I woke up sometime in the wee hours of the morning on the last day of our trip. When I didn't fall back to sleep, I checked my watch - 4:00 a.m. Nature was calling. But it was cold and windy out there. So I stayed in the tent, dozing a bit, but basically awake.

The sky was clear. And, as on the third morning of our trip, I found Orion rising in the east to signal the coming of fall and winter. I recently read that the Ojibwa call this constellation the Winter Maker - an apt name.

Finally, at the first hint of dawn, I woke David, and we started our day. We needed headlamps to get the coffee brewing. But soon the eastern sky was lit by the rosy fingers of dawn -

As the sun got to the horizon in the east, the clouds to the west were suffused with pastel hues -

I was bundled up enjoying java down by the water -

It was still cool and windy. But with the clear sky, I thought at least we would have some warm sunshine later today. Wrong. By the time we left camp around 8:30, it had gotten overcast again. And the wind was still blowing directly against us from the south. South winds are often warm. But not this one.

We crossed the initial stretch of open water south of our campsite, then paused to take a picture in the shelter between Ottawa and Lincoln Islands. There we bid a final goodbye to Canada for this trip -

I'd exchanged emails before our trip with Denton Doc, who was scheduled to be dropped off at Lincoln Island to start his own Quetico adventure around 9:30 today. Given our usual stately morning pace, I had figured we'd still be breaking camp or just getting on the water around then, so we would cross paths and be able to say hello. But now we were eager to get past the open parts of Basswood Lake before the wind got more problematic.

That turned out to be the right move. Although we were getting a little tired of the head wind, I thought it was still better than an east or northeast wind when we got south of Lincoln Island, crossing the open water that stretches seven miles east-northeast to Bayley Bay -

This was the flipside of the first day of our trip. Then we had had a north headwind while crossing Bayley Bay at the other end of this channel, but that was better than the southwest wind that had been blowing earlier that day, which would have been battering us from the side. Now we were happy for the southern headwind, compared to the east crosswind that we thought might move in later.

We reached the entry to Wind Bay soon enough in any event. The bay looked like it had been hit hard a decade ago by the July 4 blowdown, with few tall trees and scrubby flora along its shores -

We still thought Wind Bay was attractive. I'd like to come back sometime on a Boundary Waters trip, maybe paddling up from Indiana Lake. The bay's southern end is marshy and looks like great duck habitat. Although we were in the motorized zone of Basswood, we had only seen one motorboat in the distance this morning, and only a couple other canoes paddling into Wind Bay as we reached the portage to Wind Lake. This picture looks north from the portage landing -

And this one looks south -

We got to the portage about quarter to ten and paused to eat some power bars. The big open graveled landing showed the effects of human use much more than at even the most developed and heavily used Quetico portages -

The portage itself was a superhighway, almost paved with gravel fill that made for a smooth and carefree tread, and cleared so wide that the canoe never brushed up against a single twig or leaf as I carried it across. We marveled at these filled cairns providing easy passage across a creek -

Along the path were a lot of rosehips -

The portage was about 190 rods. But it took us only 10 or 11 minutes to cross with one load. (Of course, we still had to go back for the other load.) At the Wind Lake end there were two put-ins. We kept going to the further one. That seemed like the right call, because the waterway between the two landings appeared to be blocked by a big beaver dam -

After the portage, the first stretch of paddling is along the winding muck-bottomed creek -

At the passage from creek to lake lies the castle of the lord of this domain -

Given our luck so far this trip, we had joked as we portaged that the wind would shift to blow from the east once we got to Wind Lake and were headed eastbound. That joke now became a grim reality. Wind Lake lived up to its name, and the paddle across it was hard work.

Wind Lake, like Wind Bay, also looked like it had been heavily hit by the July 4 derecho. I did not think it was the most beautiful lake in the region. But given its easy access, I want to come back sometime under better conditions to see if I warm to it more.

As we paddled east, we saw a couple other canoes going in the opposite direction, taking advantage of the tailwind. We dug in and paddled full steam ahead to our next and last portage of the trip. We paused only for a moment to scope a huge osprey that was flying and fishing around the east end of the lake.

It took us almost an hour to paddle Wind Lake from end to end. We got to our last portage a bit before noon. This is the deceptively calm view from there back up the lake -

The effects of the blowdown were evident on the nearby shore, which had its own raw beauty -

Before crossing the portage, we paused for a PBJ snack -

At about 160 rods, this portage was a little shorter than the previous one. But it goes up over a ridge and in places the path is "unpaved" (less gravel fill). The climb combined with the periodic rougher tread probably makes this portage slightly more work than the other. Still, for much of the way the portage is a very smooth, well-cleared path. This picture shows the trail departing from Wind Lake -

There are many large old trees, presumably downed by the July 4 storm, slowly decomposing in the woods along the trail -

Although the human hand is more evident here than in Quetico, the wolves didn't seem to mind. There was some fresh steamy "sign" up high on the ridge. Judging from its size, that was one big wolf that passed through here earlier in the morning. You can't have a trip report without a wolf scat picture -

On most portages, I start off with the canoe ahead of David, and he easily catches up carrying a pack. On this portage, David never caught up. Even with the rise to the ridge and the "unpaved" bits, there were no real obstacles or tricky footing that slowed me down with the canoe. After cresting the ridge, the path descends through scrub to Moose Lake -

Between loads, I left the canoe turned upside down at the landing on Moose Lake so it would not lift off -

After carrying the rest of our gear across, we shoved off on the short final stretch of our journey. The wind was once again pretty fierce as we left the portage. But we quickly crossed to the east side of Moose Lake, and then enjoyed a few final minutes of calm paddling.

Soon we were at Moose Landing, where we had started this trip in what seemed like the distant past. The return of Ho Ho and David -

As we loaded up the Jeep, I filled out the BW day-use permits that I had forgotten before the trip. We also talked with some guys who were about to head out for a fishing trip on Basswood. They were understandably hoping for improved weather. Then we experienced the strange sensation of being moved along at high velocity by a machine with no effort at all on our part.

At customs in Ely there was a new agent. When he saw we were from Washington, he talked about doing security duty at the Inauguration, which we had been at too, so that was kind of fun. With passports duly stamped, we drove back to the cabin. David's parents were there. His mom made a big dinner, topped off by another yellow cake with chocolate frosting (yum). We crashed by 9:00 p.m.

In the middle of the night, I awoke to big downpour. It was pounding on the metal roof of the cabin, instead of the vinyl fly of the tent. I was happy not to need my raincoat and boots when I got up to heed the call of nature.

Up next . . . "Reflections"