Tuesday, July 02, 2013 I woke up at 5:30. I had set out the things I needed the night before so that I was able to simply reach down from my perch in the hammock, heat up a cup of coffee, and leisurely sip away without getting out of bed. A truly delightful way to wake up!

It was the start of a beautiful day with mist covering the water as the sun was just beginning to rise over the horizon. Very picturesque. I packed up my canoe and began my journey at 7:30

As I journeyed down the stream that lead out of Kawishiwi Lake, I came upon a large doe. She allowed me to get quite close to her before she got a little skittish and moved only 30 feet away, where she stopped, turned around, and calmly watched me pass by. I intentionally don’t carry a camera with me because I want to live in the moment and experience things more fully as they are taking place. If I had brought a camera along, though, this would have likely been a good shot.

I thought I had prepared myself for the fire damage from the Pagami Creek fire that I knew was soon to come, but it was still a shock to my system when I rounded the bend of the river leading into Kawashchong Lake and saw the back drop of all the bare black & white trees stripped of life. A sad, mournful feeling came over me As I approached the next portage, I saw a rather strange sight, …I couldn’t quite believe my eyes at first. There amidst all the fire damage, it looked like a large, heavy piece of tree trunk was being suspended and held up by small two inch strips of mere tree bark on each side. As I got closer to examine it, what I found was that the trunk portion was hollow inside, … all that remained was just the shell of the surrounding bark. I found it interesting and unusual how the fire had burned this tree to leave this most unlikely looking formation. Okay, Kodak moment number two missed. I’ll admit that a picture of this would have been worth a thousand words (to you the reader, anyhow) - - but can you imagine it in your mind?

It was a little past noon, so I decided to stop for lunch and ended up staying the night at site #1072 on the northwest corner of Polly Lake. It appeared to be a very popular site. Absolutely no down/dead wood to be found anywhere. Still it was very scenic with a number of other nice features. I set up my hammock and tarp in an area tucked more towards the back of the site. I used my trekking poles to set my tarp in “porch” mode for the first time. It gave a nice open feel to my surroundings. While I was tightening everything, a woman paddled up onto the shoreline and called out, checking to see if anyone was at the site. Turns out “I” was. Ha! I wanted to relax and take a short nap, so I went and hung a red bandana and propped my kayak paddle closer to the water so people could tell that the site was occupied.

I read some, then took a nap – or at least tried to. A USFS agent came into camp and woke me up. She checked my camp permit, up to date registration sticker on my canoe, and the latrine in back which she said had recently had some work done on it. She was pleasant enough. Actually, I was glad there were agents like her who are actively watching and making sure that the rules were being followed as they should. Maybe I’ll be able to get that nap in tomorrow after lunch.