Thursday, July 17, 2025
We awoke to a quite cool, but sunny and calm morning on beautiful Moose Lake. After a hearty pancake breakfast and some delightful banter with Warren and Stanley, the two kindergarten-aged boys who were excited to go on a canoe trip with their family that day as well, we did our final packing before getting towed out to the Birch Lake Portage, where the "real" trip began. The paddling conditions were just about perfect with pleasant temperatures, calm water, a very slight tail wind and gorgeous sun!

Soon we had crossed Birch Lake and as we pulled in to the first portage, we encountered what would be a common occurance throughout the day: a VERY busy portage. In dozens of trips I have never experienced so many people coming and going along the trails (including one group of six canoes and 12 people!) with groups at either end waiting as well. This was true all of the way out to Knife Lake. And while it was encouraging for us to see so many people leaving Knife if we were going to be looking for a campsite, this kind of congestion was also testing the patience of some travelers with a few curt comments heard and another group that decided against waiting and who then attempted to run the rapids. I heard their canoe thump against the rocks and through the trees I got a glimpse of it hung up with one end sticking out into thin air. It was even more concerning hearing the voices of children as part of this group but none of them sounded stressed and others had moved in to help them so we moved on.

As we crossed Seed Lake to the portage into Knife, I became confused when we were already coming to the rapids without much sign of the portage. I saw a clearing on the U.S. side that might be a portage but my (brand new!) map showed it to be on the Canadian side and that's also how I remembered it from being through this area a couple of times, years ago. We landed at a spot that indicated human activity and coincided with the portage location on my map. There was indeed an obvious path but I was still confused as this path did not look as traveled as one would expect. After hauling gear a short ways along this path, the trail disappeared! Frustrated, I asked for advice from the next coming canoeists who said they had been tipped off that the maps are wrong, the old portage (where we had landed) had been closed for years and that there were now TWO portages from there to Knife Lake--one U.S. and one Canadian! Learning that I had an incorrect map made me feel a little less foolish and also explained that clearing we'd seen on the U.S. side.

Once we finally reached Knife Lake we grabbed a little lunch before setting off in search of a campsite. Indeed, we pretty much had our pick of sites on the southeast end of Knife and after checking out a few we settled on site #1251 near the Vera Lake portage. This site had a wide open flat-rock landing with a good fire grate just a bit uphill to give a nice view out over the lake. The tent pads worked well and the latrine looked like it would serve us sufficiently.

After a little relaxing and getting the tents up, it was time for our tradtional first-night supper: steak and foil-wrapped potatoes, onions and carrots. Mat did a great job with the steaks over an open fire and the veggies cooked that same way turned out about as good as I can remember.

We did note that this site had "significant" mosquitos and that some were biting us even when we were out in the sun (we should have further noted this for what was to come!). Still, we were content with our new home and after some fireside stories and a few pulls from our flasks, we turned in to our tents to complete a successful first day on the water.