Forecast: Sunny with 30% chance of Thunderstorms high of 79° Low of 60°

Lakes: One, Two, Three, Four, Kawishiwi River, Hudson, Insula, and Alice

Total Miles Traveled: 21.1

We all start to stir about 6:15 and grab our gear and head down to the main building and transfer our gear to the Suburban that will take us and our canoe to Lake One. We have decided to leave our van at Moose Lake and come out there instead of a complete loop.

7:25 we arrive at Lake One. There is a group of 9 trying to get situated; they have a lot of gear and 4 canoes. They have to call back one that is already on the water for forgotten gear already. We on the other hand have 3 packs, and a small day pack with cooking supplies, we are loaded and on the water in 5 minutes.

We head off down the lakes, water is calm. I soon find myself in an interesting situation. I have never rear seated in a 3 man with the person in the middle and front both paddling. I have always rear seated a MN II. We decided if we want to get far we will keep up with the 3 man paddle, and I start to tweak my J-Stroke quite a bit, I spend more time steering in the beginning but eventually I make it look like we know like we know what we are doing (I hope!)

The portages are quick and easy. Paul announces that he will do all the portages till he says other wise and Bill and I are happy with that. We decide to float the 10r between Lake Four and the Kawishiwi. I take a small fall get a little scraped, but no big deal. As we hit the Eastern edge of Hudson the skies are becoming overcast with winds picking up out of the NW. We decide to do the 105r portage and stop on Insula grab lunch and decide our next course of action.

We hit the 1st campsite on Insula spend an hour eating lunch and deciding the weather isn’t too bad and to continue till we decide to stop. We start to head out and Insula has some good chop. The fact that I keep looking at the map instead of setting a point and heading to it doesn’t help as we fight the waves. We are still however able to maintain a fairly straight course and an average speed of 3.4mph. We continue on to the Kawishiwi and up towards Alice when we come to a fork in the river, both paths leading to Alice. We decide to go left and end up being blocked by a beaver dam that is actually a dam blocking the river not a lodge on the shore line. Rather than disturb the habitat we make the 10 min trip back to the fork and head the other way up. As we approach the mouth we can see the camp site directly across is occupied, no surprise to us as it is now 5:30pm. We head to the west and find the first campsite on the southern shore as a decent one. 3 tent pads around the main area and 4 more off various paths leading away.

My turn for dinner tonight, so I start the fire and toss on the corn on the cob while we set up our tents. The corn is devoured! And I start preparing the second course of mac and cheese with hard salami tossed in. Again this is devoured.

Paul and I decided to take a quick trip on the lake and Paul gets in some rear seat time as he has never really had the experience. He picks up quickly (most likely by ignoring everything I told him) and we head back. We spend some time around the campfire and eventually head off to bed around 9:30. I lay on top of my bag with no shirt until 1:30 then I crawled into my bag, not a bad night at all.