Tuesday, September 3, 2013: The drive to EP #37, Kawishiwi Lake, is long and I don’t get started as early as I had planned. I see a deer, a grouse, a heron, and a fox on the drive out. I watch the temperature gradually drop as I drive to the entry and it’s 38 degrees when I arrive at Kawishiwi Lake. I wait while a pair of trippers load up and shove off, and then I unload the canoe and packs and park the car in the lot next to a large SUV with USGS on the door. I’m on the water at 8:45 AM.

The Bell Rockstar paddles nicely and it’s pretty smooth sailing. I catch up with the pair ahead of me at the portage. Their canoe has a USGS tag on it and they have a hell of a load of gear to portage. I say, “You guys have a hell of a lot of stuff to portage”. He explains to me that they are headed into Malberg Lake for 14 days to live trap and radio collar wolves as part of a wolf-deer study. He says they have over 200 lbs. of gear just for the trapping and radio collaring, plus about 70 lbs. of food, the canoe and their personal gear. I figure it has to be at least 400 lbs. and better them than me. They plan to go all the way to Malberg today. After the 14 days on Malberg, they’ll exit, rest a day or two, restock, and enter somewhere else for another 14 days. Then repeat 1 or 2 more times.

There are a couple of other people headed in and several headed out on the day after Labor Day, and the portages are busier this day than I’ve experienced in my past trips, but we all just go about our business and there’s room for everyone. It’s a sunny day, not a cloud in the sky, and warming up rapidly. In fact, I’ll later note that it’s just too damned hot. It’s usually cloudy and 20 degrees cooler on my trips.

I stop at campsite #1078 on Lake Polly for a late lunch. I’m tired and realize while eating lunch that I’ve had very little to eat or drink since breakfast. I have 1 ½ liters of water left of the 2 liters I started with on a sunny hot day with several miles of portaging. I decide I’m probably a little dehydrated and decide to stay here. I drink the rest of that water while setting up camp and then have a mug of coffee. I’m not very hungry for dinner so I eat one of the lighter dinners – Hawk Vittles’ Beef Stew (381 mg sodium) - and drink more water.

It’s a warm, muggy, cloudless evening when I go to bed about 9:00 and I leave the tent fly off.