“In the early Am (5:30?) Luna was awake so I let her out. I woke around 6:30 and lay in till 7:15. No hurry today as I’m only making 2 portages to Birch lake. When I come out of the tent Luna is nowhere to be found.I called and called again. No Luna. Oh boy…

I called louder and from the back I heard the faint jingling of her collar.She came trotting back down the trail and was happy to see me. I smelled something bad by her mouth and she must have been into something back there. I hope she wasn’t digging up someones poop or old food scraps.”

Down the back trail there’s a big clearing where I think a lot of campers go to do their business. I try to stay away from the obvious spots when I go to wash the dishes. Luna always comes with and sits and watches. I love the smell of the earth up here. It’s the best dirt on the planet. This is called a “cathole” and used for dishwater, food scraps - which I never have with a dog around, and human waste.

It’s cloudy and still this morning. The skeeters are bothering me during breakfast. It’s gonna be warm around 83 degrees with a 20% chance of rain. It’s my last full day up here so I thought I’d do a beard check selfie.

I’m still rigged for fishing so on the way out decide to hit some sunken reefs I could see in the middle of the lake just north of the big island. I thought for sure I could catch walleyes here but I had no luck.

I have trouble finding the portage out of emerald at the west end and it turns out my map has it marked in a different bay. The one marked is a very old un maintained portage. While looking for it I accidentally startled Luna when I bopped her on the head with my fishing rod. She just jumped out of the canoe. Boom! She was in the water. Luckily we were in a narrow bay so she could swim to shore. She found a nice flat rock by the shore to wait on as I swung the canoe around to pick her up. I had a good laugh at this one.

I did the 73 rod portage into Carp Lake and then it was a very long paddle down this twisting lake. I passed some sites with campers. Lots of activity around here. I’m getting closer to civilization for sure. At the east end of Carp I took a 45 rodder to Birch Lake where I planned to make my last camp. I met a couple here and the older man said it was his first time in Quetico. He really got on well with Luna. She just loves everybody.

At the Birch end of the portage I met two young guys taking a break. They had a Grumman Eagle canoe. This was the exact canoe that I got for my 23rd birthday back in 1983. One said he got it on Craigslist for $450. My girlfriend bought mine new for $650.

They were both newbies to canoe camping and they carried LOTS of stuff. Mounds of gear including full size giant tackle boxes. They’ll learn soon enough that they won’t use most of it.

I had an island site down near the far end of Birch marked at 3 stars. These are campsite evaluations made by other people who have used the site and usually found in trip reports on canoe camping websites. A little research goes a long way so I target this site and hope it’s unoccupied. Luna settles in for the ride.

Island site dead ahead. No tents or tarps are seen. I’m happy as a pig in …

The landing is around the right side and it’s not the best and I need to drag the boat up on land.

The small island has a path running the length of it. Unfortunately there’s old toilet paper exposed in spots where campers didn’t bother to bury it. I think this place gets a fair amount of use but I like it. There’s lots of places for tents and I take one right out front. There’s a real nice bluff about 15 feet off the water to sit.

The fireplace is not the best but with some decent log benches it could be just fine. I get set up and we go exploring. There’s a nice area to play Frisbee so we have a go at it. Here’s a compilation video of the times we played Frisbee on the trip. Luna is not a swimmer but she sure loves a good catch.

Quetico 2013 Luna Frisbee 0001 from Tom Basso on Vimeo.

The evening is perfectly still. There’s two loons out front that do some kind of dance together. They circle each other real close bobbing their heads then dive under together. It’s quite a show. At one point they flap their wings facing each other and then one of them storms off beating the water with its wings. I catch some of the aftermath of this on the video.

Quetico 2013 Birch Lake Tour 0001 from Tom Basso on Vimeo.

Later I sit and watch the water from the bluff sitting directly over the water. Soon I see 3 beavers in single file come swimming around from the side. They pass right under us and peer up to look. There’s no tail slaps as these guys must be very familiar with campers here.

The last one is the largest and he actually stops in front and floats while looking up at us. It’s hilarious as Luna is looking down on this chap probably wondering what on earth it could be. It finally ambles on to wherever they are going around the island.

This turns out to be a very magical night for us. A little while later as the sun sets we hear a rustling in the forest over on the near shore of the mainland. There’s a pause then we hear it again. Large branches breaking and crunching. Something big was walking through there near the shoreline. We went over closer but couldn't see it but it was there alright.

Luna, started to growl. Soon she let out one single loud bark. "RUFF!!" It echoed around the lake. Now, this is a dog who rarely barks but she was obviously concerned here. Well, it made its way away from the shore after that. I never saw whatever it was but did hear a high pitched bleating noise. My best guess is that it was a cow moose with a young calf.

In this pic you see the shore and Luna intently focusing on the sound.

Now you’d think I would be hearing and seeing all this stuff deep in the interior of the park right? Well on this trip I didn’t see much wildlife. Lots of eagles and loons but not much else until our very last night and we were only a 2 ½ hour paddle from the outfitter. Go figure. Birch Lake is beautiful this night and now I remember why I come back up here year after year.