Aug 1 (Aug 2 in my journal) Near tragedy and final camp - We had a leisurely start to the day and moved up Basswood to the pictographs. We had seen these a few years before but the wind had been so strong we were not able to really study them. We then moved on to Basswood falls and portaged over. There were a couple of groups moving off of the portage. One was a family with three young girls, it was good to see folks taking their kids into the woods. The other group was a biology field study group of five students and a professor. The students represented different schools. The first canoe, with three students, was leaving the portage and their bow was pointed towards the falls. They had difficulty turning their canoe and it was caught in the current. My son yelled for everybody to paddle on the right and all of us were yelling go, go, go. They were able to get to safety. It scared the crap out of me. J’s “paddle right” yell may have saved them. We caught up with them at Wheelbarrow Falls. They had tried the upper portage, but the strong current had dumped their first canoe. We helped them retrieve a paddle and traveled with them a bit. The lower portage was the muddiest I have ever been on. I portaged the camp and slipped down to a knee and could not get a purchase to stand up. J and I ended up carrying the canoe over together. In talking to the students, we found out that the field study was for large mammals. We had seen no moose, deer, bear, or wolf and asked them about it. They had seen none either and they felt it was very unusual. We double portaged into Basswood and headed towards Prairie. We sailed a bit on Basswood, went a little to far to the northwest, got straightened out and headed for Bayley Bay. Near Bayley were racing a storm through the English Channel and just made it into camp on the island near Rockery Island. We set up camp in a light rain and hit the hammocks early. The rain became hard and we had to lower the trap, drenching ourselves. Later that night I got up to answer the call of nature and the sky was clear. The stars and crescent moon were absolutely beautiful.