BWCA Entry Point, Route, and Trip Report Blog
July 02 2025
Entry Point 30 - Lake One
Number of Permits per Day: 13
Elevation: 1230 feet
Latitude: 47.9391
Longitude: -91.4792
My son Remy and I, and my friend Keith and his son Charlie put our canoes into Lake one at 9:30 Monday morning after dropping off a car at the Snowbank Lake landing. Lake One can be tricky to navigate. On our way to Lake Two we turned East too early and ended up paddling about a mile out of our way into a dead-end bay before we realized our mistake. We blamed the fact that Lake One was split between Fisher Maps #10 and #4 for our error. If the entire lake had been visible at once on a single map, we would not have made the wrong turn. Once we got back on course we portaged the 30 rods into a pond and then portaged the 40 rods into Lake Two. The weather was nice, and there was a bit of a tail wind out of the West. We stopped for lunch on the shore of Lake Two. After lunch we canoed through the North end of Lake Three and into Lake Four. We stopped for the night at a campsite on the West shore of Lake Four, just North of the channel heading toward Hudson Lake. We had to battle swarms of mosquitoes as we set up the tents. We then had a nice refreshing swim. Because we had brought steaks along for the first night, we didn't go fishing.
On Tuesday morning we had a bacon and eggs breakfast then packed up camp and headed out in our canoes. As we canoed past our campsite, we realized that Remy & I had left our hammocks pitched between trees. We landed again and quickly packed them up. Once again we had beautiful weather. We paddled East and completed 3 short portages before entering Hudson Lake. The 105 rod portage into Lake Insula was exhausting! Lake Insula is a large gorgeous lake broken up by multiple islands and penninsulas. We had lunch at a campsite on a large island just East of Hudson Lake. It felt like we had a tail wind as we were heading East, and then as we turned North it seemed like the wind shifted and was at our backs once again. We navigated Lake Insula flawlessly and camped for the night on the island just West of Williamson Island. After setting up the tents and a refreshing swim, Remy & I got back into the canoe and tried to catch some fish. We had no luck! At 9PM that night, just as we were going to bed, a thunderstorm rolled through. That night I was awakened several times by the loud croaking of bullfrogs from the shallows around our island. What noisy neighbors!
By Wednesday morning the weather had cleared, but the wind was now coming from the Northwest, pretty much in our faces. We paddled to the North end of Lake Insula and tackled the largest portage of our trip. The 180 rod walk to Kiana Lake actually seemed easier than the 105 rod carry into Lake Insula. We headed onward into Thomas Lake where we really started feeling the headwind. We finally made it to the campsite just Northeast of the portage into Thomas Pond in time for lunch. After lunch we proceeded across Thomas Pond and into Thomas Creek after hiking across the famous Kekekabic Trail. We managed to easily run the rapids in Thomas Creek and avoid the 2 short portages. We camped for the night on Hatchet Lake at the northern campsite. It was cool and windy, so we didn't swim. There was lots of threatening weather going by to the North of us, but we stayed dry. After supper we canoed back to Thomas Creek to fish and look for moose. No luck on either count, but we did see a beaver swimmming.
The weather was nice again Thursday morning, but the wind was out of the West which was the direction we were heading. We portaged into Ima Lake and canoed across it. Before portaging into Jordan Lake, we watched a bald eagle sitting in a tree get harrassed repeatedly by a seagull. The narrow channel leading into Jordan Lake is quite beautiful. It is narrow like a river with big rock outcroppings. We paddled across Jordan, Cattyman, Adventure, and Jitterbug Lakes. We found the Eastern campsite on Ahsub Lake taken, so we camped at the Western campsite which had a great place for swimming in front of it. There was a very brave loon in front of the campsite who didn't seem to mind if we got close to it. We tried our luck at fishing, but only caught 1 smallmouth which was too small to eat. Between 5:00 and 7:30 that evening we saw a number of canoes heading across Ahsub Lake from Disappointment Lake to Jitterbug Lake. We weren't sure where they were planning to camp, but it was getting late.
On Friday we awoke again to good weather. We paddled the length of Disappointment Lake and portaged into to Parent Lake and then on to Snowbank Lake. It was July 4th, and as we entered Snowbank Lake the sounfd of firecrackers reminded us we weren't in the wilderness anaymore. After a brief splash war on our way across Snowbank, we made it to the landing and our car was still there. What a great trip!
Homer Lake solo....D'oh!!!
Entry Date:
July 21, 2014
Entry Point:
Homer Lake
Exit Point:
Brule Lake (41)
Number of Days:
4
Group Size:
1
I spend Sunday night packing and checking my multiple lists to make sure I have everything I need. Come Monday morning, I'm off to the woods, making the drive up from St Cloud, MN. Near Two Harbors, I have a slight worry....Did I forget to put my clothes in the car? I pull over in the Shopko parking lot, and sure enough, no clothes. Ugh. Somehow I left them at home on the table.
So it's into Shopko I go. This is a short trip, and I already have more camping clothing than I need or wear, so I'm not going to buy any more than I absolutely need. Some socks and a pair of nylon shorts should get me through, as I can wear what I have on, too. Back on the road, until....
I have a nagging worry that I'm missing something else. Sure enough, a quick check of the car reveals a missing sleeping bag. D'oh. Feeling quite sheepish, I stop at Sawtooth Outfitters to pick up a bag before driving up the Caribou Trail to head into Homer. At the lake, mine is the only car in the parking lot. Off I go, paddling "backwards" in my ugly old Penobscot 16.
It is oppressively hot. So I get lazy and figure that I'll camp on Homer instead of pushing on farther. I take the island site, get stuff set up, and try to relax. It's too hot, though, so I jump in the lake, but I can barely dry off, so I laze about, swat bugs, fish a bit, and read. It's really hot.
No fire for me tonight. I head to bed early and am awoken late in the evening by some nasty, nasty storms. Lots of wind and rain. I'm saddened to learn upon exiting that someone died in this storm from a tree falling on his tent. Terrible news, but given that wind, I can't say I'm terribly surprised that some people were injured in the storm.
The day is gray and getting progressively windier. It's very gusty by the time I paddle out of camp, having taken my time trudging around the muddy campsite while packing up. It's significantly cooler than the previous day. Periodic sprinkles mingle with the wind to make paddling west-northwest quite unpleasant, but I prefer it, I guess, to the oppressive calm of the day before. When I turn up into Vern Lake, there are surprisingly large waves for such a small lake. I fight the waves up the lake and make it to the campsite on the western side of the lake right about the time the rain starts to slack off. The wind, alas, keeps up until just before sunset.
My original plan had been to explore into Pipe and/or up into Juno today. While I'm not exactly windblown, paddling my tandem canoe backwards in wind like this isn't any fun. Plus, it's too windy to fish, so I luxuriate in the cooler weather (bug-free, too, by the way) reading books, the newspaper, and drinking Nescafe with sugar in it. This "coffee" is undrinkable when not in a third-world country or in the woods, but on a windy point with a good book in the Boundary Waters, it tastes...well, still crappy. But it's drinkable. :)
The night is uneventful. Windy all day. Pretty typical post-storm high pressure is moving in, and the skies eventually clear and stay that way for most of the rest of the trip. I finish an entire book and head to bed. I catch one dinky pike casting off shore, but that's about it. I know that sometime during the day I realized I'd not brought something, but I can't remember now what I forgot.
The book I read yesterday was "Lost in the Wild." It's about two young men who get lost on foot in the BWCA/Quetico region (I won't tell you the ending!). So I grad a map, compass, and bag and head into the bush behind camp to look for mushrooms. I'm an avid mushroom hunter, and it's become one of my favorite ways to spend a cool afternoon in the BWCA. I find TONS of mushrooms, but not much for edibles. No chanterelles yet, no king boletes, no lobsters. Most of the edible stuff I find isn't worth picking, so I leave them all alone.
After lunch, I head down to Pipe Lake to do some fishing and exploring. I fish my way down Vern and catch nothing. The paths into Pipe are easy to find and short. The fish in Pipe are very active. First cast....fish. Second cast...fish. Either I'm an amazing fisherman or these are dumb fish. I end up catching 15 or 20 on the east end of the lake, all on topwater in the middle of the day in the middle of July. It's fun.
I meander my way down the lake, fishing here and there, catching a few, and checking out the campsites when I get there. The campsites on Pipe are small, which is to be expected. The one farthest east is the best, in my opinion. I'll try to get reviews up online for those who are thinking of venturing in here. In the evening I do more fishing (without much luck) and have a nice fire. The lows tonight get down to the low-40's apparently, and the synthetic 40 degree bag I've rented from the outfitters doesn't keep me warm. If I wasn't such an idiot, I'd also have long pants and a fleece with, but those are sitting at home, too.
I sleep fitfully and am up early, ready to head home. My goal with this little trip was to see an area of the BWCA I've never seen without having to worry *too much* about big wind. Tomorrow's trip up to Brule will get me back on "old" water, but if it's windy, I'll head out the way I came in to avoid the bigger water.
The morning is incredibly foggy. I decide to head out through Juno and Brule, but not having been that way before, I'm a bit hesitant in the fog. I figure by the time I make it to the big lake, the fog will have lifted, and the shape of Vern and Juno makes getting lost quite difficult (famous last words?). So I head northwest to Juno. A few feet off shore, I'm completely enveloped in fog. I can't see either shoreline. I've never been in fog this dense before.
But...this is Vern Lake. There's nowhere to get lost, so I meander northwestish in a creepy, surreal world. Time passes, and eventually I'm at the end of the lake. Portage into Juno, head east, and it's more of the same, though the rising sun lets me know I'm heading in the correct decision, and the tops of the trees are just starting to poke their heads through the fog.
By the time I get to Brule, the fog is mostly gone, though it's lingering the bays and small wisps of it are wafting over the water. I've been on Brule a few times now, and each and every time it's been like glass. This morning is no exception. The lake is big and beautiful...there's little I like more than paddling a canoe on flat-calm big water. I'd hate to be fighting this old Penosbscot in the wind on this lake, but I'm lucky. If it had been a windy morning, I just would've exited the way I entered.
I land at Brule and start walking to the car at Homer. Guess what? I forgot my car keys in the bag, so I head back and get them. The car starts, I drive to Brule, and get loaded and on the way.
I'm sorry for the lack of photos, but I'm sure you can guess why. I forgot my camera/phone in the car.