Boundary Waters, Trip Reports, BWCA, Stories

Baker Lake 6.12.04 - 6.14.04
by Nathan

Trip Type: Paddling Canoe
Entry Date: 06/12/2004
Entry & Exit Point: Baker Lake (EP 39)
Number of Days: 3
Group Size: 5
Trip Introduction:
First Trip of the year. We were hoping for a challenging route with a little bit of fishing.
Day 1 of 3
Sunday, June 13, 2004
Baker Lake, Peterson Lake, Kelly Lake, Burnt Lake, Smoke Lake, Sawbill Lake, Ada Lake, Skoop Lake, Cherokee Lake

We left home at 2:00am with our two alumacraft canoes. Stopped in Luck, Wi to pick up a couple friends and drove the 4 hours to Tofte. Picked up Permits and stopped by Sawtooth Outfitters where I had rented a Solo Prism Canoe. Drove the last 45 min to Baker Lake and we were in the water by 8:30 am. It was misting lightly but not enough to get us very wet. We made our way through the first couple portages to the first tough one, 240 rods from Kelly Lake to Burnt Lake. The portage itself was not too bad other than the length but we were ready to be done by the time we got to the end. We decided to attempt the stream shown in the map going north from Smoke Lake to Sawbill. It got pretty narrow at several points and we had to lift the canoes over a couple beaver dams but we made it. It added a little variety to our route. We covered a couple more lakes and finally made it to Cherokee Creek. We paddled down the creek to Cherokee Lake. We looked at a couple camp-sites and decided on the site on the north west end of the bay on the south of the lake. The site was up above the water on a rocky area. We had a great view of the lake from there. We were all pretty tired after our days work so we just relaxed for a little while. Finally got around to setting up camp. My brother caught a couple of Northerns so we were able to add fish to our menu. We had a great evening sitting around the fire and finally went to bed at bout 10:00.