The trip of a lifetime!
by WaterBadger
“The Band Saga-Death”
Our human alarm clock woke us up about 7am to get an early push for the day. Our plan was to travel to Saganaga and with this being a lake closer to entry/exit points we wanted to get there as early as possible to make sure we got a campsite. Breakfast was an egg & bacon hash brown scramble washed down with coffee. After breakfast was cleaned up, we broke camp we were on the water again. Back to day one pairings, Tony and Nate, with Nate in the bow. Eric and Zach with Zach in the bow. The sun was shining with fluffy clouds and floating on a background of BWCA blue. There was wind but we were protected on the small waters of our first two lakes, Ester and Ottertrack. Little did we know how lucky we were to be headed west with the wind. Zach did a little trolling as we headed through the remainder of Ester with no luck. The portage to Ottertrack was a little harder to find but our trusty navigator again put us in the right spot. A total of only 80 rods, this was to be the hardest portage of the trip. You immediately start up a steep incline for about 50 yards before you level off for a short while before you start the decline which also had a pretty steep pitch. After bottoming out in the muck and mud that was at the bottom, you had to hurdle downed trees before you start to climb out and up before cresting and heading back down to the landing onto Ottertrack lake. This was where our only mishap took place as a pant leg got snagged on a down tree and someone almost took a spill. A day or two previously when we adopted the double portaging method, we started taking our packs first to get a lay of the land before going back to get the canoes. In this particular instance it paid off.
Ottertrack lake was no big deal and we crossed it relatively quickly. The waves were a lot like what we experienced on South Arm Knife and we were old hats at this and mastered the waves no problem. The last half of Ottertrack lake was pretty cool as you travel down a sandy channel with flowering lily pads on one side (Canada) and reeds everywhere. We were basically traveling the border. It was calm in the back waters and as we approached our next portage and we had to wait. This was no big deal as we tethered our canoes together and enjoyed the sunshine. We could tell we were getting closer to civilization as we were starting to encounter more and more people. One group that we met on the portage to Swamp Lake, also known as monument portage, told us that they had a hard time paddling west into the wind on Saganaga and that the wind was increasing as the day wore on. As we listened, we were glad about having the wind at our back for that portion of our trip.
Monument portage is 80 rods and is an up and down trail straddling the Canada/US border with three different little monuments placed along the border. The word monument is misleading as they maybe stand three feet tall. They are modeled after the Washington Monument and have Canada spelled out on one side and the United States spelled out on the other. We took pictures at one and then carried on our way to Swamp Lake. In a short while we were back on the water again and crossed Swamp in relatively short order. This is where we ran into our only trouble navigating and finding where we needed to go. The portage from Swamp lake onto Saganaga Lake is a small 5 rod portage that did not look like any of the other portages we encountered the whole trip. There was only a small opening that allowed a small stream to flow between the two bodies of water. We ended up going past it and found ourselves in a small back bay on Swamp looking over the map to figure out where we were. Once we figured it out and backtracked, we were only off maybe an eighth of a mile so really not bad at all. When we found the portage we didn’t even bother to unload the canoes. We picked them up and carried them across and into Saganaga. Now the real fun could start!
Saganaga is one of the largest lakes in the BWCA and is known to be finicky and temperamental and Saganaga was true to its reputation. The first part of Saganaga heading west from Swamp is really a series of smaller water connected by larger channels and did offer some protection from the wind. At this point we were still blissfully unaware of the wind and waves on the main part of the lake. After looking at the map we decided to stop at a campsite for lunch before getting out on the main part of the lake as we could see the white caps and knew we were in for a challenge. We stopped for about a half hour fueled up and got back to it. The next 2 hours or so would be the toughest paddling we experienced. Our saving grace was that the wind was at our backs. We saw zero canoes going against the wind and we passed more than one campsite on Saganaga with people just sitting there and staring into space, much like we did our first day. As mentioned previously we had the wind to our backs. I say this because a majority of the waves were pushing us as long as we kept the canoe perpendicular to the waves. This is great in theory but harder in practice as we also had rogue waves that would hit us at an angle on the back of the canoe and turn the canoe broadside to the east bound waves. When this happened, the person in the back of the canoe had to really torque on the paddle turned rudder to get the canoe back in position before to many waves hit broadside. I think this would happen once every minute or so and it was a constant struggle. We hugged the shore or at least tried to stay within a decent distance just in case something or someone fell overboard or capsized, we would have a chance to recover it or swim to shore. It felt like we were going so slow when in reality we were moving at a pretty good clip because we had the wind helping us out. And it didn’t help that every "next point" we saw was American Point. We kept small goals and once we accomplished that goal, we made the next small goal. Not soon enough we were around American point and out of the wind. It was amazing the difference it made. Later in our conversation we gave Saganaga the nickname SagaDeath. We estimated the winds were a sustained 15mph with gusts to 25mph with 3-foot rollers. It was quite the experience.
Once we finally got around American Point, we slowed for a stretch and then got back after it to get to the campsite we wanted. I was exhausted both physically and mentally after this and just wanted to get to a campsite and relax. Our goal was one of the four sites on Long Island, preferably one on the western shore making our paddle out the next morning that much easier. As we wove our way in-between the islands, we noticed motorboats parked at some of the campsites and hoped for the best. At last we arrived at site number 395.
Site # 395 is a beautiful site on the western shore of Long Island. The site was out of the wind and had a landing on the channel between Long Island and the island directly to the south and one landing facing east towards the main part of the lake. The site was large and had two parts with plenty of places for tents and trees for hanging hammocks as well as the bear rope. This would be our second favorite site of the trip. The part right off the south landing was pretty open and spacious and this is the place we elected to set up the tents and hammock. A short walk down the path which leads you to the other part of the site which was pretty sheltered and had the USFS fire grate. The logs that were arranged around the fire grate had you looking east over the fire grate through a window in the woods out over the lake. It was beautiful. The latrine was over a small rise towards the back of this part of the site and down the trail in the woods. It was a little darker back there and buggy.
We set up the tarp and then the shelters and hung a bunch of stuff out to dry as we still hadn’t fully dried out from our day one deluge. At this point we were a well-oiled machine and had everything set up, wood chopped and supper going before to long. Nate and Tony decided that since we had some extra time a quick rinse off in the water was in order. It was cold, or so I gathered from their reactions. The swim was short lived and then fishing started. Funny thing is we didn’t catch any fish where they were swimming, probably due to the 4 days of funk that were left in the water……. We managed to pull in a couple smaller smallmouths and then settled around the fire to relax. The weather at this point was perfect. Tony had located a small “bump” on the southeastern side of the island and a perfect place to hang his hammock. We lounged and relaxed and enjoyed our last night in the BWCA.
Distance traveled 9 miles (0.52 miles portage) ~Ester Lake, Ottertrack Lake, Saganaga Lake
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