The hills are bare of leaves with the willow flowers and Aspen catkins the only signs of spring. My arms were barking but I slowly got the hang of paddling my craft. It’s slow going that’s for sure, but mom and dad eased their pace so that I could keep up. We passed rocky islands, fishing mergansers, and soaring eagles on our way to the first portage. We had to do the dreaded double portage method due to our added vessel and extra food and layers of clothes. Luckily we are not in a hurry to find a site and the only people we’ve seen were headed back in.

Lots of beaver activity down Ada Creek! Fresh beaver chewed sticks lined the boggy shores. We had a quick snack at the start of Cherokee Creek on our way to our destination for the night: Cherokee Lake. It was good to take a short breather after that portage. The downside of coming out this early in the year is the accumulated winter tree debris across the trail. There were several large tree trunks to step over! As warned, the portages were very muddy and had standing water in sections. I’m definitely glad I chose to wear my xtra tuff boots as the water definitely would have gone over the waterproofing in my hiking shoes.

The water on Cherokee Creek was glass smooth as we glided under tall rock outcrops drooping with lichen. We turned into the lake and nearly paddled the whole length before settling on a peninsula site on the east shore with a dense canopy of large white cedar trees. Immediately upon landing, a loon wailed in the distance: a sign that we were home! The camp kitchen was spacious with excellent seating options and the camp area was spacious and open with an understory of Canada Yew. Cedar scent wafted through the air… mmm!

Our entertainment for the night was watching a pair of loons bathe loudly off our point. Their white bellies glowing as they flipped upside down and flapped their wings madly. Dinner was delicious: Moroccan spiced couscous with chicken, dehydrated sweet potatoes, and chick peas. We kindled an evening fire from a stack of wood that someone left behind in a nice neat pile (birchbark and all). There’s plenty of downed branches from the winter ice storms to scavenge too. Light sprinkles came late and we decided to call it a night.

An odd thing happened today: while it’s normal to find maybe one thing that a paddler has forgotten at a portage during a trip, we found four. Four items on four consecutive portages. A Gerber multi-tool, a pair of leather boots (and socks), a bucket hat, and a pair of brand new crocs. Weird! ~Sawbill Lake, Ada Lake, Skoop Lake, Cherokee Lake