Sunday, June 21, 2020 – Today we began the Journey out of the BWCA, it had been a wonderful 5 nights on Thomas with great day trips to Fraser and Sagus. But all trips have beginnings and endings, and our trip was ending soon. We were hesitant to leave, and had walleye and pancakes for breakfast. After we got everything packed up, we headed to the Kiana portage. This was an interesting lake, and like all lakes we visit, it would be nice if we had days to explore and see if there were any fish or interesting items to capture digitally, and sometimes to enjoy without taking the picture. Reminds me of the movie “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” where the Sean Penn character has been waiting to capture the Snow Leopard on film and when it comes into view, he tells Walter, “If I like a moment – I don’t like the distraction of the camera, I like to just stay in the moment”. Sometimes I wonder if I miss part of the moment trying to capture it. But then again, I sometimes think I enjoy the moment more by capturing it. It is amazing how many times we have stopped to take pictures of insects. The amazing part of my trips with Peter (besides getting to eat fish) is that we both have grown from them. Peter has learned to slow down and enjoy the journey and I have learned much about the wilderness from the science teacher. Back to the journey, we made it through Kiana and reached Insula about 3pm. There was a merganser sitting on a rock, and as I waited for Peter, I took many pictures, but nothing I was happy with – lost opportunity. But it was me and the Merganser for a good 10 minutes. We paddled up the long arm of Insula and as we got into the main body of water, the wind picked up, we turned the corner and saw campsite 1323 and made the decision to stop for the day at about 4:30. The sun was out and the campsite was beautiful. Soon I was taking pictures of flowers and insects, even though I had no idea what their names were, I captured a Clear winged moth and a common threaded-waist wasp. Still not sure what the flowers were, but some day I will be more interested in that. After having another great dinner and getting set up for the night, we went out for some evening fishing. As we paddled out from the beach, I cast into about 2 feet of water, and as Peter said “you won’t catch anything up there”, I hooked a 20” walleye and he shortly caught another. We worked around the corner we had come from into the Kawishiwi river channel and Peter hooked something big, but we never did see it, and the bite ended. We got back to camp and slept our final night in the BWCA for the trip.