We went for an early breakfast at Britton’s which was completely filled with fire fighters – we found a couple of seats at the counter. We got back to VNO when they opened at around 7 AM, and we packed up the car. The fellas loaded and secured the canoe to the top of our car, and we were off to EP 14. It was overcast, cool, and damp, but it wasn’t raining. I don’t remember much about the drive other than it was pretty and I was getting excited to enter the wilderness.

We got to the parking lot which had more cars than I expected. By the time we took our final inventory and completed one last pit stop, we encountered a soloist heading in from the parking lot. He had already made his first trip down to the landing and was coming up to get his second batch of gear when he told us that he saw a moose down at the river. We let him scurry on ahead of us as we were in no rush. To no one’s surprise, the moose was gone by the time we arrived at the landing. The trail from the parking lot was nice, but I knew it would seem like a mountain climb when we returned at the end of our trip.

The paddle down the LIS was beautiful, but we could tell that the water level was a couple of feet lower than normal based on the waterline of the shore. We found our paddling groove pretty quickly. This was Sarah’s first time on a canoe trip, and this was my first time in the stern of the canoe. The first portage was uneventful (just the way I like them), and we found the short portage between Upper and Lower Pauness with ease upon emerging from the river. The landing at the portage from Lower Pauness to Shell was muddy as we had been warned, and the landing at the Shell side was a sloppy damn mess (again, as we had been warned). We had a minor navigational error that sent us in to the wrong bay in search of the portage to Heritage Lake. With a minor correction, we found the portage and made our way across. Shell was a very pretty lake. The landing at Heritage was terrible. The low water level made the portage shorter than it should have been, but putting in was challenging in the marshy conditions.

It took us longer than I had in mind, but we eventually made it up to the northern camp site after seeing no one at the western camp site. Details are sketchy in my mind, but we got camp set up. I remember being pretty tried by the time we got to camp, and I was very happy to call this place home for a couple of nights. We had brought steaks for the first night which we cooked on our camp stove. Previous visitors had left a ton of firewood that we were sad to have to leave unburned. Dinner was delicious, and the weather was cool and pleasant, making our tent a cozy oasis. We heard something outside our tent in the middle of the night. Sarah said, “David. I think there’s an animal outside.” I told her, “there are LOTS of animals outside. Let’s get some sleep.” The camp site and our food pack were unmolested when we woke the following morning.