Another perfect morning dawned and I was up with the sun again. I cooked up some water for oatmeal and coffee and we hit the water pretty quickly after packing up the camp. While we were covering less distance by water it was going to be a pretty heavy portage day. We made doubly sure that every thing was packed as small as we could make it before hitting the water.

We crossed into Strup Lake, a gorgeous lake full of little twists and turns of the shore, a perfect place for Bass. Donnie figured that out right away and he and Matt took off for one of the bays as Gopher and I decided to check out a campsite on the far side of the lake. The site was nice but it was the surprise that Gopher brought that got my attention. He had brought a Care Bear, now dubbed Geo-Cache Bear, and wanted to give him a permanent home in the wilderness. I tied him to a Birch tree above the toilet, snapped a few pictures, and we continued on our way. (Yes; it is a no-no… but, too late now.)

We crossed into Wisini Lake and took an early lunch (provided by Donnie, who caught a nice sized Brown Trout) on a campsite near the center of the lake with some other people who were passing through. The campsite itself is amazing! The site is about 20-feet above the water on a small cliff/bluff; the water is incredibly deep and signs of cliff jumping tempted me too much to ignore. Gopher and I enjoyed a few jumps from a smaller area before moving up to the “Big Daddy” jump; a 40 plus foot drop.

Gopher, in his ever-deep genius, decided that he needed to see the water in order to judge his entrance angle as he landed, which ended up in resulting in his body entering the water fine, but his face smacking into the surface and his teeth cutting his lower lip. I think his pride (and our quips) hurt more than his lip did, but he took it all in stride, like always.

We continued after we had finished our swim and crossed the 90-rod portage into Ahmakose Lake, a 30-rod into Gerund Lake and a 15-rod before finally getting on Fraser Lake, which is so far off any major route that we ceased seeing any other canoes. Fraser Lake is very pretty and I would like to visit there again in the future.

It took some time, but we eventually found the little narrow area that leads into Thomas Lake. Once there we realized that it was mid to late afternoon and that we should find a campsite. I realized how far we had traveled in just two days and let everyone know that we no longer had to keep up the pace we were at and that the next day we would be off the water by noon. Donnie, more than Matt and Gopher, was the happiest to hear this news.