Day 13: August 22 Wrist Lake

“Return of the Wind”

We slept in until 730am and then broke fast with hotdrinks and you guessed it, blueberry cornmeal pancakes with the last of the maple syrup.

The wind was already blowing from the southwest. Two canoes paddled quietly by us and headed west around the island. We chatted about how crazy it feels to paddle deep into the wilderness and find people who were dropped there by plane instead of paddling there under their own power. How money, not effort is the great equalizer here. Compared to the Quetico, where after 2-3 days you rarely see anyone, out here if you have the money for a float plane you can be dropped anywhere. It disturbs us in some way. I guess we are just purists or maybe too judgmental, and need to let it go. Anyway, we headed out for a morning paddle looking for wildlife, trout, and blueberries. We trolled up a nice sized pike and later a laker-both released. We walked on one of Wrist’s many beaches, admiring tracks and then gathered a couple of cups of blueberries for tomorrow’s coffeecake. By now the wind was really screaming so we headed back to camp accompanied by an eagle, likely the same one from yesterday. Tony hit the tent for a nap in the shade while I sorted out our second ration of food in preparation for tomorrow’s travel. Later, Tony sifted out all the foil folks have left in the firepit and it will travel with us back to Manitoba. Maybe we’ll leave it on Campsite #1? Just kidding. . . We are hoping to start seeing wildlife again when we leave these more commonly traveled lakes. Chicken fajitas and chessman cookies closed the day. We’re so tired of the wind, so we hit the tent early for gin rummy. A lot of thunder and lightning filled the night but it never rained. The wind died at 9:13pm but started up again at 2:48am. Yup, I’m a little obsessed with it.

Day 14: August 24 Wrist to Welkin to Beamish to Irregular

“The Day of the Headwind”

I got up at 630am and made blueberry coffee cake to complement our morning hotdrinks. We broke camp while it was baking and then ate 2/3 of it sitting in a windless nook behind a rock watching an eagle soar on the thermals above. Only saw two floatplanes this morning-slow day, probably too windy. I found a plastic bottle and a Snickers wrapper behind said rock so we threw them in with our trash and headed out into the growing whitecaps. No lake trout trolling today. We past the portage to Jigsaw Lake (Man, it looks like it burned hot there!) and onto the 300m goat-like trail into Welkin.

Lots of ups and downs combined with downed trees made this trek hazardous today, but I stepped carefully over, while Tony tip-toed gracefully across with the boat on his head. The short walk through the shallows, followed by the paddle down the creek and across Welkin was beautiful but it was hard to enjoy it fully given the rigorous wind. Hiding from the gusts, we had lunch on an old burned out campsite in a cluster of islands ¾ of the way down the lake. We are filled with admiration of the changing colors of the foliage as it turns toward fall. Next, we circled around the Armageddon-like islands paddling hard, our caps lowered against the gale force headwind, when Tony yells, “Bear right!” and again “Bear right!” I respond with, “ I am bearing right!” Tony, “ No! There is a bear on the right!” Sure enough, Tony spied a bear snoozing on rock on the right, but well, with all the yelling I only saw it galloping over the top of the hill. Ha-ha, on me. . . So, we battled our way down the lake and made the short hop around a little falls into Beamish, then navigated around some rocks in a shallow section. We checked out a camp on the first large island after the narrows but couldn’t bear the thought of camping on an unprotected rock in the wind. Bracing ourselves for the waves and whitecaps we headed straight for the next island south (sitting in a little Y section of the lake) and took cover on a little used ledge camp on the northwest point gratefully out of the wind (Thank you, JoeWildlife).

We set up the tent back in the lichen and the rest of the camp on the edge of the forest with a cairn for company. Yup, went for a swim out of the wind and caught up in the journal while Tony napped for a bit. An osprey flew directly overhead and I thought it was gonna land above me in a tree but it moved on. I caught a pike in the shallows waiting for Tony to wake up. Wow, it’s so pleasant to make dinner out of the wind, though it’s still raging around the corner. We had a quick freeze-dried lasagna for dinner and the last of the blueberry coffee cake. No surprise, but there is still smoke pluming to the NE. We hit the tent and played cards until 930pm. The wind is still howling from the west while we admire the Milky Way shining brightly tonight above a prominent red glow in the northeastern sky.

Day 15: August 25 Beamish to Irregular

“And then it Rained.”

We got up early and had a quick breakfast in an attempt to beat the wind but that was a pipe dream. The wind blew all night and we launched into the ever-present headwind from the west. We made some disparaging remarks about Manitoba and how it should block the wind from Ontario better. We paddled hard down Beamish taking a short break where the lake narrows and turns east. We hit the first portage (150m) around 1030am and had an energy bar in the shelter of an island and then headed across uneventfully. It spit rain for an hour or so but not hard enough to get us wet. The wind just dried us too quickly. It’s Day 15 and we have yet to don our raingear (foreboding). We paddled across the small lake and had some trouble finding the portage (875m) into Irregular. The area is heavily burned and overgrown. We finally located it secreted in the tall grasses where it was flagged and cairned behind the entrance.

We made one trip across and found it long but straight forward to follow. Someone did a lot of work here building cairns, flagging, and sawing (JoeWildlife? Regardless, thank you.) We tried to honor the work by clearing the recently fallen trees. We picked three cups of blueberries to enjoy later and hit Irregular just as a full-on rainstorm broke on top of us (130pm). We paddled on battling the wind and rain looking for a camp and rejecting three due to lack of cover. We finally chose a small island camp with tent and tarp spots hidden back in the trees out of the wind. We quickly pitched the tarp and hunkered down under it with hotdrinks and quesadillas helping combat the chill. By 530pm the storm finally let up enough to hastily erect the tent, put on some dry clothes, and organize gear a bit. We did crossword puzzles for a while under the tarp and then had tea, Thai peanut curry, and then blueberry (of course) Brule before hitting the tent for cards and reading. The wind is still blowing but the rain has stopped (930pm). Tony heard something climb up onto shore from the lake and lumber off through the forest-maybe a bear?