Day 7: Friday, September 28th

Another perfect morning. Quetico Lake was like glass and the colors were really popping on Eden Island.

We fished our way out of Quetico, with the three boats hitting the channel and the mouth of the Quetico River hard. We didn’t find the fish, but were treated to some more awesome scenery.

As we portaged back into Beaverhouse, we noticed how much the water level had dropped while we were in the park (at least two feet during the week, it seemed). We fished and trolled around Beaverhouse catching some more bass and pike, but nothing noteworthy. We checked out a campsite (PCD 1V) and were disgusted with what we saw. A group had stayed there within the last night or two, and the site was trashed. There was litter everywhere, including food wrappers, a broken fishing rod, and cans from food. We cleaned it up and started a small fire to burn some of the burnable trash. The tent pads were not great there, and we had a bad feeling after seeing it in such sorry shape, so we moved on. It’s funny how much something like that bugged me: the juxtaposition of the beauty of the park with the human waste was striking.

Anyway, we moved towards a small point site near the portage (PCD #24), and made camp. The site we chose was a small one, with a few dead standing widowmakers. We got out the Sven saw and took care of them, trying to leave the site in better shape than we found it. We were able to squeeze three tents in there, but it was pretty tight. There were some nice rocks out front for checking out the sunset and moonrise.

We were faced with the prospect of our fishing being done, but Brian decided to take his boat out solo to fish in the calm sunset. It provided an awesome sight for those of us back in camp.

Day 8: Saturday, September 29th

We had a quick breakfast of oatmeal and coffee before packing up camp for the last time. As usual, the last day of a trip is a bit somber and you always think it’s going to be too long before you’re back in God’s country again.

We paddled up the inlet to the portage, and it was clear that the water was down here too, as we had to pole ourselves through the mud to get to the landing. As we moved the last of our gear up to the parking lot, our truck pulled in to pick us up right at 9:00am. We loaded up and saw a lot more grouse and spruce hen on the way back to LLC, but it was another warm, cloudless day up there. We got one last picture as we loaded into the towboat.

Mark picked us up in the towboat, and mentioned that LLC had turned over the day before. The green algae in the boat’s wake confirmed that, and we did the customs stop without incident. We took showers and hit the road, with Greg and Pete going ahead to get Pete back to Duluth in time for his flight. We had a big lunch at Grandma’s Pub in Duluth, said our goodbyes to Greg, and headed back home, stopping to drop Brett off in Eau Claire for his college reunion weekend.

All in all, we really lucked out with the weather: after the first day and a half of rain, north wind, and even a bit of sleet, it stabilized nicely. The scenery was stunning in this part of the park, and we generally saw very few people. We had high expectations for the fishing, and we took some comfort in knowing that even though we never got into the numbers of fish that we are used to, the size average was bigger than usual. In fact, we could remember catching very few small fish the whole week. Having no bugs was great, but we did lose quite a bit of fishing time to the shorter days. The mouse, squirrel, and chipmunk activity was something that we’ll remember, too.

Time spent in canoe country, with friends, is always golden. We all only get so much time in our lives for it, which makes it easy never to take it for granted. Even though we probably will return to June tripping, it was nice to have scratched that September itch.