Boundary Waters, Trip Reports, BWCA, Stories

A Week With My Brother
by hopalonghowie

Trip Type: Paddling Canoe
Entry Date: 09/07/2011
Entry Point: Seagull Lake (EP 54)
Exit Point: Saganaga Lake (EP 55)  
Number of Days: 7
Group Size: 2
Day 2 of 7
On the Water Day 1: 14.2 miles 203 rods Lakes Paddled: Sea Gull, Alpine, Jasper, Ogishkemuncie, Spice We got the canoe loaded up and started paddling first thing that we notice is how straight we’re tracking. As stated earlier we’re first timers, hardly have ever paddled more than a mile or two at a time in old heavy canoes. And we’re not switching sides every 5 strokes. I’m in the back and my attempts at a J-stroke seem to be working pretty well at least for our experience level. Of course we haven’t gotten to the main part of Seagull yet and it’s a calm morning. We round the corner and wouldn’t you know it Seagull is even calm! Probably about as calm as it ever is during the day. And better yet we’re able to figure out where we are and where we’re going! (we’re not very experienced in navigating with a map and compass either, other than knowing how a compass works and how to read a map).


At the east end of 3 Mile Island a guy asks us where we are, he wants to follow the north side of the island so I point him in the right direction. He continued on the wrong way. We were feeling good. Our first portage was into Rog, then Alpine and Jasper.

On the Alpine to Jasper portage Royce biffed it in the rock garden in front of the portage. He dropped the gear pack in the water in the process. I almost lost it too. Funny thing was that we chatted with some people going the other way who put their canoes into the water just a little further up the shoreline… No rocks… Lesson #1, just because you see the portage doesn’t mean a “B-Line” is the best route.

There was a nice campsite on the north side of Jasper Lake, we talked to 3 guys who had been fishing on Knife and Jenny, they recommended the site next to the portage into Toe Lake from Knife, they were right we later checked it out and it was quite nice. It’s also worth noting now that we change our route a little bit, we wanted to have a day of rest/fishing so we’re going from Knife up to Hanson and where we’ll stay for two nights then into Ester, Ottertrack, Swamp & Saganaga. Anyways so we get to Ogish and paddled past two sites without stopping even though the second looked decent, I think mostly we wanted to get past the burn area. The first island site was taken along with the site on the south shore, the next 3 were taken too. The next island site was of course taken as well. By now we’re about 2/3 of the way across Ogish so we don’t want to go back to one of the first two and it’s getting late in the afternoon. We decide to head to Spice Lake figuring that nobody would be there. Of course NOW we start having our first bit of trouble and can’t find the portage. We walk a couple of game trails but find nothing. Royce is ready to call it quits and I finally realize that we’re not as far north as we should be. We find the portage and get to camp at about 17:30. Way late for us to be setting up camp for the first time. We were both tired and cranky from no sleep, 8 hours of paddling and frustration of no camp sites being open and then not finding our portage. At camp we couldn’t hang our food pack to save our lives and ended up doing that in the dark. We had brought steaks for the first night, they were good though I didn’t like cooking them on those thick fire grates, didn’t work well especially trying to rush. And in the future any steaks brought will be boneless, as to not have to carry the extra trash. All in all it was a good day, we covered a lot of ground, kept a straight heading and didn’t have any trouble navigating (except at the end there) and most importantly we got along (again up till the no campsite fiasco). Yet at the end of the day I just felt uncomfortably far from home. Ending on such a bad note made me feel like we were in over our heads, like we shouldn’t be here because we’re clueless and should just be home in bed. I missed my wife being with me though if she had been I probably would have really wondered what I’d gotten us into. Went to bed at about 21:30, it wasn’t as late as it felt.