Tuesday, July 12, 2005

The morning came fast. We all took a quick swim and then made breakfast. I was eating my delicious pita when I made the mistake of sitting it down on my mess kit right in front of me. Out of nowhere a Grey Jay dive-bombed me, grabbed my pita and flew off. He ran right into Ryan's leg, dropped the pita and flew into a tree. These birds were everywhere and they were NOT shy. We also saw some loons, one with a baby on its back. Across the bay we spotted some deer, we watched them for a while before begining to pack up camp. We headed out, planning to camp at the bottom of Friday Bay and have a nice short day, but that is not exactly what we got. We made our way across the top of Thursday Bay. Our group was exhausted. Our arms were sore from a day of straight paddeling and the sun was unforgiving. We stopped at a rocky campsite for lunch and swam for a while. We saw our first group of the day paddeling the opposite direction. We continued on but did not make it very far before we stopped again to take a dip. We pulled up to an expansive island campsite that showed signs of bears. We did not stay long as the site offered no shade. Our canoes steered into Friday bay with ease. We headed for the western shore to look at the first couple of sites. They seemed nice but we decided to push on. We stopped at the last site on Friday Bay and ate some dinner. The site was not big enough to accomodate our group comfortably. We decided we would test our luck and continue on. We had only seen one other group and they were heading the opposite direction from us. We figured that there were three campsites before the 300 rod and one of them was bound to be unoccupied. Our trek to Papoose was a little muddy and the lake was one nasty bog. It was buggy and smelled like mud. Those damn industrious beavers had dried up an entire lake and created mudhole. Chippewa Lake did not seem any better. The campsite was unoccupied but the lake was horribly muddy and really buggy. The next lake seemed better but again, the campsite was not up to par. Wagosh was our only hope. Wagosh was a beautiful Lake. The water looked so inviting but we were all too tired to go for a swim. Our hearts sunk when we peared across the lake and saw the last campsite before the 300 rod portage was taken. Our group was at an impass: go back and take one of the less favorable sites or power through the 300 rod and pray there was a site ready for us on Gun Lake. We decided to go big or go home. The portage was relatively easy, flat but never ending. By the time our group made it to the other side we were all about in pieces. We took the first site available to us, a site on the Southwest corner of Gun. It wasn't long before we litterally all passed out. Crooked Lake, Chippewa Lake, Wagosh Lake, Gun Lake