Leo's Big Adventure
by TonyAF8205
Leo & Grandpa left at 1pm for Bill & Joan’s house in Minneapolis. We had sandwiches and chips for dinner.
Sunday, July 5, 2026 We left Bill’s at 10am after a great breakfast of Homemade breakfast burritos. We arrived in Ely (Packsack Canoe Trips) for our permit around 3:15. We drove on to Fall Lake Campground and had roast beef and mashed potatoes for dinner. We showered and settled in at 10pm to read.
Monday, July 6, 2026 We woke up by alarm at 6:45. We had bagels with peanut butter and jelly & applesauce. We paddled out at 9:40. We arrived at portage #1 (Newton Falls) at 10:40. We portaged 3 trips (Yeah, I know, we brought too much stuff....Again!) and left at noon. We arrived at portage #2 (Pipestone Falls) about 1pm. That portage took about an hour. From portage #2, we could see the campsite we wanted a fairly short paddle across the lake. We arrived at campsite # 1607 at 3pm. It was a nice spot with a small beach landing for the canoe. We set up our tent and a tarp with a mosquito net beneath the tarp for our chairs. Next we took a quick splash in the chilly lake water to rinse off a bit. Later, we made meatball subs for dinner. After dinner, we made a fire for smores, but a fast-moving storm moved in. We hunkered down in our chairs under the tarp and watched the rain put out our fire. No smores tonight. *We did eat a couple of marshmallows before bed anyway (raw). So Many Trees, But No Campsites
Tuesday, July 7, 2026 We got up by alarm at 5:30. We expect a long day of paddling due to Leo’s goal of going to Canada. We left camp at 09:30. We navigated past Gary Island and New York Island, then through Lewis Narrows. We had a short MRE lunch-stop on a pebble beach. We passed the “No Motors” sign about 1pm. By 1:30, we stopped by Campsite # 1555 (Grandpa’s favorite), but it was already taken by 2 groups. We backtracked a half-mile, and continued on to 3 different island campsites (per Leo’s goal to camp on an island), but one was very rocky, and the other two were already taken. It was now getting a bit late, so we needed to find a site fairly soon.
We paddled another 1/3 mile to a campsite which the last group said was still available (campsite # 1618). We arrived there about 3pm, and it was empty, and very nice. We set up our tent, tarp, & bug net and then started making dinner. We had freeze-dried chicken teriyaki which was great. A strong breeze blew after dinner, but the sky was only overcast, so no storm. We re-strung a fishing reel, watched a nice sunset, then turned in. We played a little rummy around 9pm. We received a light rain shower around 10:15, but Leo was already asleep by then. It was a long day of paddling (10.2 miles).
There’s Something Fishy about this guy!
Wednesday, July 8, 2026 Today is fishing day for Leo since we’ll be hanging around here for another day (His first fishing day ever). After a breakfast of granola and applesauce, we paddled North towards Canada (another Leo goal). We paddled to nearby Hanson/Hauson? Island (the name is spelled differently on two of my maps). We paddled all the way around the island to campsite # 1619 and said hi to our neighbor there. As we passed the North tip of the island, we were officially in Canadian water.
Grandpa started out by catching a 20” smallmouth bass. After a few minutes, he gave that lure to Leo. Soon after, Leo caught a 22” walleye to be followed by a 18” smallmouth bass. That was one lucky lure for sure. All these fish were caught within a mere hour and a half which is pretty amazing based on all my past trips (I usually say “I’m here for the scenery, not the fishing”). We took pics of each fish, and released them quickly (Leo prefers being kind to the critters). Still, they took a couple of minutes to recover before swimming away. While fishing, we saw a beaver swim across the lake just in front of our canoe. It was pretty cool watching him up close. What a Great Day!
[ Chillin in Camp ]
Having concluded our fishing goals, we headed back to camp. We strung up the hammock and another tarp and goofed around there in the shade a bit. We had spaghetti for supper, then smores by the fire (“Finally, says Leo”). We got some great pics of the longest sunset we’ve ever watched. The initial pink faded in 10-15 mins, but a second phase of better colors started up a short while later. Leo estimates this sunset was over an hour and a half. The pink was lingering so long, the stars took a long while to appear.
Leo saw Cassiopia (the big W), Ursa Major (The Big Dipper) and Ursa Minor (The Little Dipper). We also saw the North Star while 2 satellites cruised over us. The sky was not as dark as my other trips due to the long sunset, so we didn't see much else in the sky.
Racing to get home (Sort of........Okay, not really) Thursday, July 9, 2026 Since Leo checked all the boxes on his list, and since our weather was still holding for a good paddling day, we decided to head home one day early to watch Formula 1 (It's my favorite sport, and one of Leo's). If the wind was to pick up tomorrow, (our last long day), we could have a very difficult day paddling with no option to delay for better weather. Today will be another long day of paddling to get as near to the portages as possible. We set the alarm for 8am, but we were both up by 7am (noisy birds). We had bagels with peanut butter and jelly for breakfast.
It was a longer, longest day
During our trip back, we passed a huge eagle nest on top of a dead tree. We could hear the eaglets calling from the nest. We stopped for lunch on an island (Leo’s list. We stopped at a couple of full campsites, but ended up finally at campsite # 1614 right across from pipestone falls around 4:30 (I've stayed here once before). We set up the tent then showered. We had dinner and were in bed by 8pm (long day). ** We saw an eagle, and paddled 10.5 miles today.
Everyone fishes up here Friday, July 10, 2026 We were up at 6am by alarm and had a breakfast of French toast. We were paddling by 10am. We decided to stop at the bottom of Pipestone Falls for some pics before portaging, since we didn’t do that on the way in. We started portaging at 10:30, and finished at 11:15. We arrived at Newton Falls at 12:30 and finished by 1:15. We saw an otter diving for fish near our canoe while paddling, so we stopped and watched him go up and down for more fish for about 20 minutes. He was so cute surfacing with a small fish in his mouth, chomping it down, and diving again over and over. We stopped next to the tip of Mile Island for a picnic lunch in our canoe while enjoying the breeze. It was getting hot!
This was officially a Super-sized trip! We arrived at the boat ramp at Fall Lake Campground at 2:15. We packed the truck and showered within an hour. During our drive back to Iowa, we took pics of a Frank Lloyd Wright gas station and an explorer statue nearby. We also saw a very cool Lotus sports car on the highway. We couldn’t tell the model though. We stopped at White Castle for sliders for dinner (Leo’s first). Our total mileage is: 31.2 miles paddled, and 4 miles of portaging. Our longest lake paddled was over 4 miles long, and our deepest lake was 74’ deep as measured on our fish finder. Incidentally, this trip had everything go perfectly from start to finish. Leo is a good-luck charm. I’ve made 7 other trips to the boundary waters, and I’ve experienced 3 solid days of rain, crazy strong head-winds going in and going out. I’ve also had terrible luck fishing on a few trips. Our mosquitos were also mild by comparison to most trips. Thanks Leo!!
We saw 2 eagles, 2 beavers, one otter, 2-3 Loons, Many beaver lodges. We caught 2 Bass and one Walleye. We also had smores (of course!) ** Check out our photos as well.
~Fall Lake, Newton Lake, Pipestone Bay, Basswood Lake
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