DAY 4, AUGUST 31, THREE MILE TO MAPLE; 6.25 miles, four portages (540, 660, 1500, 400 meters; almost two miles of portage!)

Up with the sun. Do-rag coffee, hash browns, and bacon for breakfast, then broke camp. On the water around 8:30, and paddled up Three Mile Lake to the 540-meter portage into North Sylvia Lake. What a beautiful walk through the woods, with the trail lined with Mosses, Blue Bead Lilies, Wood Sorrel, and the foliage of Trillium, Canadian Dogwood, and Pink Lady Slippers. It was a short paddle on North Sylvia to the 660-meter portage into Boggy Lake; this portage was probably the most in need of maintenance of all the portages we traveled during this trip, and had many broken or missing boards in the bog bridges. Boggy Lake is appropriately named, with the shoreline covered with Sundews, Pitcher Plants, and a late-blooming Bog Laurel that gave us the opportunity for several good photos. We'd love to see this lake in spring when the entire shoreline is aflame with the Bog Laurel.

The portage from Boggy Lake to Dahinda Lake is 1500 meters, but mostly old road bed so not too steep. The put-in at Dahinda, however, was a nasty surprise—what looked like 8” of water with a leaf-littered bottom had NO bottom. Stepping in, I was instantly waist deep with a canoe and drybag pack on my shoulders. No injury or damage (except to my pride); the camera inside my fanny pack was also in a small drybag. We paddled from Dahinda into Ratrap Lake. The landing for the Ratrap to Maple portage was especially busy, with two young crews coming into Ratrap and a family of three following us into Maple. Maple Lake was our destination lake for Day 4, and again we were on the lake before lunch. Our route tomorrow is out of the northwest arm of Maple, but we stopped for lunch on an island site that impressed us enough that we decided it was home for the night. The site had nice southern exposure with evening and morning sun. There were several tent pad options, easy bear bag hang, and something we hadn't seen before: duct tape lashing on someone's campcraft project.

Curried chicken couscous for dinner. The wind died around 7:00, and we sat on the rock ledge above the lake playing Farkle and reading McManus. Sunset was beautiful, and we were in bed shortly after. A nature call around 4:00 am rewarded us with brilliant stars and moonlight, both from the sky and reflecting off the lake.