The plan, since I worked on Wednesday was to get up there as soon as possible which i figured would be 8 PM and then we would have enough light hopefully to find a site and then set up camp. We made it by 745 so we started out ahead of schedule for once. We were able to get the island campsite which is what we really wanted so we wouldn't have to worry about the dogs. There was no wind and it was a nice easy paddle. We had already ate so we kind of stayed up and had some drinks. I brought some beer from Canal Park Brewery (steel growler) for the first night and then off to bed we went. [paragraph break] The next day was just a lazy day….in fact that is what this trip was meant to be, relaxing. Some laid in hammocks, some went fishing, some took care of the baby (8 months), some gathered wood, etc. Well the people who went fishing came back empty handed so I told them I would go out and get some fish. I took my nephew Jason and we went in the channel between two islands and I caught 3 really nice smallmouth and kept one. Got back to the site a few hours later and everyone said that they didn’t like Bass but it was a little late to be telling me that. On this night we all stayed up late hoping to see the Northern Lights but the moon was so bright that you could barely even see the stars. It was like a spot light on our campsite. We drank some whiskey and Rumplemintz and stayed up late anyways. [paragraph break] Since it was so bright, around 1130 or midnight I asked people if they wanted to go out and paddle the lake and my sister was up for the task. Like I said earlier it was so bright out that we could easily navigate without any lights. At one point we got close to shore a long ways away from camp and I asked my sister how creepy it would be to see something standing in the water which freaked her out so we went out a little deeper. As we were paddling it appeared that someone flashed their headlamp at us so my sister flashed hers back. They replied with some more flashing so we slowly headed in their direction. When we got closer we could kind of see them and they told us to come on in, so we did. Once we landed on shore they came up to help. They thought we were looking for a site but we informed that we weren’t. They told us that they were a group of teenagers that built their own canoes through some program. One of the guys was older and no doubt the leader of the group. Well we talked for a while and then off we went back towards camp. Everyone was still awake but tired so we all retired for the night. [paragraph break] Friday was more of the same though this time other people were starting to catch fish. The baby was doing great and sleeping great at night. So far there hadn’t been any problems. Not much happened on this day and it was more of an earlier night. Friday night it stormed like crazy. My sister’s tent collapsed in the middle of the night, the dogs were all scared. However, I did not wake up at all. I guess I just have an easy time sleeping out there. Nothing too bad happened though. That morning we all packed our stuff to head out. [paragraph break] A few things to note…The bugs were almost non-existent but I had a screen house just in case, there was a hornet nest nearby so we had them flying around a lot, island was the best idea for the dogs, and it was Lilie’s first BWCA trip. [paragraph break]
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