Boundary Waters, Trip Reports, BWCA, Stories

A Paddling Partner for Life, Part 6. The Quetico!
by Kiporby

Trip Type: Paddling Canoe
Entry Date: 08/19/2013
Entry & Exit Point: Quetico
Number of Days: 5
Group Size: 2
Day 2 of 5
Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Cache Bay, Dorothy, Betsy, Charlotte, Saganagons. 4.1 miles

 photo Day1Map913.jpg

You can't beat a good night sleep in the woods and last night's snooze was no exception. We awoke to a beautiful morning and after a quick breakfast, we broke camp and headed for Saganagons Lake. Typically, most travelers take the Silver Falls portage, but since I've traversed that way at least 800 times before, I decided that Lauren and I would invoke Robert Frost and take the path less traveled.

This path would involve a series of 3 small lakes / ponds between the north side of Cache Bay and Saganagons. These lakes are not named on any maps, but Janice does have names for them... Dorothy, Betsy and Charlotte named after 3 sisters from the Powell family. The following link tells more of that story.

Dorothy, Betsy and Charlotte Story

The first 20 rod portage into Dorothy Lake was easy to find on the Cache Bay side. The portage started out rather muddy, but was short and easy overall. The landing on the Dorothy Lake side wasn't the best as you can see in the picture as we had to drop the canoe past a few fallen trees.

The 39 rod portage from Dorothy to Betsy was a challenge to find as the landing was in a small bay to the south of where it is marked on the map. After a short climb the path closely follows a stream between to two lakes. Betsy Lake is long and narrow with some interesting bays along the way. At the north end of Betsy Lake you must paddle up a narrow beaver creek a couple hundred yards before you can find the 51 rod portage to Charlotte Lake. The last 50 yards of this creek were pretty shallow, so it was more dragging and slogging versus paddling.

The last portage of the day would be about 81 rods from Charlotte to Saganagons. This portage can be found in the north end of the northwest bay on Charlotte. At the beginning of this portage, Lauren found what looked like the remains of an old fire pit. We didn't spot any other potential campsites along the trek today. The portage to Saganagons from Charlotte was also rather muddy to start before making a sharp turn to the left prior to the descent to Saganagons. The landing on Saganagons is rather hidden from view as it is tucked in a small bay off the main channel that most who travel through here don't notice as it is tucked behind a small island.

Once on Saganagons we paddled north towards a cluster of several campsites on a couple islands and a large point. We selected the camp on the point that I had stayed at before a few years ago. It is a nice site right on the water with a couple tent pads near the water and a few more up above the main camp in a grassy area amongst the trees.