Tuesday, September 13, 2011 We get up to make a nice breakfast and are packed and on the water by 10:30AM; again the day has started off nicely, mild with sunshine. The paddle into Long Island Lake is a pleasant one, where we spot our first eagle of the trip. We then see a canoe coming towards us and it is the two brothers that we met at the Karl Lake portage on our first day. They mention a forest fire and said they could not only smell it but also feel the heat from it and had ash falling in their campsite on Long Island Lake. We noted that would indeed be very disconcerting but we had not experienced anything like that on Karl Lake. We bid each other “Good Bye” and continued on our separate ways. I am a Voyageur Map proponent; I like them, while my Bow Partner prefers Fisher Maps. At this juncture on Long Island Lake you are required to have at least three different Voyageur maps for this section of Long Island Lake. Not practical and in hindsight I should have pieced what I needed off of the Voyageur Map web-site. I didn’t, I passed the map reading chore over to my Bow Partner as her Fisher map has the whole area on one map. While she is an absolute map reading wizard when we’re in the car, we came to realize that the skill does not necessarily pass over to large lakes. Long story short, we were paddling in the wrong direction, heading east instead of west. I suspect the error when I see an old fire line on the left shore. My instincts tell me to regroup, but where? I realize that the clouds have built and darkened while the wind has grown stronger. With the wind building, paddling requires a lot of attention at the moment. I see a little bay, so we slip in and get out of the canoe where I can show my partner the fire line border of an old fire on the Voyageur Map and we should not be anywhere near it. She uncharacteristically utters a few choice words at herself and realizes the error she made. Normally, this is something we have all experienced, but the weather is going to make us pay a big price in time and Energy. We now have to paddle almost directly into a wind that is over am. Let me assure you Long Island Lake can develop scary whitecaps and swells. We paddled hard and slowly made headway; it took us a long time but finally we got to the area where the Long Island River enters and relief is found. I believe if we were not trying to protect my knee we would have taken the beforehand mentioned Karl Lake portage to Long Island Lake and avoided this error, oh well. We sponge out the canoe as a few waves came over and we proceed up the river. We are quickly greeted by a beaver dam, a small one so a quick pull over, another few hundred rods another larger dam, again, a pull over. We then come to a short portage, which had to be expanded due to more beaver activity. We paddle on to the next portage which is handled and we are finally on very pretty Gordon Lake. While we sense that there is wind about, Gordon is narrow enough to escape its fury given the winds present direction. We stop at the one site on Gordon and it is certainly a keeper, we however are on a mission to get to Cherokee Lake; although my Bow Partner sees a dime in the water which I collect, it does not deter her as a reason to stay, so we paddle on. The portage to Cherokee from the Gordon Lake campsite is a short paddle and the portage is easily located and completed. When we finally gaze our eyes upon Cherokee Lake it is indeed impressive. Not only is it large, but its numerous islands sparkle about. My Bow Partner has a smile and satisfaction that I can see.

First beaver dam on Long Island River.

Second beaver dam.

Finally, a well deserved smile.

We begin our paddle to locate a camp site. The first campsite passed is taken, so we cross the lake in an easterly direction, to an island area and I realize that the wind has built up here to a harsh level in the more open water. We have to work way too hard to check out a reputed nice island site and as we finally crawl to the side of the island to view the site I see canvas and realize this site are also occupied. I glance to an easterly spot on shore that looks like it could be a site; I show it to my Bow Partner, and we agree we should check it out. I realize at this point I only need to rudder the canoe as the wind is pushing us right along. Due to the power of the wind I realize we are going to land harder and faster than normal; although I yell over the wind to my Bow Partner to back paddle in an effort to soften the landing, it was a bit ineffective as waves are then coming over the stern. We did miss all large rock and very luckily landed fairly soft. I implore my Bow Partner, well actually I yell so she can hear over the wind to vacate quickly so we can both pull the bow brace and get the canoe out of harm’s way. That is accomplished nicely and a sigh of relief is exchanged between us. The site is thankfully empty (not that we could have gone anywhere for a while). I grab the packs to get them out of the water in the canoe. We feel lucky to have landed on this unoccupied site and realize we are not going back out today, so a campsite is set up. We are semi-protected by an island out front so the wind is partially deflected. We eventually turn on our weather radio which confirms that a Canadian cold front was in the process of coming into the region. Expecting winds and gusts in excess of 35 knots and a low temperature in the high twenties, we are ready to dress differently for bed tonight. The weather for tomorrow is predicted to again be cold and windy with a 50% chance of precipitation. My Bow Partner is wiped out and has to rest from the tough paddling. It has drained her badly of her limited energy. A fire is out of the question with the continued wind, so it is PB&J sandwiches and we hit the bag early, hoping for some energy recovery for tomorrow’s day on Cherokee Lake.