It was time to quit Insula. We’ll be back.

Retracing our steps on a warm, grey morning, we encountered our first people in two days on the portage into Hudson. Two moose hunters with a, a...moose haunch.

These guys had nads the size of bowling balls. We talked to them walking back over the portage & at the end. They had: 4 haunches, two buckets full of tenderloins & other meat, a big rack, two packs, & a heavy square-sterned aluminum canoe they carried in tandem. For those keeping score at home, that’s fourteen, 1-4, trips across this 104 rods. They estimated each haunch, lashed to a birch branch, weighed around 100 lbs. & each bucket around 60. It was about 10AM. They looked whipped. One, sitting with his head down, breathing hard, said “I know we don’t look it, but this is one of the best days of our lives.”

That’s hardcore.

We spent the rest of the day on Hudson, catching a few more pike, smallies, & small eyes. We paddled the long, winding creek (the Ahmoo River?) running south of our island campsite until our progress was blocked by a flimsy beaver dam, & what we believed to be the creek from Tremolo Lake flowing in noisily from the east.

In the still of the day the clouds began to break, & the sun reappeared, temps surging into the low 60s. I took off my shirt just to be able to say I went topless in the BWCA in October. The warm sun felt magnificent.

I’m not sure of any of the other campsites on Hudson, but I’d highly recommend the island campsite. I suspect with any serious effort, one could catch fish off the sharp drop right out front, too. Reluctantly, we retired for our last night of peace in the BWCA.