May 16, 2006. We broke camp – this was our ‘head out’ day. Somehow the carefully balanced packs didn’t wind up so with so many hands helping, but I decided not to rejuggle the loads. We headed West on Knife, pausing at Isle of Pines to pay our respects to Dorothy’s home for so many years. The decades have nearly erased any vestige of her presence.

The series of portages and ponds back to Carp went pretty smoothly – the food packs were substantially lighter and we’d developed a rhythm of pretty quickly double portaging across these short portages.

We’d arrived at the West end of the portage from Seed to Carp still double portaging. When the last load arrived, we kicked back for a few minutes to catch out breath. “Did you see the bear scat on the portage?” I inquired of my fellow travelers. “Fresh – and I definitely caught the ursine smell of a bear on that second portage.”

(On writing this taking a break 50 feet from fresh scat and a pungent portage probably wasn’t a brilliant idea. In reality I came to this realization more slowly, but I got there. I suggested that we get going.)

Steve couldn’t find his PFD. Anywhere. He and I walked back to the other end of the portage – no PFD.

We’re pretty organized and process driven guys, so the idea that he could have left it at a previous portage and paddled without it across even a small lake was pretty far fetched…. nonetheless Steve paddled back across Seed and checked out the two portage ends… to no avail.

The reality suddenly dawned on me… as it probably already has for you. A bear had raided our amassed packs at the end of the Seed – Carp portage and made off with Steve’s green PFD, in the pocket of which were power bar wrappers.

I waved Steve back urgently and started back down the short portage – Gena was there alone with the packs including the food pack, and I was pretty sure he didn’t know how to handle a hungry and obviously fearless Black bear.

When I returned, Gena was calmly sitting next to the rapids writing in his journal, his damp boots and socks carefully removed and drying in the warm spring sun. I may have startled him when I ordered the tandem packs into the tandem canoe pronto! He got his footgear back in place and assisted (from a dry shore perch.)

Steve showed up and I gave my analysis of the situation – feeling the eyes of a black bear on us the entire time.

We loaded the solo and pushed off onto Carp. Heading to Prairie Portage.

The GPS and our maps guided us successfully across Carp and Birch, down Newfound and onto Moose. Steve and I manned the tandem and Gena was in the solo effortlessly keeping pace. The rest of the trip was routine – no wind, warm Spring sun and the shores and hills around Moose coming back to life. We covered quite a bit a country traveling from the South Arm of Knife back past the Moose Lake EP in a single day.

Of course we had a bear chasing us.

We reached the car, loaded our gear and went back to VNO’s bunkhouse for well needed showers and rest.

Lessons learned.

My Chota Quetico Trekkers teamed with their Brookie liners are precisely the right setup for early spring canoe camping. Even if you step in too deep and water does run down the otherwise tightly cinched tops, it isn’t cold for long… much like a diver’s suit.

Poly longjohns and zipoff nylon pants with two piece rain gear and a polar fleece jacket worked out to be adequate warmth.

Spring gear is bulky and heavier than summer gear, we found it impossible to single portage.