(Mexican Hat Lake, Unnamed Lake, Unnamed Lake, Unnamed Lake, Jake Lake Lunch Lake, East Lunch Lake, Unnamed Lake, Unnamed Lake, Unnamed Lake, Bunny Lake)

Waking up on the last full day of our trip was hard to do. I was not motivated to continue on and break camp. Laying there snug in my sleeping bag listing to the surging waters was perfect and I had no desire to be anywhere else. The realization that the trip was almost over started to bring on a melancholy feeling. I had warned my wife before the trip that I might “go feral” and resort back to a primitive man with tusks to root through the dirt, but I guess it wasn’t going to happen. We would eventually have to return to the modern would. Oh well, maybe next year.    The morning greeted us with another sunny day. We gathered our gear and cooked breakfast. Camp was packed away and we were again on the move. The portage was just a short paddle away and followed the waterfall up stream across a series of unnamed lakes broken up by the occasional waterfall. Each time we would reach a set of waterfalls, the fishing would start. The pike sitting below the falls were eager and hungry. We would catch a few of them then land the boat at the portage and start off to the next lake.    We eventually reached Jake Lake and tried to catch a few lakers before we would stop for lunch on Lunch Lake. To our dismay, we were not going to be eating fish for lunch as only a couple of pike were caught. We did end up stopping on Lunch Lake and eating a fishless lunch on a small and windy island. We could tell we were getting close to an entry point of the park by the amount of litter on the island. It wasn’t that there was a lot by any means, but it was the first time since we entered the park that we had noticed much if any. After Lunch we portaged over to East Lunch Lake and slowly paddled through the twisting stretches of the lake through a lowland, that was rocky and sparsely forested. We had high hopes of seeing something in the swampy coves but only a couple mergansers were around. At the south end of the lake the orienteering was a little difficult due to all of the different coves. We managed to choose the correct one and reached the portage. Again, we marched and paddled over and to a series of unnamed lakes before we reached Bunny Lake. And again, they were “pikey”.

   We made the last portage of the day onto Bunny Lake. The end of the portage landed on the lake in a dark watered bog that was difficult to navigate. Trying to keep the canoe over head, while balancing on logs in the dark water was difficult to do. It was almost too much to handle at the end of a long day of travel but we managed.

   On Bunny Lake we traveled north in an attempt to find good fishing and a suitable campsite. The waves were beginning to roll as we spread out over the lake. Chet and I followed a cliff side on the west shore and ducked out of the waves for a bit but decided to move into deeper water after neither of us had any hits. We passed by an island and met up with the others about halfway up the lake. With none of us having any luck fishing, we decided to duck out of the waves again and review the map. We had marked a campsite on the lake next to the portage we would take in the morning so we decided to head there and set up camp. We started to fish and meander our way to the campsite. Greg and Brian were at the south end of the lake and heading down a bay to the east that led to the campsite. On the south end of the lake we had our second encounter with people since entering Woodland Caribou. Two guys in a canoe starting off on their own adventure, paddling toward the portage we came from. We waved and paddled on to the campsite. When we reached the site we quickly hunted for a place to set up a tent. Space at this site was limited but we managed to squeeze in. The forest around the site was full of small pine trees and plenty of good firewood. After we set up camp, we opted to stay on shore and lazily fish from camp. A loon shyly inspected our camp from the lake while we sat on shore intent on catching something. No fish were to be had.   We had an early dinner and topped it off with our traditional last night snack. It was Chad’s pillow, a vacuum packed bag of marshmallows. We stood around the fire and toasted them over the fire while reminiscing about the trip.

  After all our water bottles were filled and the foodbag was packed we had to hang it. Even with very few trees to choose from and us being a little slap-stick at the time we managed to hang it off a flimsy pine. The tree arched over from the weight of the bag and the tension of the ropes, and the tip was almost touching the ground. The foodbag was just high enough for us to be satisfied, right over a tent. We figured if anything was going to go after it, we would know about it.