Because we live in North Carolina, our Canoe Country trips start and end with a two-day commute between home and Ely that mapping apps list as some 1250 miles. That mileage doesn’t include stops for fuel, food, and lodging, nor does it capture the drive from Ely to Moose Lake. This year’s round-trip mileage was 2725 miles.

When we get to Ely, we're happy to get out of the car and get active again, so we checked into our room late yesterday afternoon, then walked around town to check out new canoes and other gear. We had dinner at the Boathouse (walleye baskets, of course), then returned to the room.

Day 1's breakfast was at Britton’s, where we each ate too much, then drove to the Moose Lake public landing. We were on the water at 8:50, and it's generally about a two-hour paddle from Moose Lake to Prairie Portage for us. In our first six miles or so of paddling, we had four bald eagle sightings!

We left our gear on the Sucker Lake side of Prairie Portage and walked to the ranger station with our reservation information. The suspension of Canada’s RABC permits this year certainly impacted Quetico visitation from the south--we were one of only two parties entering Quetico via Prairie Portage August 25th, and usually all 15 of a day's PP permits are taken. We were quite happy we had saved that magic piece of paper from our 2024 trip! Our entry lake was Carp; the second party also had Carp as their entry lake and were already in the Park. With our signed reservation in hand, we walked back to the canoe and paddled the short distance on Sucker to Birch. After almost 4 miles (and a lunch stop) on Birch Lake, we portaged into Carp Lake. Our total gear weight the past couple years has been less than 125 pounds, so we're still single-walking portages, each carrying about 62 pounds at the start of a trip.

While the southern end of Carp Lake is on the US/Canada border, the bulk of the lake is in Quetico. We found a nice site on an island about a mile after leaving the border, filled the dirty reservoir of our gravity filter, and spotted a pair of trumpeter swans. We set up camp and our bear bag hang, and as I cooked our shrimp and pesto dinner, Tia was checking out flowers around the island. Blue asters, white asters, devil’s paint brush, buttercups, and grass-leaf goldenrod were still in bloom. As we cleaned our dinner dishes, a bald eagle flew in and landed in a tree at the edge of our site.

With food and smellables hanging, we retired to the tent around 7:30 with plans of a Patrick McManus story or two and a couple games of Farkle. Something happened when we crawled into the tent and stretched out horizontally for a minute—no stories or Farkle that night! We were both asleep by 7:45. Both awoke around 2:15 for a potty break and weren’t quite asleep when at 2:30 we were startled by a bright flash. I thought it might be getting northern lights, but it was too bright, almost like midday sun. After our trip, we learned that it was likely a bright meteor or fireball.