Monday September 15, 2003

Day Seven – Heading to Burke

Again, John was up much earlier than I was. But we were still on the water by 8 am, heading down Louisa. This day, unlike all the others, there was little to no wind! Since we didn’t have to fight the wind, we were able to take some time to appreciate the beauty that Louisa has to offer. There are some nice sand beaches, high cliffs and crystal clear water. It was so gorgeous that John was even singing, “Every little breeze seems to whisper Lynn Louise”! Yes, Louise IS my middle name. The day was quite enjoyable.

We were prepared for the portage from Louisa down to Agnes, along Louisa Falls to be quite difficult. But we didn’t really find it to be that bad. There are two 15 rod portages to do. The first one is just fine and then you take a small creek to the start of the sharp decline around Louisa Falls. We took it nice and slow and easy, watching our footing. We found that having me ‘hand’ the canoe down the rock ledge to John and then sliding it over a grassy spot made taking the canoe down a lot easier to do.

Now in Agnes we saw two people in a canoe, heading north. Wow, these were the first people we had seen in five days! The portage, 140 rods, from Agnes to Meadows Lake is mostly downhill but really rocky, so we had to watch our footing. The next one is 193 rods and is longer but a lot easier to do. This portage leads from Meadows into Sunday Lake. John wanted to camp on Sunday, but I wanted to move on and camp in Bayley. We compromised and agreed to camp on Burke, not far from the portage. When we were at the end of the Sunday Lake portage we spotted two guys fishing. John thought they looked familiar. He asked them if they were fishing in this same spot, same time frame, two years ago. One of the guys looked amazed and said, “Yes. I guess we are creatures of habit!.” He couldn’t believe John remembered them and neither co