Saturday, September 05, 2020 I snuck out of the tent so as to not awaken my weary grandson as I sensed sunrise. It was those magic mornings. Sigurd Olson’s “white horses” of mist were dancing from the portage to our east past our point to the open lake. Hints of the mist rise off the warm waters into the cool air and as the breeze presses on the little columns, it spreads the tops of the columns forward, much like the heads of real horses. As the breeze pushed them along, it was like watching a small herd trotting together across the surface…their trot accompanied by the water splashing in the stream behind them. Ahhhh. We broke camp early so as to get to Cherokee and hopefully grab a campsite. I got overconfident of my skills real quickly and allowed us to head into a branch of weird (didn’t look at the map) There was a definite channel through the shallow vegetation and it appeared to lead to an open rock shoreline like most portages appear…with a log solidly in front of the turn which could have been to the portage. A ridiculous looking old man and his grandson maneuvered over the log and into the dead end…and out again. The map couldn’t have been clearer. One needs to look at maps (and the compass) now and then. Portaged into a no-name lake and the other canoe failed to follow us after leaving yet another beaver dam crossing….Had a good laugh that they had done just what I had foolishly accomplished. The ¾ mile slog to South Temperance was work for this old guy, but youth did well. South Temperance is an attractive lake and I had been there a couple times in 69 and 70. But we were in a hurry and pushed against the breeze to the North Temperance portage. A quick turn and we were headed over the next 105 rod journey to Sitka. This seemed familiar now. I had crossed it at least four times on previous trips. From Sitka to Cherokee, we crossed the Laurentian divide…water either headed to Superior on the east side (and eventually to the Atlantic) or to Hudson Bay on the west. This made the rocky, up and down carry a little more tolerable, thinking at least it was a “divide” which sounds more important. Dropping down from that 3 ½ foot boulder in the middle of the path brought back the memory of trying to carry an 80# canoe up that same boulder years ago. It was here I most remembered the old canoe rests at the top of slopes where you could put the bow on a horizontal log attached high up between two trees or a tree and a post. With great relief we appeared on the shore of Cherokee. We had met one group of guys who told us they knew of one campsite that was still open. But the one they described had folks unloading already. Surprisingly, the first site we came to in the opposite direction was open…not marked as a campsite on this website, but was on our map. It had a nice view to the east and north from the “front porch”, a steep, short climb in, and space for our two 3-man tents. We set up for a layover, getting to spread out for the first time. I noted many fewer loons than I remembered from previous trips. Saw several more bald eagles…over the course of the rest of the day. A beautiful evening…could here some younglings swimming and having a great time in the campsite across the bay from us. We counted the day a success and finding the campsite so soon after getting to Cherokee was a great relief. Later we watched a group searching from island to island and campsite to campsite for a place to stay. We had been lucky..but they didn’t approach our location.