Saturday, May 28, 2016s I bought a Northstar Northwind 17 back in March, and this would be it's first trip to the BWCA. It was the first time I tried sleeping in the truck the night before entry (dad slept like a rock, I tossed and turned with anticipatory excitement). I got up in the middle of the night to pee, and while peeing an owl hooted what felt like 2 feet from my ear and I just about peed all over myself. I only brought one other pair of pants! I'd do the sleeping in the truck thing again, because it was mighty nice to get up in the morning and start portaging right away. We hauled our packs down the 160 rod portage to the Moose River, then sat down and had a light breakfast of energy bars and some muffins from home. We were on the water by 7 am and made it to Nina Moose Lake pretty quickly. We continued past the sandy beach as you leave NML and up the Nina Moose River to Agnes, able to paddle through several beaver dams. On one of the portages, a beautiful, large bald eagle swooped down along the rapids several times while I hauled the canoe. Picturesque. My uneasiness about the busyness of Memorial Day weekend was quickly put to rest as we encountered 3 groups leaving on our way in before even reaching Agnes. Our most ambitious goal for today was to make it to Boulder Bay of Lac La Croix, or Agnes if my dad was feeling it. I was excited to be making good time because it meant our chances of reaching LLC today were good. Our plan on this trip was for me to double portage (main pack on 1st trip across, then medium backpack and canoe on 2nd trip) while my dad single portaged with our food pack). However, my dad, with an artificial knee took the food pack and backpack across every portage along with the rod locker so that I could carry the canoe by itself on my 2nd trip. This helped us reach the point campsite in Boulder Bay by 3pm which shattered our expectations. We even contemplated continuing on to Iron, but we decided to set up camp and relax after a wonderful first day. We even pulled a few walleyes from shore after setting up camp. We paddled over to the Boulder River and tried to fish over there with little luck. The Northwind did receive her first big scratch from one of the sneaky boulders just below the surface on this aptly named river. Glad to get that scratch out of the way as there will be many more to come. ~Nina Moose Lake, Agnes, Lake, Lac La Croix

Lakes Traveled:   Nina Moose Lake, Agnes, Lake, Lac La Croix,