Tuesday, August 07, 2007. Iron Lake, Curtain Falls Portage, Crooked Lake, Little Roland, Middle Roland, Roland, Argo. 5 portages, 7.5 miles.

A moose, perhaps surprised to see our tent, woke us around midnight. Sore and tired from the big-water paddling of Lac La Croix, we slept well after a couple doses of Vitamin I. Up at 7:00 to a repeat of yesterday's weather, and again were about 2 hours from waking up to paddling. The Curtain Falls Portage, about 700 meters, has a few steep spots, but was dry and well-maintained. At the upper end of the portage we took lots of photos of the falls, then crossed Crooked Lake to our portage into Little Roland, a long, narrow lake we thought might have some good wildlife opportunities. Just minutes later, a bear came out of the woods, looked at us for a few seconds, then ran back into the woods. All today's portages were nice, and those into/out of Roland had beautiful landings and were as nice as hiking trails. We continue to see lots of eagles, and have seen lots of frogs this trip, as well as many turtles sunning themselves. Water clarity increases as one paddles from Lac La Croix to Argo, where we can see 20' down into the lake. We found a great campsite on Argo on one of the islands between the two main bodies of the lake. Set up camp, ate lunch, cleaned up, then headed out to fish. We could often see fish following our lures through the clear water of Argo. Kept two for dinner. Read a couple Patrick McManus stories, played cards, but still in the sleeping bags by 9:00.