We all woke up to a beautiful calm morning. The group from the first site we saw on Winchell paddled by not long after. We were on our way at 9:40. The Winchell paddle was long but easy due to only a light wind out of the SW. The sun was also shining. We went by the areas hit by the Red Eye Lake fire and the sites did not look very desirable. At the Gaskin end of the Gaskin-Winchell portage, Scott sunk up to his thigh in mud. It was noted to stay on the logs. A dad/son/dog canoe passed us on Gaskin and Scott gave them the heads up about the mud at the portage. The man grumbled about not wanting to get in mud and paddled on without even a thanks. The second site on the point on the right looked really cool but it was occupied. The nice east island site on Gaskin was also occupied. We arrived at Horseshoe and the first site on the left was taken. It did look like kind of a neat site. The guys that had passed us this morning from Winchell were settled in on the 2nd site. The nice site just to the south of that intersection was also occupied. We opted to not check the far SE site and we headed north. The site just north of the big intersection was open. It was a huge open site but not much of a view. We decided to move on to the next. A group of 3 canoes were heading west and looked like they were going for the next site and they definitely would have beat us. We were happy to see they were actually headed for the Allen portage.

We saw at least 9 groups today with 7 of those being on Horseshoe. Previously we had seen 1 on Meeds, 1 on Omega, and 3 on Winchell. But there was a lot of activity on Horseshoe. We quickly made white cheddar Annie’s for lunch. Scott took a short nap in his Crazy Creek and Claire dozed off in the hammock for an hour. It was still pretty breezy. Scott and I sat in silence by the lake for 30 minutes or so. Scott suggested we should go fishing in the canoe. We hadn’t done that yet, partly because most of the lakes we were on weren’t great fishing lakes and partly because we just wanted to relax. We made coffee with Bailey’s and then I fished from shore for a bit. I had a bobber with a jig and a leech I found on the bottom of the canoe. We finally decided to head out in the canoe. We just tooled around outside of the campsite for 20 minutes or so. I first used the jig/leech and bobber and I ended up throwing a couple raps but not a bite. We came back and made Bear Creek cheddar broccoli for dinner. It was mighty tasty but not as good as the creamy wild rice. It kinda gave Claire a stomach ache. The group across the way was sort of loud and annoying in the evening but they eventually quieted down once it got dark.

By this time it’s after 7 and we still had lots to do. We needed dry firewood and the dishes still needed washing. Scott chopped some wood while Claire and I did dishes. The wood was wet and a fire would not take. Claire was ready for bed but I finally got a fire sort of going. We ran out of wood and were off to bed shortly after 10.

Winchell - Gaskin - Horseshoe