Quetico - 17 Day Solo (Part 1 of 2)
by PineKnot
I unload the gear, take a quick swim, wash and hang the dirty clothes and set up the tent. When I say the tent pad is nestled in amongst the pine, I’m not kidding. But it is a sweet pad on soft pine duff.
I boil up some water and have a hearty hot and sour vegetable soup dinner. The wind is still steady from the south as I gaze westward across the lake to the marsh area that leads to Hoare. I’ve been thinking about Hoare for two years, and now that I’m so close, I try to convince myself to head in there tomorrow. After one vodka/Gatorade, I’m going to do it. After a second drink, I know I’m crazy. I recall that oft used quote, “Discretion is the better part of valor” and realize that with the Death March still looming, my knee not at 100 percent, and being solo, I’d better leave Hoare Lake for another year. Tomorrow I head to Delahey and I fall asleep hoping the south wind dies down.
Day 6. Camel to Delahey.
Total Miles- 7.0; 5 portages (1110 yards; 3rd portage was able to paddle through)
View 2011 Day 6 in a larger map
I sleep really well and wake up at 5:00 to the soft pitter patter of rain on the tent fly. How nice. How relaxing. I’m half asleep when I realize that I went to bed thinking there’s no chance of rain. So I left the packs out without covering them with the tarp or poncho. The gear!! I race out of the tent, trip over one of the guy lines, rip the small tarp and rain suit out of the big pack, grab the chair and the other packs and scramble to get everything under the tarp. It’s not a hard rain, more like a hard drizzle, but by the time I get back in the tent, my shirt and long johns are damp. So I lay on the pad to let them dry as I doze in and out for the next 90 minutes. It doesn’t rain much, but everything outside the tent is damp when I roll out and get everything ready for the day’s travel to Delahey. While finishing my morning coffee, I watch a yellow canoe with two paddlers glide north along the far western shoreline. Wow. If they came from Veron or Delahey, they must have gotten a real early start. They’re moving along pretty quick when I notice the wind. It’s coming from the SE. Of course! That’s the way I’m heading to get to Veron. I curse the Quetico gods.
I reach the SE end of Camel where the take-out to Veron is guarded by two large distinctive waist-high stumps amidst some large boulders and other smaller rocks.
The730 yard portage is a lot tougher than I expected, even though I knew it was mostly uphill. I guess I didn’t believe it was that steep and that much uphill. It is. And it never seemed to go downhill much, not even near the end. A couple of blowdowns around the midway point didn’t help matters either. One of the blowdowns was a birch tree that was about shoulder high on the right and knee high on the left. The thick forest made it virtually impossible to bushwhack around it. Studying the scene, I’m pretty sure I can hunch down and get under the right side with the canoe instead of dropping and dragging the canoe along the ground. Okay. Here we go. I get as low as I can without crawling, walking like a duck with a canoe on its head. I inch my way along and about half way through something hits the canoe and it slips off my right shoulder. Instantly, the canoe is taking my head off with it. My head pops out, the canoe bangs into the ground, and I’m laying there sprawled out. Like a dead duck. “Well that sure as hell didn’t work!” I yell out. I gather my senses, swear a couple times, stand up and drag the canoe under the tree. Well, at least I didn’t hurt myself, just a scrape or two on the shoulders and knees. A couple of deep breaths, I hoist the canoe and stumble away to the end of the portage.
After a short 50 yard paddle upstream, the portage on the left takes me around two nice sets of rapids.
From the put-in at the top of the rapids, the creek meanders in a general SE direction which. Of course, the wind is blowing pretty stiffly from the SE at this time, enough to take most of the fun out of paddling this scenic area. As the creek widens, I approach the 3rd portage of the day into an small pond and am surprised to find I can just paddle though the narrow slot in the high water conditions. The 4th short portage into Veron is on the left and follows up the creek. Once on Veron, the wind has really picked up and is whistling right into my face. I hug the eastern shoreline, and then shoot across the channel for the calmer water behind the large island at the opening to the main body of the Lake. From here, I quarter into 1-foot rollers as I make my way to the calmer southern shore.
As I near the Delahey portage, I see the unique sight of water spewing into Veron from the thick forest. The outflow of the creek from Delahey. I wish I had remembered my notes that I left in the car, as I didn’t even think to drop a lure into this fine fishing hole that contains bass, walleye and pike.
The portage into Delahey is up a gradual slope. The thing I recall is the smell on the first half. Like a sewage plant. Phew! Really strange. I’m on Delahey just before noon. The sun is trying to peek out and I can almost make out some shadows. I follow the narrow channel and begin to daydream in the now quiet waters. Not sure what I was dreaming about but I miss the turn to the left and find myself one dead end bay to the west. I backtrack and paddle south down the correct channel, navigating through some submerged rocks. In low water conditions, scraping the hull would probably be par for the course here. As Delahey opens wide, the wind is still blowing from the SE so I make my way south towards the protection of the big mid-lake island. Since I didn’t bring my notes, I couldn’t remember exactly which island contained to Olive Jar, but I knew it wasn’t the big island. I turn west and check out the next smaller island. Nothing here. So I continue west to the next island. I see a the top of a tree trunk laying on the ground on the top of a rise as I approach the island. I glide with the wind and waves into a shallow cove and land the canoe on some slippery ledgerock.
It’s almost 1:00 p.m. I make sure the canoe won’t go anywhere and then make my way up the slope about 25 yards. As I come over the rise, I see the tree trunks layed out in a rectangular sitting area overlooking the lake. A few more steps and, “There it is. Oh, my God!” The reddish-brown colored Olive Jar sitting on a hand-made wooden chair. To my right is a well-built firepit and a little further a nice large area for tents, wind-protected and surrounded by tall, mostly red pines. After 6 days and 52 miles of travel into the wind, I am finally here! Tired. Relieved. Happy. Fantastic!
I unload the gear, set up the tent, and erect the tarp above the sitting area. Good thing I brought extra tarp rope as some of the pines I needed to use were up to 45 feet away. I set it up like a raised teepee, center up high, corners down and the midpoint of the sides up, providing excellent views all around. Then I sit down for a celebratory cigar. As I’m relaxing, I open the Olive Jar. It’s packed full, and I mean full. Most of the ziplocks are from recent years, mainly from various youth camps and guided boys and girls groups. I have to dig down to the bottom to find the older notes from the 80s and 90s. I read a few notes and then take a break to explore the island. I notice the variety of flora around the campsite. I can’t recall another location in Quetico with so many different types of plants, various types of flowers, dandelions, different berry bushes, and several plants I have no idea about. Buzzing all over are bees and other flying insects. As I return to read some more, some the flying marauders get too close for my comfort zone, so I put up my screen room under the tarp. This thing is so cool. It’s permethrin-treated mosquito netting about 5-feet high, 7 feet wide and 5 feet deep and weighs almost nothing. It makes my little sitting area even better by keeping the bothersome bugs at bay. Now I can enjoy reading in peace!
My stomach rumbles loudly and I realize how hungry I am. I have a craving for fried fish on buttered whole wheat bread, a Knorr rotini and vegetable pasta side dish and some tootsie rolls. So I grab my fishing rods and cruise clockwise around the island. The wind seems to be waning a bit and as I near the leeward side of the island, I land a fat 14-in smallie. A minute later I catch another one. Time for dinner.
Back in the screen room I read some more from the Olive Jar. At some point in the past, someone had not closed the lid completely and many of the notes from the 1980s and 90s got wet. Today, many are difficult to read and others are falling apart. I find the notes from Shan Walshe and Julie Copperman, dated from the 1980s . Someone was kind enough to place them in a waterproof map case, and you may be able to read the notes from these photos.
It’s almost 10:30 and I can’t keep my eyes open any longer. I gaze over to the east and see a huge full moon, yellowish white, rise quickly above the treeline only to be consumed by dark grey stratus clouds. The wind is still noticeable as I call it a night and hit the sack.
Day 7. Layover on Delahey
Even though I’m tired, my eyes pop open at 5:30 and I couldn’t go back to sleep for some reason. So I just lay there and start to read some more notes from the jar. I’m now getting into the 1990s and earlier notes, and for me, these are the most interesting of the bunch. When I finally exit the tent, it looks like fog or mist has enveloped the east side of the lake, quite a change from last night when it was almost clear with a few banks of stratus clouds here and there.
After my morning coffee, I get the urge to go fishing. The wind is light from the south and I load up the rods and fishing gear and troll east toward the big island hoping to hook into a good laker. I near the island and my rod bends from a vicious strike. I grab the rod and a huge smallie rockets above the surface about 75 feet behind the canoe. It dives down as I begin reeling, then it bolts above the surface again. A third leap and he’s gone. Dang! That one was no doubt a trophy at or above 20 inches. I continue to cruise the south side of the island and land a couple 16 inch smallies then head north along the eastern shoreline of the island. I get another big strike and after about 5 minutes, finally get a thick 33-in northern into the canoe. I can’t recall catching one of this length that had such a wide girth. No wonder it fought bigger than it was. I spend an hour casting in and around the various rock structure landing several more smallies and a couple more pike, none of trophy size. As the sun rises higher in the sky, I paddle across to the southern shoreline of Delahey looking for some good fallen red or white pine for the evening fire. This side of the lake is dominated by jack pine, with a little bit of birch. In fact, the Olive Jar island is about the only place I visited that was mostly red pine, everywhere else was jack pine. Up on one of the open rocky bluffs, I find some decent jack pine logs and pick a couple handfuls of fresh blueberries before heading back to the campsite. It’s early afternoon and the sun is starting to peek out in the patches of blue sky. Looks to be turning into a nice, lazy afternoon. I think I’ll be departing tomorrow for the Death March, so the rest will no doubt help.
Early evening. I can’t wait for my first pizza of this trip, one of my favorite foods on Quetico trips. With a lazy afternoon behind me and a cooperating wind direction, I get the fire going. The crust is warming near the fire and to make the sauce I mix together some tomato powder and various spices. Then on goes the rehydrated tomatoes and mushrooms, pepperoni sticks and to top it all off, mozzarella cheese. Delicious!
I was hoping for a calm evening, but the southerly winds seems to blowing harder than at any time during the day. No fishing for me tonight as it’s just too much work trying to fish in the wind as a solo paddler. I’ve eventually finish reading all the notes. Those from the 1980s and early 1990s were quite special. One of the most humorous was from some professors from a Northern Illinois University discussing the theory of Quetico’s Giant Giraffe that was conceived from the vagina of Quetico’s granite rock and rules the Quetico. Lots of good info about what you need to do to appease the giraffe along with advice regarding sex and drugs and canoeing. I actually said a little prayer to the Giant Giraffe in hopes he’d make for easier paddling back to Prairie Portage, but later during the trip I said to hell with the damn giraffe when I had to fight through big winds on Sarah Lake. There were several notes describing in graphic detail the horrific Death March in the 80s and early 90s. Many referenced the “Bog Monster” with tales of sinking up to their waists in stinky mudbaths, getting separated from their mates, and bushwhacking through the better part of the day because there were no clear trails. Simply amazing stuff.
As darkness and cooler air settle over the lake, I pack everything back into the Olive Jar and secure all my gear for the night. The sky is almost clear and the water calm as I take in the view of Delahey’s western horizon. I hit the tent at 10:30. In the morning, the Death March and “Bog Monster” await.
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