The morning was just as shitty as the day before. The drizzly rain continued on and the wind was as strong as ever. Our goal was to get closer, if not too, Wisini Lake but it was looking like that would not happen, even though it was close enough to make in one day. We ate breakfast (oatmeal, breakfast bars, coffee and tea) before packing everything into the canoe and kayak and pushing off into the lake.

We had a decision to make; round Thunder Point and take the portage (a 40-rod) into Bonnie Lake, or travel down the little bay where our camp was, cross a less than 5-rod portage into South Arm Knife Lake, and try to make a river trek bushwhack into Spoon Lake. Because of the wind we would have been paddling into, and the waves on Knife Lake due to that wind, we chose the shorter portage.

As we crossed into South Arm Knife Lake we were pleased to find that the wind was being blocked by the southeastern shore and we took our time traversing up the lake. Matt, eagle-eyed as ever, suddenly pointed out something on the shore. We paddled over hoping it was a moose only to discover that it was a doe and her fawn, eating the new growth (the southeast side of South Arm had gone up in the 2006 Cavity Lake fire) on the banks of the lake.

The doe let us get close and I took as many pictures as I could before we continued on our journey up the lake. As we closed in on our bushwhack it became apparent that there was no way to make it. The water was a swampy muskeg of long grass, beaver dams, and fallen, burnt trees. There would be no way to make it with any ease of travel so we hit the nearest campsite (for a toilet picture and a quick snack) and poured over the map.

Our options: continue a little further up South Arm Knife Lake and head for the portage into Sema Lake (a 142-rod) and follow it across multiple lake and portage crossings or, turn around and head back the way we came in order to take the 40-rod into Bonnie Lake. Being lazy and not having any semblance of a plan for this trip we decided to make our way slowly back toward the Bonnie Lake portage.

On our way back the drizzly rain had ceased and had given way to sporadic periods of bright, cloudless skies, followed by large clouds dropping huge amounts of rain and forcing us to don our rain jackets. The rain never lasted more than 20-minutes at a time however so we were still in high spirits.

We crossed the Bonnie Lake portage with no difficulty but the large rain clouds (and the ever increasing amount of rain they were dumping) forced our hand into taking a site on the southeast shore (one of only two sites on Bonnie) of the lake. We sat under the cedar trees waiting for a break in the weather, eating GORP and other snacks when we decided to just call it a day and set up camp. We started to set up the first of our tarps (we carried three with us) when the clouds parted and the sun came out once again.

Too lazy to continue on we finished setting up camp, hanging all three tarps into a shelter that was closed on three sides, and pulled the boats under the tarps with us. The sun, now out in full force, was the perfect temperature to take a nap. Gopher climbed into his tent, Matt lay down under our tarp shelter and I pulled out my hammock and crashed in the shade between a few cedar trees.

It was not long before I was woken up by rain drops. Not the slight sprinkle that usually starts a storm, but straight-out, balls-to-the-wall, hard rain. I was so discombobulated that I bolted upright and got tangled in the hammock while trying to put my shoes back on. With shoes on my feet I ran to my tent only to suddenly see the rain-fly zip close; Matt had gotten in the tent before me.

Because of the amount of rain falling I did not want to take my time unzipping the tent so I bolted for the tarp shelter and plopped down on the ground. For the next hour it dumped on our camp and I was suddenly happy that we decided to take camp where we were. If we had continued we probably would have been in the middle of Kekekabic Lake when this rain hit.

The cloud holding the rain passed in about an hour and Matt and Gopher joined me under the tarp not long after it did. By this time it was getting close to diner time so we pulled out stoves and cooked up some food along with some coffee, hot coco and tea. A few more clouds dumping rain, like the one I got caught in, passed overhead and we waited them out before calling it a night and heading off to bed.