Well we got in our canoes and came across our 3rd crew for the day. We paddled on in the wind shadow of shore of the South Arm of Knife. Then found a nice sand shored campsite. We hit the shore and got to work. This time a little smoother and better organized. The water got brought in, tent erected, canoe brought up for a table. This is when the phrase “Somebody, not Doug” got patented. As Bacon was moving something to under the canoe, it started to tip to its side and all the things on top started to slide and fall off. But since no one else was around when Bacon claimed “It wasn’t me” we all gave him an odd look. Well Charlie asked what happened and I explained…”Somebody, NOT DOUG, tipped over the canoe.” We all got a good chuckle from that and the phrase suck. After that we went off to set up the bear ropes. Again we had fun tossing the “rope rock” (a swiss seat tired in a tight contractors knot) after several tries we finally nailed the first end up. Then we tired getting the second end up. That went a little better but we still took 5-6 tries. When we got back Chris had almost gotten dinner all cooked. I got to work and made up the cheese cake. We ate and it was delicious. Pasta, peas, tuna and parm cheese, Yum! Then topped off the meal with Jell-o’s Strawberry Cheese cake. It was most excellent. I took the time after the meal to try a little fishing. The sun was almost done setting as I walked along the waters edge and started casting out. After maybe 5-6 casts, I got a hit! It jumped up the first time and I first thought this fella is tiny. Well a little closer in it jumped again and this was no little fella. It was a good sized walleye. Eatable! Just as I got ready to really start fighting him in. he splashed one last time and got free of the hook. Damn!!! But I wanted to at least get even a minnow wheeled in. So I kept casting and yet another 5-6 casts I got a hit again. Man the rattle trap is really working tonight. This time the jumper was small and I thought I set the hook but after just one jump the little guy got free. I casted maybe 30 more times after that and got nothing. Now that it was dark. I packed up my rod and we went to set up the Bear Bag. We were using a single long rope and it just wasn’t paying out. The darn thing pulled like crap and was hard to tie off. But after some fussing and cursing we finally got it up in the air to at least taunt the bear for a while. When we got back to camp the night sky was pretty clear and beautiful. The stars were out in force. For a good 15 minutes we cranked our necks skyward and enjoyed the view. After that we made for the tent and to bed.

Oh yeah I forgot to add the part about Bacon’s throwing knife. For some reason Doug really want to “help along” the wild life at the camp around diner time. There was an awfully fat bunny that kept eating the grass beside our tent. Well swift little Douglas was going to get him with his little slim throwing knife. The bunny seemed oblivious to Bacons ninja like walking skills as he “snuck up” to the bunny. Now I just warned Doug, that if he made a hole in the tent, I’d use the knife on him. Undaunted he threw and just missed the bunny. The bunny now taking the time to acknowledge Doug as small threat just popped up its ears and hopped into a bush to eat. Bacon retrieving his knife slowly gave pursuit. Well now that Bacon was getting closer with his knife and after a couple other misses. The bunny had enough and took to the woods. But a ground squinty was still quite interested in our garbage. Bacon now miffed about the bunny thought he could get the much more wily critter. And with a swift fling of his wrist the knife flew and TWANG!!! Now by this part of the trip I know I had explained at least once that there isn’t a whole lot of dirt here and where there is it is usually only just a dusting over the rocks below. Well Doug’s nice shiny throwing is now a nice shiny crocheting knife. The tip had just bent around a lot 180 degrees. Needless to say we had a good laugh.

08.31.2010 Did I mention I hate 6am! I’m going to petition to have that time remove from all clocks! We got some really early morning rain yet again as well. We packed up our tent goods and crawled out into the morning dawn. We trotted off and lowered the bear bag. After last night’s frustration with the single rope, I talked Doug into cutting it in half. This will hopefully make our bear hanging a lot easier. Well we boiled up some water and enjoyed some breakfast. Now while the rest of us were enjoying our hot cocoa, I finally noticed Charlie had to enjoy his instant coffee. After a little ribbing, the nickname “Coffee” was born. Perhaps if Chris and I can go by Eggs & Toast, we could be the breakfast bunch. Ok perhaps not, yeah no. We continued on and packed up camp.

Now all we needed to do was just run across the bay go behind the island and over a 30 road portage to get in to big Knife. Well we went around what looked like an island, then across a really short 5 rodder and came into another bay. We continued out into some nice wind, turned east and rounded a point. But something wasn’t matching up. The map says that there should be land to the north not another bay…Shit! Okay WTF? Well after some closer examining and a little help from Bacon’s GPS we apparently hit another portage just to the west and are one bay over yet. Ok that debacle is over. Well now that we are on the right course the wind is really starting to kick up. Even though it is at our backs, there are lots of rollers and even a few full on white caps. We stopped for potty break and for a snack as we got into the last large part of Knife. The border markers are oddly phallic. And the guy that did the last paint job should be fired. So after some nice beef stix and a little Kool-Aid we got back in and paddled. We hit Little Knife Portage and I had to ask the guy show they felt b/c there 3-4 campsite right around this area then it is a good 6 miles to the next one on Ottertrack , then another mile or 2 to the next group. They guys said they wanted to check out the first set. And low and behold the first one right on the portage trail was open. Now I’m not sure if I had mentioned this but in the WAC you go with what you first find because more that likely if you pass it up the next 10 are taken! So even though it was only like 2:30 ish we made camp. I know, a little weak, but better than having to paddle another 3+ hours.

So we start setting up camp. Bacon and I went to get drinking water. For some reason Bacon had a spit of energy and paddled like hell to get out into the lake so I spent a lot of my paddling trying to compensate. We returned to shore with four gallons in tow. Coffee and Chris started setting up the table canoe and tent. Chris got a dry line set up. Doug…err Bacon, scoured the area looking for the best tent site. After about 20 minutes and me sliding (falling really) down the ledge rock to go to the biffy, he comes back and says about 80 yards into the bush there is a great rock that has like 4” of moss on top. I just rolled my eyes and told him to take a vote. I voted against hiking back 80 yards through the bush in the dark. Since we had some time I started to completely rebuild the fire place. First I tore down the stack of rocks that were pretending to be a surround. I dug out all the soot and coals. Then I started relaying the rocks into a proper fire grate surround. And While I’m doing that Chris has assembled a lot of wood and started going to town sawing it up. Then he got more. Lot’s more! He just didn’t wanted to sit down and enjoy the view. I was worried he might start going for live trees. Well it as about time for Bacon to do something memorable again and without fail he had found an 8” long hunk of cedar he was bound to split. So out from the hip sheath comes his Bowie knife. He lodges it into the end grain then gets a thick stick and starts beating on the back of the blade to force it through….1 swing , 2…twang!!! The epoxied-on finger guard became un-epoxied and went bouncing off. Bacon is just having the worst luck with his knifes. Well Chris found a wedge shaped rock and attacked the log. Minutes later ( or perhaps 30) he hands over 2 halves. I took some time after that layout on a rock and let my feet dry and dry out. That lasts until I get uncomfortable, so I grabbed my sandals and rod and tried fishing the bay on the other side of the portage. No luck, not even a nibble and luckily no snags either. So I came back to camp and finally sat down and grabbed my journal and started this great tale. I hate writing so I made it only far enough to record the first couple of days. Well now it is time to toss up the bear bag ropes (we have 2 now) so we all strolled into the woods and started spotting trees for good candidates. Well even though we have the rope rock and good rope, baseball- ing the rigging up there is still an art. And apparently we were not artist today. Though finally we did get the setup done. Thankfully (yes thank you Doug for letting us cut the rope) there will be no fancy cobbled up knots to make a single rope work.

About now it is time to start prepping dinner. Tonight is premier of my fancy, patent pending, wonder tail oven. So I start by forgetting to grease the pan and mixed the “just add water” muffins right in Jell-o mold. I just used my fork to whisk and let it set up for a minute or 2 while “Simmer,” my oldest peak1, warmed up. Then I just set up the oven rig on the burner and adjusted the flame to low. I added a thermometer to keep an eye on the temps and 21 minutes later (the long time noted on the packaging) I put out the flame and give it the toothpick test…perfect! Then while the muffins cooled I cooked up the rest of dinner, MRE beef pack and dried potato slices. It wasn’t too bad. But the Muffins at the end, Excellent! The only down fall was that I didn’t grease the pan, but at clean up we found that it really wasn’t a problem. It cleaned up easily with some hot water and scrubby pad. After that Chris started his well made fire and we enjoy an evening fire side. We were enjoying ourselves so much we busted out the alcohol and cigars, as I popped up a late night snack of popcorn. (Which burned a little in the pan and the burn marks do not come off.) But the bourbon and rum along with the nice Cuban “defects” made the evening worth wild. After that was simply watching the night sky for a bit then to bed.

09.01.2010 6am go away. Where’s the damn snooze! Any ways, woke and rolled out of bed. But good news this AM we will be coming back after we paddle up to Monument portage. Also it is clean clothes day. So nice clean socks dawned my feet this AM. Even though my others were dry. We ate breakfast and watched the rabid ground squirrels feast on our loose popcorn and granola. We rehung the bear bag, packed up our water bottles and lunch and headed on up Ottertrack. Kindly the wind had died out and so we enjoyed a nice simple paddle up. We hit the portage and took lots of pictures of the cast obelisk monuments for which the portage is named. At the far end we ran across 2 old coots and decided we’d give them a hand. They only gave up a couple little packs but we were glad to help. Back at the landing we stood and chatted with them for a bit. They told us they come up twice a year, right at the 4th of July and the last week in August like us. They also reminded me that Canadian permits cost a fortune! ($20/person/day….ouch) We exchanged a few stories and headed back to our camp on Knife. On the way we found a plaque to Benny Ambrose randomly along the north cliffs of Ottertrack. It was an odd plaque just applied cliff wall. After some horrid theorizing of what the man could have done, we continued on. Shortly afterwards we stopped and fulfilled Chris’s request of eating on the Canadian side. We enjoyed a placid trail mix and some wonderful smoked Gouda and summer sausage. As we sat on the shore we noticed the old fogies paddle by. We gathered our stuff back into my pack and headed back to our campsite. We passed the old guys on the last little bay on Ottertrack. Then we hit the camp and packed everything up. As we were loading the canoes the fogies leap-frogged us again and stopped to ask where some good sites were on south knife. We chatted for a few minutes more then jump in the aluminums (I wish these were a lighter, woven material…you like Kevlar!) and started our return portion of the trip since we would no longer be going to GP.

We kind of kept up with our elderly friends only because they would follow the shore line while we would b-line it straight across. As we left the upper bay of knife I looked out into the big lake ahead and I about died. 1-2 foot swales and whitecaps galore. Great for some reason the wind was really bad all of the sudden. Luckily it must have just been a freak thing because after 10-15 minutes on the lake the whitecaps disappeared and the swales were subsided. Wind, you are an evil mistress.

Well we decided to press on to the next point on the US side and find a campsite. This one had a bit of an uphill-ness to it. The biffy was an interesting journey through a grove of younger cedars that had no low branches almost like a mangrove forest. The tent site was further up yet and was a little rocky. The blow down had left quite a few trees down here so Chris got right to work. He was a venerable chainsaw I tell you…hmm there’s a good name chainsaw, no, buzzsaw, no better yet Buzz!

I rebuilt the fire place and the benches around. Coffee went off and found a great bear bag setup. The bear would have a hard time getting to it, 30ft up and 15’ from any tree. We continued on and finished setting up camp. Once again there was a good swimming spot right off the shore where we could just jump right in. So after a few canon balls and a good cut on my foot (btw wear shoes min. the rocks are sharp...hence the name Knife Lake) I busted out the trail oven and cooked up another batch of muffins that came out Perfect! Buzz was still deforesting the campsite with Bacon’s help. Coffee was helping me cook the rest of the food. After dinner, Coffee and I ventured down the hill to the waters edge where we tried to persuade the fish to bite our hooks but we didn’t even get a nibble. We fished the shore line until sunset. Bacon even joined in for a bit, but no dice. So we sat by another warming camp fire for a bit then climbed up the hill to the tent and assumed our sleeping order (me, Buzz, Bacon and Coffee) Not sure why we never changed that up. I guess the same is true of the canoe assignments.

09.02.2010 For goodness sake would someone just throw the damn alarm in the lake! Please! We rolled out of the tent be to find a much less sunny morning. In fact, it was a little dreary and cool. Up to now the days have been pretty sunny with a few clouds. But this AM it was not so. We rolled down the hill and fetched the bear bag from its lofty perch and boiled up some water for our breakfast and scarfed it down. Then packed up the camp back into the packs and portaged back down the hill to the shore and loaded up. Now today since we are no longer going to GP we didn’t need to go very far. We could stay anywhere from the western end of Knife west to where ever. So we paddled down the lake. The wind wasn’t too bad. Thank you wind. The Eagles must really like this weather because it sure seemed like they were out in force. Heck we had one fly right over head. I could have hit the fella with my paddle. It was really cool. Then we saw 2 roosting along the shore. They flew up and perched themselves up the trees while we passed by. We made it down to the Isle of Pines in no time.

Now I haven’t been on this Isle in quite some time, but I knew right where Dorithy’s cool rock was. We pulled ashore then ventured over the island to see if we could still find the remains of the backwood icon’s cabin. Apparently the blow was pretty bad here. We went through thick forestation over, under, around all the dead trunks. The only thing we found was some old rusty bottle caps. After venturing to the far side with no sign of her clearing, we turned back. Coffee and I found some really unique rocks along the shore that we packed up.

Back at the canoes we decided to press on and see how far we could go for the day. So through the rapid-caused portages of Big Knife Portage. Now back in 1990 and 1994 we actually shot the rapids and didn’t portage it. But the water was just so low. There was no way we could have even done it even without our gear. So we huffed the canoes and packs across. Now there are a lot of small lakes and short portage/rapids that go for a while. So we repeated the process until we stopped on the rapids leading into Melon Lake. We portaged across first then went back and walk up to the rapids. We walked across below the last rapids then walked up the Canadian side and found an enjoyable spot to rest and had some beef stix and trail mix. We relaxed and took in the simplicity of the falls. We’d tossed in sticks and pine cones to see how long it would take to float down then we threw in Buzz’s nalgene for Doug to collect at the bottom. After a few more antics we walked back across to the good ol’ US of A and pushed on in our fine metal floaties.

Now the next portage the rapids looked pretty promising. After going cross we once we again walked back up to inspect the rapids. Well I guess I had my Wheaties (and a shot of stupid) that morning and told Bacon “Hey I think we can shoot those, what do you say?” He said if I portaged the canoe back up, he was game. So off we went. Buzz and Coffee went and got the cameras. Actually Bacon had already given Buzz his camera which slipped out of his pocket while trying to get to a good spot and landed in the water (ouch). He was smart grabbed it quickly and took out the batteries and memory card. So Coffee went back and got mine (it had a water proof case). All the meanwhile Bacon and I were trying our damnedest to try and shoot the rapids. But the water was just too low. We’d go 4 to 5 feet and get hung up on the rocks. There was a big drop that Bacon and I had to get out and lower the canoe down. He got down and jumped back in but the current got him moving before I could get in so he solo-ed it for 3 feet before the water came in over the sides and over turned him. Luckily I got there before it got totally pinned down. He and I tried and tired and were able to recover it, empty it and get back for another 8-9 feet, then Rock! The whole deal went like that. It was sad really. Buzz and Coffee just sat along the shore and laughed at us as we stuttered by. Finally after a jarring journey down we reached the end. We pulled up to the portage end and got out. We emptied the water out and repack it down. After a good laugh at our sad sorry selves we paddled on. One of our last portages of the day I did something I still wonder about. At the head of was a life vest and water bottle against a tree. We didn’t take it because these are life saety equipment and I didn’t know if it belonged to the crew coming across. As we were departing they asked if it was ours, damn. I know someone just forgot it and normally I’d hike out any garbage I came across, but since this was a life safety issue I really didn’t want to take it. Hopefully it’s owners come back for it.