I woke up early to a light, steady rain. I decided to get an early start knowing I might be slow on the portages with my bum toe. I wrapped my toe well, and took off down Cherokee Creek. I was quite taken with the river. I found it really beautiful. The rain quit shortly after take-off.

I wasn’t going to share this…but, I guess you can have a laugh at my expense. This is the stupidest thing I did on my trip. I thought I saw a blaze on a tree along the river. In Wabakimi we are looking for old blazes. I had plenty of time and it was a beautiful morning. I thought I would see if there was an old trail. Seemed like a good idea….I brought the canoe in and went to step in the two feet of water…. and sunk up to my hip in muck and tumbled out. Luckily, I had everything secured but my water bottle. The canoe tipped and I pushed it back up. The only thing floating was my water bottle, but I had several inches of mucky water in the boat. I had to take everything out and drain the canoe. Fish out my water bottle. Since I was on shore, I did a little exploring and it reminded me of Wabakimi, so that was really cool. I crashed through the bush for awhile just for fun. There was no way back into the canoe without some type of balancing act. I could only enter and load from one end. Staying low and center, I loaded the gear and climbed in. Feeling victorious, I happened to look over and there sat my camera on the bank. Ugh. How bad did I want that camera? I almost left it there. I had to redo the balancing act, climbing over my gear to get the camera with my paddle. Whew, all in and off we go to the portage. 

The portages from Cherokee to Ada were muddy and challenging. On one of them, I missed a rock and went into mud up to my knee. It happened to be my bad toe side and…ow….I had somewhat of a panic attack in the middle of either the 180 or the 110 rd portage (I can’t remember). I was trucking along with my canoe, when I had this thought that there was a fire in the area. There was no rational reason to think this, but it got stuck in my mind. I fended off the thoughts with some rational thinking…but it really lingered. I thought, “What if everyone has been evacuated but me?” I was feeling pretty isolated on the portages with my bad toe and my mind was playing tricks on me. I finally just told myself, “Okay, you’ve been totally forgotten. That doesn’t change the fact that you need to get to the other side of this portage!” I intentionally picked up the pace in the physical effort and focus on the portage and the panic left me like a fever breaking, and I was glad to see it go.

After Ada Lake, my worries were squashed completely as I meet multiple groups coming in (all smelling and looking much better than myself). I usually don’t like to see people, but I was SO glad to see people.

Canoeing Sawbill back to the dock where I started was an amazing experience. The sun was dazzling on the water. The Prism and I had made friends. The wind battered me a little on the Northern crossing, but I learned how to manage her better.

It was exhilarating coming into the dock. It was a great experience and lots of life lessons learned. It's interesting how fast things change. When you are solo you realize how everything is on you. All of a sudden, you have a car, a soda, a radio....It wasn't really a good feeling to have all that stuff, and I had trouble putting my compass away. Until next time!