While Vickie & Aurora tried their luck shore fishing, I cooked up some cinnamon fry bread (another Camp Chow entrée) for breakfast on this foggy morning. Once again, Vickie & I thought it was “OK” but, Aurora really liked it; continually munching on the leftovers throughout the morning.

After breakfast, Aurora volunteered to help me gather firewood. She insisted on bringing the dead logs back to camp once I cut them up. It was an incredibly rewarding experience for me to watch her eagerly take part in these traditional camp chores.

After we put up some wood, we decided to hit the water. In our pre-trip planning we had hoped to visit the chain of smaller lakes just to our south. But now, considering Vickie’s tender ankle and how portage rich & paddle deficient that area was, we decided to keep it simple and head for Little Crab Lake. Since we would be coming this way (fully loaded) tomorrow, this day trip also served as a reconnaissance mission. The bay leading to the creek was exceptionally weedy, and this condition persisted throughout the winding course of said creek. However, there were no beaver dams or any other serious impediments to contend with. Today, after a 3 day hiatus, the sun finally replaced the gray clouds. And as it rose into the late morning sky, the intensifying warmth enticed us to shed a few layers before we reached Little Crab Lake.

As we exited the creek, the lone campsite on Little Crab was located almost a directly straight east across the lake. We paddled over to check out the site we had hoped to reach last night before fate had stepped in. A reasonably decent landing led us up to an excellent fire grate area that had several large premium tent pads within eyeshot. All this was majestically canopied under a cathedral of large red pines, which naturally also offered a plush carpet of duff. This truly was a five star site.

According to Miron Heinselmans excellent book, “The Boundary Waters wilderness ecosystem”, the reason we have these excellent stands of red pines in this area of the BWCA is because of progressive logging practices used by Samuel A. Grahams (of the Oliver mining company) logging camps in the Crab Lake area approximately 100 years ago. Heinselman argues that if these practices had been employed in other areas that were logged (back then) in the current day BWCA, the second growth forests might also look very different than the vast areas of nearly pure aspen & birch.

We split up as we further explored this awesome site. Vickie soon happened upon a disturbing scene. Curious as to why someone would spackle the latrine with ‘mud’, she investigated further by peering down the hole. She let out a shriek and called me over. Apparently a pine marten had fallen down the opening and wasn’t able to extricate itself. Not sure how or why this happened but, the poor creature had very recently died down there. Vickie felt our delay yesterday was Gods way of keeping us from reaching this site and its horrific latrine. Needless to say, no one used the latrine during our stop.

After leaving this bazaar scene, we returned to our canoe and headed out to the lake to continue our exploration of this picturesque little lake. Of course Aurora wanted to try some fishing, so I got her line rigged up & out in the water. Fishing was slow & she only managed some tiny smallmouth bass. So, after a single exploratory circuit around the lake, we paddled back towards our camp on Lunetta Lake.

Once back on our home waters, we continued paddling around the lake to see what there was to see. The fall foliage displays were not yet in full explosion but, there was still the occasional radiant burst of color here and there. After our relaxing paddle we returned to camp to leisurely enjoy the rest of the afternoon.

Back in camp I retreated to the hammock to try and do some reading. Alas, there was a busy mouse that kept distracting me with its incessant to and fro, so eventually I decided to go pick away at the pile of unprocessed firewood that Aurora had hauled into camp earlier today.

Much like the Little Crab Lake site, our home here on Lunetta Lake was also blessed with a nice grove of mature red pines. These were located back away from the main kitchen area but, they still served to give this site that particular north woods feel. Another less enviable similarity was a less than stellar latrine. Thankfully this one couldn’t boast an animal carcass in the hole, but it was negatively affected by a fallen tree. When we arrived, it appeared someone had tried to resituate the seat. But this led to a severely slanted condition, which still resulted in an extremely uncomfortable condition. I ripped up the entire setup and reset the seat. I was able to get it level but, it was so high, even my long legs dangled when sitting. Still, it was significantly better than it was and, we made the best of this circumstance.

We had one last Camp Chow dessert to try tonight - it was their cheesecake. We even threw in some of our own rehydrated blueberries. All of us thought this one was off the charts, and will definitely be bringing this one along on future trips.

It was nice to finally have another evening where we could sit up and watch the stars pop out. Vickie had bought one of those packets that make a fire change colors. Don’t know how legal this was up here in canoe country? But, it proved to be an agreeable evening activity before Aurora went to bed.

Lunetta Lake, Little Crab Lake