of the sites would be taken. We abandoned that plan when we were lucky enough to find an open site on Lake One! Campsite 1676 was a solid 3 star site, decent enough for a one night stay, not a place I’d stay multiple nights. After canoeing over to a jumping rock for a swim, we had a Peak ReFuel meal for dinner and some bush tea (I think Sweet Gale), and then relaxed until bed time. It was still super muggy at night so Steve and I had opted to leave our tent fly off in hopes of catching a breeze. Sometime in the middle of the night Steve had to do the unthinkable and get up to pee, which then means spending about 10 mins killing mosquitoes that come in the tent. During this we saw lightning in the distance, but we were hopeful it would pass us by. Pretty much as soon as we had settled back down to sleep, we hear the wind pick up and then the first few drops of rain. Crap! Back outside, get the tent fly attached in the pouring rain, then dive back into the tent. At least the rain kept the bugs from coming in with us!

Day 2 – July 17th – We woke up and had delicious breakfast burritos and coffee (none for Josh) before breaking camp and paddling on. Part of what made this more vacation than adventure was that we hadn’t planned something for every hour of every day. I had mapped a possible loop but depending on campsites and how we were feeling, we could choose several other routes. We did have an end goal of Snowbank Lake so we could get picked back up! Back on the water, we paddled to the first of many portages. We were going in the opposite direction of most groups at this point but that meant there would be more campsites to choose from hopefully! We stopped for a quick snack break in a sheltered cove and as I was standing in the water in my crocs, I had the strangest sensation in/on my foot. Took me a minute to realize that something was in my shoe besides my foot! I scampered ashore and kicked off my shoe to see a large leech, like 4-5 inches, slithering around in my croc! NOPE, no thanks!

We ended our 5ish miles of travel on Lake Four at a four star campsite! The ratings came from paddleplanner.com and by the end of the trip we think we understood how they were rating them. This site had a lovely swimming area right off the shore, with a shady area to lounge in. The weather was unseasonably warm, getting into the mid 80’s. I had packed more like Iceland, with cool and rainy weather as the norm! Luckily we had loads of water to play in to cool us down! Tserka tried his hand at fishing and caught two small fish (Sunfish? Bluegill? IDK…) but threw them back since we had already eaten.

We knew from previous trips that you needed to be ready to jump in your tent before the sun went down to avoid the mosquito swarm and this night we were just a few minutes too late! You can hear the swarm coming and then it is like a built in white noise machine for sleeping. Once again Steve and I didn’t put our tent fly on because it was just so warm. Once again, we woke up to getting rained on! This time is was a big thunderstorm that went right over us! I will say that the storms come in fast but also move out fast!

Day 3 – July 18th – After getting drenched again last night, we had a leisurely morning waiting for our tents to dry before packing them away. We needed to paddle a good distance today in order to make up for stopping at the first available sites the last two days. As we made our way further from the launch area, it should be easier to find open spots. We ended our day on Lake Insula at campsite #1334, one I had actually picked out to stay on. It was another 4 star site, this one with a huge sandy beach. The water in the cove though was super shallow. During the day we didn’t have much breeze so we hung up the mosquito net I had packed. It made a lovely sitting area in the shade, and a bug free area to cook dinner in! This was the first day were I started to feel a little antsy. I had a book to read, some knitting to work on, but I really just wanted to go for a run, which wasn’t an option! This site did offer enough exposed shoreline that I could walk a good ways either direction and just move my body. My monkey brain though was still spinning and would hopefully chill as the trip progressed. Just recognizing that I wasn’t fully present was enough to start the process of relaxing. All of the tasks at home would still be there, all of the school work I ignored all summer would still be there.

Day 4 – July 19th – We cooked breakfast on the rocky outcrop, much preferable to the sand in our opinion! Our plan for the day was to make it to Alice Lake and find a campsite. This paddle took us through some cool narrow channels which supposedly had good fishing. We though didn’t get even a bite! Coming out of the narrows, it opens up to the first big lake of our trip, Alice Lake, probably the largest open lake we would cross in our loop. The wind was picking up, blowing directly into our faces as we moved out onto the lake. There was a nice 5 star site on the far end of the lake, but we also wanted to see the pictographs on Fishdance lake. Luckily we snagged a lovely site just out from the narrows that had all of our needs. As a group we had decided that rocks are preferable to sand, and that a stiff breeze is required! This one had more than enough of both!

We landed and set up our camp, hung the food bags, and then went on a short adventure to Fishdance Lake to check out the pictographs. This was the only lake that our mapped had marked to see them and it was just a short jog out of the way.

I think the middle picture is two fishermen bragging about their catch! The last one clearly shows a canoe and an animal (bear?). It’s super cool to see art that has been around 300+ years!

Day 5 – July 20th – Our go to pack up and leave time is around 10 am, which is pretty late by other campers standards! We spent part of the morning watching a little chipmunk scamper around our site, searching for any food that might have been dropped. The wind was picking up and the waves were growing as we finally got underway. Once again we were paddling straight into the wind, which was theme for the entire trip! Steve tied a tow rope to our boat to help keep the other boat close since the waves and wind proved to be challenging paddle conditions. We made our way across Alice and into the narrows. This was another lovely paddle, all to ourselves and quiet. Cacabic Lake offered some lovely waterlily patches to paddle through, and then our longest portage of the trip.

We met 2 guys coming off of it and they said there was a knee deep water section at the half way part. They were clad in cut off shirts and shorts but had a heavy layer of Off applied, judging by the aroma! We donned our bug nets and raincoats, the raincoats being the only effective barrier to the mosquitoes chewing on our shoulders! The portage ended in a narrow cleft of rock, facing into the wind again, and Thomas lake was showing some whitecaps! The first island we scouted was taken and the second had the campsite marked on the wrong end but it was open. It looked like an ideal spot, nice rock outcropping, good breeze, enough flatish spots for tents. Once we hauled everything up though, we discovered that previous campers had dumped something really foul in the bushes and between the smell and the flies it ruined a great site. We didn’t feel like moving camp though since all of the other sites would be backtracking. Several pots of water later, the smell was better but the flies, oh good lord, the flies… I’m not even talking black flies, these were just standard issue house flies but man, they destroyed mine and Tserka’s ankles! Writing this 12 days later, I still have marks on my ankles!

Day 6 – July 21st – We left fly island behind, heading off on smooth waters but anticipating more headwinds to come. We saw several canoes leaving early and heading the same direction as us, making me a little fretful that we wouldn’t find a decent campsite. The first couple of hours of paddling was lovely and as lunch time approached, Steve suggested finding a spot on Hatchet lake. We could see storm clouds building up on the horizon and the sight on Hatchet looked to be open. As a group though, we decided to press on and make up some distance. The portage off of Thomas to Hatchet had some lovely rocky falls and we floated some of the rapids later one. Skipping a lunch stop proved to be a mistake since once we hit Ima it was again high wind and wave o’clock! We scouted for sites and couldn’t find two of the smaller ones listed, so we headed across Ima towards the portage. We had two canoes in front of us and they skipped a campsite that was tucked away. We headed over to check it out and in the end, just ate lunch there. It wasn’t awful but the cove was super shallow, no good swimming areas and very little breeze. We were prepared to just keep paddling this day until we found a nice spot. I’m really glad that was our decision because we landed on a great spot that evening! We hit Jordan Lake and saw one canoe heading toward the spot we wanted and they were going to beat us to it no doubt. We saw another one on the map, tucked away off the main lake. Not expecting much, we headed that direction. As soon as we rounded the corner, a huge fish (pike maybe?) jumped up right in front of our boat! The site was open and perfect! We had high hopes of a fish dinner but after several hours of trying, no dice. To add insult to injury, the canoe we had seen earlier came to the neck of our cove, dropped two lines and within 30 mins had caught two good sized fish, barely 300 m from where Tserka was fishing! While the fishing for us was crap, the berries were starting to come ripe so we had a few blueberries to snack on.

Day 7 – July 22nd – We left our lovely site and knew we needed to make it to Disappointment lake for our last night so that we could get our shuttle back on time. Once again we started with calm waters and no wind but by the time we hit the big lake, straight into the wind we went! I knew that getting a spot on Disappointment lake would be a challenge due to the proximity to the launch and the fact it was Friday with others just starting their trip. Turns out I was correct to be concerned! We came off the last portage and headed to the first site, moving a good clip but not race pace. Not 400 meters from the site we see another canoe making for the same site! Rather than turn up the dial, Steve backed off and let them have the site, saying that they were older and looked tired. This left us to paddle into the wind across the whole freaking lake, finding every spot taken! Tip for future trips, bring binoculars so you can see if sites are taken without having to paddle up to them! After what seemed like an eternity of paddling, we headed to the most remote site on the lake, way back in a narrow area off the beaten path. Luckily it was vacant! The site was rough and judging from the amount of ripe berries, hadn’t had many visitors lately. We hauled all of our gear up and then Steve and Josh went back out to filter water. Tserka and I were puttering around camp when we hear someone saying “Hey bear, hey bear”. This site was also accessible via a hiking trail and we were prepared to turn some disappointed hikers away from an occupied site. Turns out it was a couple who had gotten swamped on Snowbank Lake that afternoon and had then carried their canoe several miles down a hiking trail in order to make their way over to Disappointment Lake! The waves and wind we battled earlier in the day were amplified a ton on Snowbank and they couldn’t make their way out to an open campsite. They were exhausted when they rolled into camp. Once we heard their story, Steve and Josh went back to where they had left their canoe and tag teamed it back to our camp. Knowing there were no empty sites on the lake, we told them they could stay at our site and we’d all paddle out together tomorrow. They had heard that a big storm was moving in so we planned to get up and go early.

Day 8 – July 23rd – We woke up early, expecting to see a storm blowing in but instead had a beautiful sunrise! We had a lovely breakfast of oatmeal with fresh picked raspberries and blueberries before we set out on our last day of paddling. We decided to go the route via Parent lake and do two short portages with a shorter distance then across Snowbank instead of one longer portage and a longer paddle across the large lake. Given how early we started, I think we would have been fine either way but our route allowed for a nice final swim stop! We had a scheduled pick up at 3 pm but made the landing super early. Cell reception (Verizon) was really bad but eventually we got a call through and they had a van on the way. They arrived and asked who was thirsty, bringing out a small cooler. Apparently the look on my face when he pulled out a bottle of water was pretty funny, but he did have some delicious Hamms beer at the bottom!