Day Seven – On our last day the blue skies were back. We had about a 2 hour paddle back to Prairie Portage. We paddled through the south end of Burke Lake, passing by three island campsites. There was an 84 rod portage to Bayley Bay which was a totally flat, even and sandy trail. The view at Bayley was magnificent, brilliant golden trees at the water’s edge and a long, soft sandy shoreline.

After taking a few pictures we said goodbye to the Quetico, loaded up the canoe and took off. Paddling towards us was one of our canoe customers. I knew they were ours as soon as I saw the black trim on the canoe. We are the only outfitter to have black trim on all our Kevlar canoes. It was Bill Hohengarten (nicknamed HoHo) and friend David Knudsen. They were headed out for an 11 day trip. After a short conversation, they headed to the portage and we headed south. Once in Inlet Bay we spotted the Canadian Ranger Station.

Once we hit the Ranger Station, I took the gear & canoe across the portage and then joined Lynn for the meeting with the ranger. We went over the orientation book and all the rules & regulations and then we were entered as being qualified to go over Quetico rules for our customers.

Paul showed up with the towboat on the south side of Prairie Portage and took us down the Moose Lake chain to Vosburgh’s.

We picked up our Suburban and loaded it up and then headed to town. Before we hit Ely we stopped at the U.S. Customs station just east of Ely and checked in. Then we hit the Dairy Queen for some bacon cheeseburgers & chocolate malts and headed home to shower up.

Another great trip into the Quetico. We had some super days for fishing, checked out some new equipment, had 6-7 days of good weather (and some of it was down right hot!) and 3 days of just kicking back.