Sunday, June 23, 2002

We got going late in the afternoon after getting our permits and taking our sweet time in town. Finally, the five of us put our two canoes in the water of Snowbank lake and prepared to set off into the wilderness. I was in the middle of the canoe with Ryan and Kevin paddeling. We were all tired but somehow pushed on to Boot Lake. Originally, we had planned to make a huge loop on lakes that I can't even remember, however that never happened... We started the portage to Ensign Lake which was so exhausting for people who were out of shap and had not gotten any sleep. This 220 rod portage was made even worse by the fact that we brought the crappiest gear and way to much of it. Like I said, we didn't know what we were doing at all so we had borrowed some canoes which I think are the heaviest canoes known to man. We ended up having to do this portage twice to transport all of our crap. This portage was mean too, just when we thought we were going to die, a glimmer of hope appeared when we saw water. This was not the portage though, just a a teasing lake, what a dirty trick. The black flies were everywhere. They gathered like black clouds and were all over you if you stopped moving, so we continued on. We finally made it to ensign which was crowded. Just our luck, we seemed to have picked the week to camping that ever boyscout troop in America had chosen. Sweet. We found a site and set up camp, meanwhile the clouds were getting dark. The wind started to blow fiercly and out campsite had no protection from it.