START DAY: Just north of Heartbreak

END DAY: Scout Lake

CAMPSITE #8

In the morning while still in camp at our site, we ran into our sister trek for the first time as they paddled over to greet us. They had broken camp early and were anxious to start the legendary portage at the end of the lake we were camped on. The portage had been named “HEARTBREAK” by Northern Tier and is one that will never be forgotten by any that have traversed the route.

From one side to the other it is roughly one mile long. It starts out relatively tame, but very quicky you encounter the first signs of mud which gets progressively deeper and messier the further into the portage you go. Sinking waist deep into mud was not a one-time event in this portage. A couple of the scouts got themselves literally stuck in the mud and needed assistance to be pulled out!

There were some routes that could be taken that avoided the worst of the mud, but the kids wanted none of the easy stuff; they opted to plow right through the heart of the mess and enjoyed every minute of the challenge.

After four hours we managed to get all of the canoes, gear, and scouts onto the shore of Scout Lake at the end of the portage. Our sister trek had just as much fun as we did and we crossed paths with them multiple times on the portage.

Each of our treks selected a separate campsite for our last night in Atikaki on Scout Lake. We spent a fair amount of time cleaning mud from the canoes and the kids before cooking some food and heading out for a last round of fishing.

While our team was dog-tired from the Heartbreak portage, we were amazed to see the three canoes of our sister trek paddling east toward the end of the lake. Their interpreter, Adam, told the scouts that there was a special “100-Mile” patch that would be awarded for any trek that hit 100 miles on their trip. I don’t know exactly how many miles those kids rowed, but they went back and forth across Scout Lake several times before Adam advised them that they had hit the 100-mile marker.

Several of the crew fished from their campsite and caught some very nice pike. Gordon, one of the adult leaders, managed to eke out the best fish of the trip when he pulled in a 37” northern pike taking down my 36.5” pike caught earlier in the week. Several of Adam’s crew caught enough pike from the campsite that they enjoyed a final fish dinner that evening.