Woke up before God and the sun to hit the road from the Twin Cities to Ely, unsure of exactly what the week ahead would bring. Five guys who are strangers to three of the other four are getting together for four days and three nights of wilderness fellowship. We're all mutual friends of one group member, having never met the others. We meet up at Piragis around 9am to get our permit, watch our video, and (based on the bug reports we hear) rent a bug-out tent to fill out our gear which has been sourced by each of us via group text. After a scone and a cup of coffee we make our way down the Fernberg trail to the entry point at Lake One.

Its a beautiful July morning and we're happy for sun and stillness after a wet and windy June. Boats go in the water around 10am and we make our way north and east through the channel past Kawishiwi Lodge (I was semi-shocked to see a "billboard" for the lodge in my first 15 minutes of a wilderness trip but the paddle through the river there was beautiful nonetheless).

We make our way fairly swiftly across Lake One till we arrive at the portages into Lake Two. I'm shocked at the "two-lane highway" between the lakes. A wide and relatively smoothed portage took us from Lake One, to a short pond paddle, another moderately painless trek, then Lake Three. These wide and well traveled portages are a novelty to me as most of my trips so far have been further up on less traveled lakes on the "gunflint side". The member of our group who's gone in this EP a number of times calls this portage "Grand Central Station".

Our plan is to make it a fairly leisurely paddle to Lake Three and find a site down on the far south section of the lake. After a pleasant hour of paddling including many loons and bald eagles to accompany us, skies begin to darken quickly and thunder rolls to the west. We commit to finding a site soon. As we paddle through the Islands, points, and channels of the south end of Lake Three, most sites are occupied and rain and wind is starting to pick up. I spot what looks like a site on a small island but is unmarked on our Fisher map. We get out to explore and find it is a fine place to make camp with a nice rocky area with a fire grate on a point and a large erratic boulder that serves as a perfect kitchen table. Many fair spots for tents and hammocks are spread out on the little island and we are very happy to find it.

We set up camp and rain lets up soon afterwards. The south shore of Lake Three was a sad victim of the Pagami Creek fire, but this little Island looks as is it were spared of the fire with many tall mature Red Pine and thick cedars, healthy balsam, a few spruce, and plenty of rocky shelfs and points. I'm very satisfied with camp. Up above a swampy little point on a high rocky ledge I hang my hammock and tarp allowing a nice view of the western sky for sunset. We have a late dinner of carne asada burritos cooked over the fire, admire a sunset, and then all retire early as the bugs come out in earnest around 9:45p.