I woke up at our Kenny Lake campsite about 5:15 and lay quietly in the tent for a while, listening to the falls and the deeper silence in the background, punctuated by the slap of a beaver tail. There was a glow in the sky and I wondered if it was the northern lights. When the glow became the first glimmer of dawn around 6:00, I got out of the tent and started a pot of coffee. As daylight gathered, mist rose off the lake by our pine-studded oasis in the burn zone - 

From across the water came a strange winnowing, cackling bird call that reminded me of a sora. Soon I realized it was coming from not one, but two pairs of bald eagles perching in the pine snags left behind by the fire. I'm not sure I knew that eagles made that particular call before. Here's one of the two pairs -

Sunlight lit up the shore across the misty lake as David enjoyed his second cup of joe -

After breaking camp we got underway about 9:30. Looking back at last night's piney haven -

Almost as soon as we hit the water, we noticed the thick smell of smoke. With the north wind that had been blowing for several days, the Pagami fire had seemed far behind us. But now the wind had shifted and was blowing from the south, the weather was hot and sunny, and smoke seemed to be clamped down on us by the summery conditions. The continued hot dry conditions made us anxious about the fire south of the border. But there was nothing we could do about it. So we focused instead on the beauty of the world around us - itself branded by a vast fire only 16 years ago.

Today we were traveling upstream along the part of the Maligne River aptly known as the Falls Chain. So we donned our PFDs for the first time since crossing Bayley Bay on Day 1. Almost as soon as we left camp, we approached Canyon Falls, which had rumbled near us all night long -

In the close-up below you can see that much of Canyon Falls is hidden from view further upstream in the namesake canyon, disclosed only by the mist rising behind the rocks, and by the distant thunder emanating from somewhere behind the lower cascade that dominates this scene - 

The landing for the 100-rod Canyon Falls portage is not far from the mouth of the falls, so care is needed to avoid the powerful current coming down the canyon. This is the view from the beginning of the portage -

The Falls Chain portages are wider and more trodden than those we had been following along McEwen Creek. They were also noticeably less brushy than when we had passed through here going in the other direction in 2003. That was only eight years after the Bird Lake Fire, and back then the burnt parts of the portages were crowded with very young jack pine saplings. Now the young pines were twice as old, and the portages were not nearly as brushy. Things change fast in the years after a big fire.

But Canyon Falls portage is still no piece of cake. The same geologic structures over which the river drops at the falls show up on land as rocky uphill stretches of portage -

The upstream end of the portage is just past the top of the falls, flanked by regenerating forest -

As soon as that portage was behind us, we approached the next one, around Koko Falls, seen here through the smoky haze -

Koko has two main cascades, both of which can be seen from vantage points on or near the 100-plus-rod portage. Here are several views of the lower cascade -

Another -

And another -

And this is a view of the water rushing through the cut channel below the upper cascade -

And the upper cascade itself -

Next comes Little Falls. The 35-rod portage around it began a little further upstream on a rock-strewn landing -

White asters at the landing -

The view from further up the portage looking back downstream reveals that these falls are indeed "little" compared to the others - but that drop at the end is still potentially deadly -

At the upstream landing for the portage there's a great blaze in a red pine (human model supplied for scale) -

Half our gear awaits the continuing voyage after the first carry across -

After finishing that portage and saying goodbye to Little Falls, we entered a fall-less section of wide water on the river known as Sidney Lake. There's some current in narrows at each end of the lake, but otherwise it's flat water, so we dispensed with our PFDs for a while in the hot sunshine.

The western basin of Sidney also connects up with the Wet Lake route from McEwen Lake. We could have taken two very short, easy portages from our lunch spot on McEwen yesterday to our current location on Sidney, instead of the four portages totaling 480 rods we had crossed yesterday afternoon and this morning. But what fun would that have been? We would have missed the excellent ridge top and valley of the McEwen-Kenny portage, as well as the drama of the lower falls we had toured this morning.

The smoky haze from the south persisted. You can see it in this picture of an island where we stopped for lunch on Sidney - 

We still had not seen any people this morning. That surprised us now that we were back on a major route. Then, while we were at our lunch site, a tandem canoe went by heading downstream. It had been almost four full days since we had seen other people back on Agnes Lake.

After lunch we continued upstream, pausing to strap our PFDs back on before the fast-water narrows at the far end of Sidney Lake. We had three more portages around falls this afternoon.

First up was aptly named Bald Rock Falls -

A closer view -

The portage here is just a liftover across the eponymous bald rock. There's also a great-looking campsite on the other side of the falls, which was occupied now. In the picture below, we've already lifted our gear over - upstream is left, downstream is right -

We spent a few minutes looking around. The falls from shore -

Our little sightseeing tour circled around a small bay on the upstream side of the falls where our gear awaited -

I heart the rock formations of Quetico -

Next we paddled a short distance upstream to a 20-rod portage around an unnamed falls. Approaching the falls and portage -

The downstream landing for this portage has a great view of the falls. Here is the main drop of Unnamed - 

Just below is a secondary drop. In this area the Bird Lake Fire mostly stopped at the river, so the north shore across from us was generally burned, while the south shore where we were portaging now was not - 

The upstream end of the portage around Unnamed Falls is just a few yards across a little bay from the downstream end of our next and last portage of the day, 60 rods around Four Falls. 

As we paddled across, a traveler going in the other direction was setting his canoe down at the landing of the Four Falls portage. As soon as he saw us, he obligingly moved his canoe out of our way. When we landed I noticed the canoe was a solo and then noticed the paddler was wearing a BWCA.com tshirt, so I introduced myself. And thus we met "kanoes" from the bulletin board. He was a couple days into a big solo trip around Hunter's Island. We chatted a few minutes about the smoke and the heat, and then went our separate ways. A little later I kicked myself for not thinking to get a picture - I always regret not having pictures of the other travelers we meet on our canoe trips.

We did take pictures of the scenery and ourselves between carries across the portage. By now the wind had shifted from the west and the smoke had cleared, replaced by blue sky and a few puffy clouds -

But the afternoon was still hot enough that sweat was pouring down my brow just walking in the shade without a load -

Around the middle of the Four Falls portage a side trail leads down to the river and a scenic little island that you can ford across to -

This picture looks upstream from that spot toward the first cascade of Four Falls - I'm not sure where all the other three falls are -

After completing this carry, we left the falls behind and were done with portaging for the day. Our journey up the Falls Chain was definitely a highlight of the trip. In 2003, we had done the mirror image of our day today, traveling down the Falls Chain from Saganagons to the Kenny Lake campsite. But our trip up the falls today outshone my memory from eight years ago. I was glad we had decided to travel this route again.

Now we were on the flat upper reaches of the Maligne River, about a mile from where it flows out of Saganagons Lake. Here's a bit of scenery along the way -

Soon we were on Saganagons itself. We were aiming for an area just north of Deadman's Portage where there are several nice campsites on small islands. When we passed through here in 2003, the popular campsite closest to the portage was occupied, so we stayed at another great campsite a few islands to the north. Now all the campsites were open. We were tempted to stay at our 2003 site again, but decided to try something new and took the site that had been occupied on our previous trip.

It's an attractive site sitting up on a north-facing cliff looking out over the other islands. But it's also kind of beaten down by base campers who can easily get here in one day by entering the park at Cache Bay. We settled in about 4:00, went for a swim, and loafed for a while in the shade of some big pines and a few clouds, cooled by the west breeze. 

David also spent a little time touring around the perimeter of our island, taking pictures of the marshy bays on the back side (that narrow grassy isthmus in the picture below would give us some trouble tomorrow morning) -

A little later we heard women's voices to the north, and a tandem canoe rounded an island heading our way. But the paddlers came to a dead stop when they saw us camped on our island, which they were no doubt aiming for too. They were soon joined by a second tandem, and we could tell the four women were conferring about where to camp. A minute later they paddled over to our 2003 site and claimed it. Frankly, I think we might have been doing them a favor by occupying the cliff site now, since the 2003 site is probably even nicer.

This would be the only night of the trip when other people were camped anywhere near us. For a while the four women were a little boisterous, their conversations carrying across the open water between our islands.

In the meantime, I whiled away the rest of the afternoon jotting down trip notes and watching the resident squirrels rumble with each other over the pinecone harvest. All was well - until we settled onto our cliffside perch to eat dinner and the ankle biters attacked. Time for shirts and long pants.

We went for another dip to cool off as the sun sank below the horizon. Then we poured ourselves a little Maker's Mark to enjoy a spectacular sunset. There was no more boisterous conversation from our neighbors. I think they were watching nature's show with the same hushed awe as we.

Act I -

Act II -

Act III -

The last glimmer of sunlight was soon replaced by the bright glow of a nearly full moon. It was like a spotlight shining through the mesh of our tent, dimmed now and then by a passing cloud. We stayed up a bit later than usual reading. Then I buried my face in my pillow to evade the lunar spotlight and fell into a sound sleep.