The morning was overcast and slightly drizzly when I awoke (an hour before Matt and Gopher, as always it seems) but the wind was finally in our favor. We were going to be traveling with the wind this time and, because it was still blowing rather strongly, I took the time to cut some dead trees down and fashion them into a makeshift sail for the boat using one of our camp tarps and a slew of the camp paracord rope that we always bring.

We ate a breakfast of pancakes (the only day we did not eat oatmeal) before I showed off my sail invention. Matt and Gopher both seemed excited for my idea to work, but slightly dubious that it would. Happily, the sail worked fantastically and we took off down the South Arm of Knife Lake at a fairly fast clip. We passed a camp or two who spied us and they gave us a hearty wave; no doubt jealous of our rig.

Our paddles hardly ever touched the water; save Gopher’s, who was in charge of steering the canoe. Matt and I were in charge of trimming the sail so we could take full advantage of the wind. Since I did not have to worry about paddling I made sure to take a bunch of photographs of the landscape as we passed by. For an overcast, drizzly day, it was by far one of the best days I have ever spent on the water.

We didn’t realize how fast we were traveling at first (when you are not paddling you tend to loose track of the distance you travel) and in no time at all we were nearing the portage that would take us into Eddy Lake, a place we did not want to be yet, so we left our sail up and kept to the north part of South Arm Knife Lake before taking a break on a small, tucked away campsite.

Because of the speed we were traveling I decided to put my mission of “toilet pictures” on hold for a while, even though we passed eight or nine sites that would have added nicely to my catalog. Our break site however contained some other interesting things to shoot. There were old tires, battery boxes, wood crates and other assorted trash that was no doubt left by loggers for who knows how long ago. We snooped through all of this junk before getting back in the canoe and continuing on.

We were very near to the Eddy Lake portage at this time (though it was on the other side of South Arm) so we decided that we would take camp in the next site we came to. The site was tucked in a small bay flanked by large hills so that when you looked out over the lake from the campsite it appeared you were in a sort of land based fortress. It was still drizzling so we set camp right away before going back out to try to catch some fish.

For the most part we got skunked. I did have a large Northern Pike attack my line but (due to the fact we had no net) we had to paddle to the nearest shore to pick him up. Upon doing so, however, the damn fish popped off of the hook, flopped into the water with a “OMG” look in his eye and swam off before I had a chance to grab him with my hands. Dinner again consisted of noodles and rice. Oh well.