DAY FIVE:

Another beautiful calm morning, very peaceful and quiet. We found ourselves sleeping in late—just beginning to stir at 7 AM. It was 47 degrees in the tent and 50 outside. I sorted through clothing to find clean socks, changed into clean clothing, and crawled out of the tent at 7:30, to find the mist all gone and Neil tending a nice fire under the bright green tarp. We enjoyed eggs, bacon strips (I surely do appreciate the precooked bacon) and a Bisquick bannock cooked in the frying pan for our breakfast. All of this accompanied, of course, by the ubiquitous Tang, hot chocolate and coffee.

This was a more summery morning, warmer and more humid. We broke camp, and by 10:50 we were on our way back to Sawbill Lake, where we would spend our last night before heading back to what most people call “civilization”. We took a path along the shore side of an island and managed to slide up onto a well-hidden underwater boulder, so now we have some new scrapes on the bottom of our Northwind! Another case of the bow paddler looking ahead to spot (non-existent) wildlife and not paying attention to the task at hand. Sigh.

It is a pretty paddle through another branch of the Kelso River to the portage to Sawbill Lake. The portage is short (13 rods) and has two different approaches from the river side, but only one put-in at Sawbill. I thought this one branch of yellow leaves high up in the birch tree seemed like another harbinger of autumn:

We paddled up to the northwest bay of a remarkably calm Sawbill Lake and took the next-to-last campsite after finding that the ones we thought we wanted were already occupied. We waited for a group of six ladies to leave, and chatted with them briefly. They were from “the Cities”, and had been on Frost Lake for several days, but were headed “back to work”.

The site isn’t great, but has a scenic quality about it, with a sort of elevated reading nook full of rocks on one end and a pathway along the lake at the other. I photographed a rather interesting pink flower (I found out later this is the remnants of fireweed), and various fungi, and enjoyed the warm afternoon outdoors while Neil rested in the tent. At 2:30 our little thermometer read 82 degrees and the lake was completely calm; by 4:00 it was breezier and some clouds were gathering. We heard a few isolated rumbles of thunder about suppertime, but never had any rain and the sky over us always looked pleasant.

This site has a short biffy trail that you approach by stepping up on a couple of stair steps in a small boulder on the hillside. The biffy is one of the very newest—I would say it had been put in during the summer, as the dirt around it seemed newly arranged. It was green —a novelty! Go GREEN!! :-) Made me wish for a Spartan sticker!

There were red squirrels chattering around along the path while I was photographing the fungi, and also along the biffy trail, but they never came to visit us, so our record of no photographs of furry creatures on an entire trip managed to stay intact. I do believe this is a first!

We cooked supper on the stove this evening, Mountain House turkey tetrazini, Mountain House green peas, Cache Lake blueberry scones, and Cache Lake hot apple dessert, plus coffee. Over supper Neil broke the news that he didn’t find a good hanging tree, so we decided to put one pack under the canoe and hang the other one over the leaning tree on the biffy trail. Not an ideal situation, but on our last night, it would have to do.

We both sat outside and read our books until moonrise. This was the full moon, and it was very beautiful. Our campsite was situated perfectly to enjoy the moon rising over the trees and the lake, and the lovely summer evening with a minimum annoyance of just a few mosquitoes made for a great last night experience.

We were in bed at 8:50. We certainly wouldn’t be sleep-deprived after this relaxing trip! ;)