Saturday, September 07, 2024: Hey, We've Never Been to Anchor Lake! 6.9 miles (6.0c, 0.9p), 6 portages (90, 490, 105, 175, 260, and 90 meters). South, North Bay, no name, no name, Sunday, and Burke Lakes.

In addition to avoiding potential crowds on North Bay, a reason for staying on South Lake was that perhaps by paddling the narrow arm into North Bay early might increase our chances of wildlife sightings. We woke to a foggy 43 degree morning. As the sun rose higher in the sky, the mist burned off the lake and the temperature warmed to the mid-50s. We were blessed with a blue sky and fluffy scattered clouds.

While yesterday's portages spoiled us, today's were a reality check. For several years we've noticed the narrow finger between South Lake and North Bay and felt it would be a rewarding paddle. It wasn't at all what we expected! The portage from South Lake was easy enough, but the water was shallow for the first 50 yards or so and we were poling, rather than paddling, our canoe. When we finally reached deeper water, it was choked with lily pads, and our progress wasn't much faster (or quieter!) than poling. While we'd seen a fresh-looking moose track at the put-in, we're sure every critter was warned of our approach well in advance. We also had a couple beaver dams to negotiate before we entered North Bay. We stopped on an island on North Bay so Tia could pull out a wool layer-today's breezes are pretty cool.

From Sunday Lake we took the beautiful Singing Brook portage into Burke Lake. We had been so focused on our portage challenges between North Bay and Sunday Lake that we hadn't noticed the high gray clouds until reaching Burke. The lake has several campsites, but most are heavily used because the lake can be used to access three Quetico entry lakes: Agnes, Sarah, and Kahshahpiwi. We took an island site with a nice landing and moved in for the last night of our 2024 trip. Cups of hot soup fueled setup of the tent, the bear hang, and a ridgeline for a rain fly if needed.