I felt refreshed and well rested as I broke camp early. My care in pitching the tarp had paid off, as my hammock and gear stashed underneath stayed dry throughout the storm. The morning was calm, but cooler. I made no haste getting back on the water and was soon walking the muddy Bottle Portage by headlamp. Bottle Lake, river, and into Iron Lake as the sun began to rise. Like the day before, it was a beautifully golden thirty minutes before the sun disappeared behind a soup of clouds. It felt good to be on Iron Lake: I had been here before and knew my way around. I was quickly making the portage to Curtain falls, and then back to the unknown territory of western Crooked Lake.

 For the first few miles on Crooked, I was heading southeast and had more-or-less a tailwind. I again tried to fly the sail and paddle at the same time, but mostly just paddled without it. I was feeling good and making good time when I got to Friday Bay. I was excited, as I again had experience traveling this section of the border all the way to Lower basswood falls. It was nice to stop looking at the map for a while and just know where to go. The only difference was that I had only ever paddled this part heading in a westerly direction: I was struck at how different the scenery looked heading east. The wind was from the southwest, though it didn’t torment me much on the skinny windings of Crooked Lake. It stayed cloudy. I made good time and put comfortable miles behind me.

  I also left familiarity behind as I passed Lower Basswood falls and headed east up the Basswood River. Things quickly started to go awry. I didn’t find the Wheelbarrow Falls portage right away and spent some time looking for it. As soon as I finished the portage and was about to put the canoe down above the falls, the skies opened in a sudden downpour. I waited a few minutes for the rain to slow, and then set the boat in the water and quickly donned my rain gear. It was on-and-off heavy rain as I continued up the river. I was rounding one particular bend as the rain was coming down so hard it was difficult to see the surface of the water. Suddenly the canoe slammed to a dead stop as I hit a rock head-on. It was a hard hit- I thought I had cracked the nose of the canoe. There was a basketball-sized chunk of rock sticking up out of the water that I didn’t see at all. I thought to myself, “This really sucks and I’m starting to come apart”. In an attempt at a self-motivation speech, I then mustered, “But I’m tough and rugged, and if I can keep going in this, I can probably paddle in anything. It likely can’t be much worse.”

  Then it started hailing. Yep. As if I had cued it myself, nickel-size hail. I covered my head with the blade of my paddle, and my thighs took most of the hits. Thankfully it wasn’t more than a minute before it stopped. The rain continued on-and off- for the next few hours. (Let me take a minute to profess my love for gore-tex membranes and quality, breathable, rain gear.) Next, there was a rapid section of the river that I did not know about. I first tried paddling up it, but failed and was swept back downstream as I spun the boat around and tried to avoid both rocks and capsize. I searched the Canadian and American shores for a possible portage, and eventually found the path around. Remembering the rock I hit, I checked the front of the canoe to find a relatively small chip in the bow where only a few weeks ago I had laid thick epoxy and sanded a smooth edge at the sharpest part of the bow transition. Still watertight!

  A little more upstream paddling, and it was on to the big portage of the day: the Horse portage around Upper Basswood falls. It is more than a mile long, but the centuries-old trail is flat, wide, and mostly well-drained rock and gravel. I encountered a few other soggy parties leapfrogging gear along, but I didn’t stop along the way. It was a tough push, but the physical effort provided a needed relief from my thoughts. I was at a mental low point, and ready to be done with the Basswood river and its trifles. Perhaps I also had some unease about the upcoming crossing of the large Basswood Lake.

  The wind was directly from the west as I paddled out into Basswood Lake. Favorable, but the central part of the lake is shaped like a giant “Z” with segments of about 6 miles each; so no matter the wind direction you will at some point be fighting it to get where you need to go. This happened as I rounded the top of US Point and headed southwest. If I was headed all the way to the bottom of the Z and the English Channel I would have hugged the lee shore, but I had planned on taking an unmarked portage across Canadian Point to cut off the bottom corner of the ‘Z’ and save about 3 miles of paddling. It wasn’t on any map I could find; but in researching the route I had read a report about the portage being cleared just a few years ago, and someone from the message board had told me where it was. I found a bearing for a direct crossing and made my way into the open water. Despite trimming pack weight as far back in the canoe as I could, my boat kept wanting to turn the bow up into the wind; and for 2 miles I was forced to paddle almost exclusively on the right side of the canoe to keep course. This was tiring, and when I spotted the portage I tucked in and rode waves directly into the Canadian shore. While it was still spitting rain intermittently, the sky was breaking into some short blue sunny patches. The Canadian point portage was easy enough to follow through dense pine forest, and it was a relief to get off the water for a bit.

  Back in the canoe on Merriam bay I paused to make water before angling southeast around Norway Point. Now the wind was my friend, and since I started Basswood Lake, it had gotten stronger. I popped up the sail and rocketed east with the wind. Only occasionally dipping my paddle to correct course, I let the wind pull me along faster than I could paddle. Once around the point I had two miles to travel due east, but with an open reach of water building waves for four miles behind me. There is no surfing the canoe when you are traveling faster than the waves; I was pushed down the face of each wave and into the back of the next one. (looking back at the GPS track, the average speed here was between 6 and 7 mph!) Holding the sail up with my teeth, I needed both hands to use my paddle as a rudder to keep myself pointed downwind and to resist being spun about by the waves. Muscling all I could against both the sail and the paddle while screaming down the lake was a rush! I started singing the song from ‘Moana’ and thought how the kids would enjoy hearing about that later. Of course the further down the lake I went, the bigger the waves got. A couple times it was a little hairy, but the few miles of downwind bliss seemed to last forever and was the highlight of the trip thus far. I must’ve had a stupidly big smile plastered on me as I came off of Basswood Lake.

  Entering Inlet bay, I packed the sail down and swung my paddle once again. I was feeing great. Without even looking at the map I knew that after Prairie portage was Birch Lake and I would definitely make the second checkpoint before dark. I had only used the sail for 3 or 4 miles, and that was the last time I would find use for it on the trip, but man what a needed lift it was right then! Portaging into Birch Lake, I was also once again entering a familiar part of the BWCA I had traveled before. I hit the checkpoint at the end of Birch as dusk fell. Time to look for a camp. There were a few on the east end of Birch, but two were occupied, and the other was behind me by a quarter mile. There were four or five portages until Knife lake, but I knew the route and that it was fairly flat and easy travel. I made the decision to do it in the dark, and make camp somewhere on Knife.

  The moon made a brief appearance, but was soon clouded out. I passed the Isle of Pines and didn’t need light to see if campsites were occupied: when I quietly paddled by I could hear the noise and revelry as campers finished dinner around an evening campfire on a cool night. Just as I had begun the day by headlamp on LaCroix, I ended it using the eerie LED beam to make camp on the south shore of Knife Lake. This place was part of the 1999 blowdown, so the trees were mostly teenage poplar and birch, and there was only one logical place to hammock between two small cedars. It was at the top of a slope coming up form the lake, and while more exposed than I wanted to be, it was all the site offered. There was a mouse that lived in a hole in the tree right below where my hammock strap was. I could see his beady eye reflecting the headlamp as I peered in, and he must have been curious as to the blazing light outside because he poked his head out to take a look before seeing me and scampering up the tree. I’m sure he could smell the peanut pad Thai I was rehydrating for dinner.

  There was no suitable tree to hang the food bag, so I just put it on top of a big rock in the water: mice wouldn’t get it there and if a bear found it I would at least have a good excuse to abort the challenge early, and I was only a few hrs paddle back to Ely. I hung a clothesline rope with hopes of drying what gear I could overnight. I also checked my maps and ran some quick calculations as to my pace: I was doing far better than I had thought, and was on track to finish in 5-6 days instead of the planned 8. To lighten the load I got rid of 2 whole days worth of food. I went back in the woods away from camp and off of any trail. I found a chair-sized rock that I could move, and underneath it dumped and buried the extra food. I wondered if I should feel guilty for not packing it out, but at this point the almost 5 lb weight savings seemed worth it. No trash, only food: It will be part of the earth by springtime. I finally changed into dry clothes and got into the hammock.

49 miles today from LaCroix to Knife.