Left camp 7:30 A. M. and entered Loon River at 8:20 (wind assist).

Portaged Loon Falls at lunchtime. Took Beatty Portage into Lac La Croix at 3 P. M. Lake very choppy and we tried to go too far this day (over 20 mi.) Camped on a sandy point at 5 P. M. There had been a settlement here and we picked lots of red raspberries. Lynda very sunburned on legs, face and ears.

[OK, I said I wasn’t going to embellish, right? But this day may need a bit of explanation. I was a newbie. That lake wasn’t “very choppy”; it just wasn’t smooth as glass. I know that now. But I was a newbie and had never seen a big lake from a canoe before. It was a sunny day. This was before sunscreen, and Spartan1 had wisely told me to wear long pants and a hat with a brim, which I had unwisely ignored. I am naturally blonde with very fair skin. The sun and the breeze did a number on my skin, and my new haircut exposed the tops of tender ears to the sun for a very long day. By afternoon my ears were blistered, agonizingly painful. Then we camped in SAND!! As I cooked the supper, there was sand everywhere, and consequently, there was sand in the food. It seemed like the last straw!

WE didn’t pick lots of raspberries. Spartan1 picked raspberries. He picked them by the handful and kept bringing them to me as a peace offering, as I sat in the sand and wept. I cried about my sore muscles, about my flaming burned skin, about my raw, soon-to-be-oozing toasted ears, and about the god-forsaken place he had brought me to!

This was particularly sad because he had pushed on beyond all wisdom to get to this particular place on the Canadian side to camp, remembering it as special from his former trip and wanting to share a lovely site with me. For him it was a beautiful romantic place, and here he was with a sobbing woman who only wanted to go home! Poor guy!]