My original itinerary had us spending three nights on Kawnipi, but it was apparent from the first few days that getting from Kawnipi back to Prairie Portage in two days was too much for my father-in-law now so we decided to cut our Kawnipi stay a day short, leaving on day 5.

We left camp at 8:45 (there's a distinct pattern of our getting on the water a little later every day) and made a slow troll out of McKenzie Bay, picking up many Walleye, three of which we kept and cleaned for dinner. We rely on fish for food when canoeing so we're big fans of getting the "hunting" done early to reduce stress and make fishing seem more fun and less like work later in the day.

It was another spectacular day of puffy cumulus clouds and calm conditions. Check the photo of my wife paddling Agnes -- I didn't think it was possible for the big lake to ever be that calm. We were truly blessed by the weather this week. The daytime highs were probably 65-72, overnight lows were probably around 50, and the wind was calm -- a godsend given the large lakes we were on.

We wanted to camp at a site we'd used on a prior trip, but it was occupied so we ended up at the campsite we'd used on night 2, crappy landing and all.

We saw five canoes of people on Agnes which is more people than I've seen anywhere in the Quetico once I've gotten over 2-3 portages. It's good to see the park being used, but I didn't expect to have competition for campsites (naive?).

We sat up around the fire until after dark which brings me to yet another blessing about this trip. We had virtually no mosquitoes or flies. I put on insect repellent only once during the entire trip! There was a late-season freeze a few days before we started our trip so I suspect that took out the bugs.