Boundary Waters, Trip Reports, BWCA, Stories

Quetico's Trees, Rocks and Water: A Solo Journey
by CIIcanoe

Trip Type: Paddling Canoe
Entry Date: 07/02/2007
Entry Point: Quetico
Exit Point: Moose Lake (EP 25)  
Number of Days: 11
Group Size: 1
Part 2 of 14
Sunday, July 1st

Pre-Trip / Drive Day

07-01-07 1936 hours, Fall Lake Campsite #33

Right now there is a light rain and I’m sitting on a picnic table under the limbs of some trees, but I’ll probably have to move into the tent fairly soon.

Well, I had to move into the tent as soon as I finished the last line. It’s only a light rain and it’s coming straight down, but it’s too wet to stay outside.

The wind had been blowing very hard most of the day. I’m not sure when the wind died down, but about an hour ago I walked down to Fall Lake to see if I could get a cell phone reception to call my father. The lake was very calm while speaking with him down by the lake. The lake was only a short walk from my campsite.

Things didn’t go as planned the last couple of days. I didn’t leave the house as early as planned today, but it’s the best I could do. I was on call this past week at work and I was called into work to investigate a shooting at 0047 hours Saturday morning and worked until 1730 hours on it. This was after working till 2200 hrs the night before, so at most I got an hour and a half of sleep before being called at home to come back into work

I was able to get some stuff packed or put together last night after work, but not as much as I would’ve liked to have gotten accomplished. I was just so tired from the lack of sleep that I went to bed sometime between 2100 to 2200 hours.

This morning I woke up at 0615 hours, ate, took a shower and continued packing.

First, I packed all my food together. My three meals are placed in three different colored stuff sacks. One for each meal and there was another partial stuff sack that contained additional coffee and some sourdough bread.

When I tried getting all my food into my Kelty back pack, I couldn’t get it zipped up. I went downstairs and got my other Granite Gear Quetico Pack. I haven’t put the pack on my back yet, but it’s substantially heavier than for a shorter trip. One thing I always say every trip, “I brought too much food!”

I finally got everything together and some of it placed inside my other Granite Gear Superior pack. Some things weren’t packed away completely because I would be camping at the campground tonight. There will be time to fine tune everything in the morning at the Moose Lake landing, anyways.

It’s starting to rain harder now (1956 hours at the campground).

This morning I left home at 1054 hours. I had to make a few stops, went to Subway and bought a 12 inch Chicken breast sub and then went to the ATM. Afterwards, I filled the Suburban with gas and drove to the Post Office to mail my vehicle insurance premium.

I was officially on the road at 1110 hours. (Mileage 89019). There was more traffic coming up I-35, since leaving later than I normally do for these trips, but traffic was moving along fine.

When I left the house this morning the temperature was 76 degrees. I called my father in Grand Rapids, he said, it was 63 degrees there. After arriving in Duluth the temperature was 58-59 degrees. I got to downtown Duluth around two hours and ten minutes after leaving my house.

I continued along the north shore to Two Harbors where I filled up the Suburban with gas at the Holiday Gas Station on the north end of town at around 1356 hours. The temperature fluctuated between 55 to 59 degrees from Two Harbors to my turn onto Highway One going toward Isabella.

There was very little traffic going north on Highway 61, but I did get stuck following a truck that was pulling a smaller trailer carrying two canoes and two kayaks. The trailer jumped back and forth as it went up the highway. There was a smaller car directly behind the truck and trailer and it eventually was able to pass the trailer. There was a Ford Excursion in front of me that just continued following behind the truck and trailer. It made no effort to pass this vehicle. Little did I know as we creped up the highway that these two vehicles were together and they both pulled off at the Baptism River together. I should add and not too soon.

I had the road to myself for the next 5 miles before the turn to Highway One. Once I made the turn I pulled over and got my camera out of my Pelican case. Next, I grabbed my Chicken breast sub sandwich out of the cooler.

There were three little fawns, still with spots, that crossed the road just before Finland. The third fawn crossed the road a mile or two from the first two. There was another larger fawn or small doe off to the side of the road in moose country along Highway One.

Many years ago when I worked out of Isabella I crested the top of a hill in this area and standing in the middle of the roadway was a moose. To this day I don’t know how I missed it. There are signs to look out for moose along this stretch of the road.

(2008 hours-It now has stopped raining)

I drove into Isabella and noticed a new structure being built where Olga’s Bar used to be. There are only a handful of buildings so it was obvious. There is only one road through Isabella and that’s Highway One. Later, Char, at the Isabella Work Station, told me the old structure had burned to the ground recently.

I continued to follow the road going north and pulled into the Isabella Work Station. I used to work for the US Forest Service from 1980 to 1983 when this was an actual Ranger Station. During the summers there were many people who worked out of the ranger station here. Now it’s very quiet.

Last year there was an on-line auction where the government had broken this compound into I believe 9 separate properties that were for sale on the on-line auction. All, but one had been sold.

I pulled into the driveway down by the two smaller log cabins that led to the back of the compound where the warehouses are situated. While working there I lived in each of these two log cabins as well as some other structures on the property. Further down Highway One I also lived with several other Forest Service employees in what was referred to as the section house. The section house used to be owned by the railroad and it’s next to some railroad tracks that are no longer there.

There was a sign on one of the warehouses marking the office to pick up permits. I walked in and notice that a small portion of this warehouse had been converted into a small office. I spoke to the receptionist, Char, for a little while. I didn’t need to pick up anything, but just wanted to see the changes. Char wasn’t originally from the area, so she didn’t recognize most of the names I mentioned. I did mention the name Jeff D., and she told me he is still stationed at Isabella but he was on vacation that week. I told her to tell him I said, hello.

I left the work station and continued on Highway One. Just before the section house I went through some curves in the road where there is a small log house that is boarded up. Back in the 1980 or 1981 I rounded those same curves going the opposite way. In my peripheral view I saw a dark object running from the yard toward my car. Then I heard something hit my car twice. I thought a dog had run into my car so I got out checking on it. Well, it wasn’t a dog; it was two second year bear cubs. I didn’t stick around to long, just enough time to pull them off to the side. I knew momma bear would be near by and I didn’t want to explain it to her. Later, when I got back to the ranger station I called the conservation officer who I believe was in Babbitt at the time.

Now I drove passed the section house that’s about 2 miles up the road from the work station. The trees in the front of the house have sure grown up since living there some 24 years ago. It appears there are Forest Service employees still living there as there were several trucks parked outside the large residence.

About three miles later I pulled into the Little Isabella campground and changed out of my shorts into long pants. It began to sprinkle a little while outside my Suburban. It was another cloudy, cool, northeast Minnesota summer day.

Next I drove passed the Knotted Pine Tavern. While working up there in 1980 this bar sold 3.2 beer. It still may as I haven’t been inside since 1983. When I worked up here this tavern was owned by Lee and Gladys Waggoner. Their son, Dave Waggoner aka Wagner, was the lead singer from the band, Crow. This was a local Midwest band that got its start in the late 60’ to early 70’s with one of their biggest hits, “Cottage Cheese”. I mention this because I first heard of this group when I was visiting relatives in Moline, Illinois when I was a young kid. This tavern opened in 1937. Several logging families settled around this area after the “town” of Forest Center, on the south shore of Isabella Lake disbanded. Forest Center was established by the Tomahawk Kraft Paper company who needed a place for their employees to live after they had acquired 150,000 acres in the 1940’s. Forest Center was located near Isabella Lake.

Five miles later, I drove to McDougall Lakes Campground. I drove down to the boat landing and took some photos of the wild rice that was beginning to emerge through the water.

I was just reminiscing back to the days when I worked up there. The Isabella area is a very remote and an interesting area. One can find a lot of solitude here. When I worked for the US Forest Service, my first year I worked as an Initial Attack Fire Crew member and later that fall/winter was a supervisor for the Young Adult Conservation Corp (YACC) where we did some Timber Stand Improvement and burning of slash piles. The other years I worked as a Recreation Forestry Technician where I patrolled the campgrounds and dispersed campsites outside the BWCA in the Isabella Ranger District.

My next scheduled stop was Ron Brodigan’s residence / school. Ron has been teaching Log Building at his school, Great Lakes School of Log Building, since about 1975. His website, http://www.schooloflogbuilding.com/newsletter.htm. I’ve taken a couple log building classes and one stone class from Ron.

I e-mailed Ron earlier and told him I would be coming up his way and I would stop by to say hi. I drove up to the junction of Highway One and Highway Two. There was an old logging camp, St. Croix Logging Camp, next to the Stony River there many years ago. I turned to go south several miles toward Sand Lake. Just before I got to Ron’s driveway I saw that he had his pick-up parked off the road at the entrance to one of his rental cabins, the Sunrise Cabin. When I pulled down the driveway, Ron was in his tractor with the back hole clearing brush from around the Sunrise cabin making the fire break a little larger around it. Ron also told me he was going to put a metal on the roof.

Ron was in the back hole and there was another guy helping Ron. I spoke to Ron for about half an hour. Ron asked me if I read the note on the door to his place, but I hadn’t since I came from the other direction. After speaking with Ron I drove over to his place and looked at the newest project, a 18’ by 20’ log cabin, his students are building. Then I went to his big rental cabin, the Ridge Cabin, to see some of the changes he has done to it in the past year.

(Well, it’s still raining very lightly as I continue to write).

Ron is also selling some property, so I decided to check that out after he gave me the description of the boundaries of it. Well, time to get going again.

I went back north on Highway Two up to Highway One. I turned left onto Highway One, in the old days when this was a logging road it was known as the Stony Tote Road. The original trail was built by the St. Croix Logging Company. For those who have never had the chance to experience this very scenic, curvy, albeit dangerous, 40 mile section of Highway One to Ely, it won’t be the same. There is road construction going on. The trees used to come right up to road, but now they are cutting the trees way back and they are also straightening portions of the road. This started about where the old Chub Lake Resort was by the road. Chub Lake began as a resort in 1934, but has been closed many years now. A little further up they have completely removed the blacktop and it’s all gravel with barrels marking the roadway.

I was very disappointed in the change. Since I’m an outsider and I don’t live there, it’s easy for me to be disappointed in the change. I know some locals who welcome the change, because there wasn’t much room for any error when driving this road because of the moose, bear, deer, snow and other logging trucks. I have to remember that I don’t travel this section on a daily basis or in the winter, so it’s easy for me to be disappointed. I would have to say this was the last remaining 40 mile section that is very scenic and remote. It would be hard to come up with a more scenic road in Minnesota as this stretch up the old Stony Tote Road from Isabella to Ely.

There was more construction at the South Kawishiwi River. Very sad to see! Before long it will look like all the yuppie buildings / resorts that have popped up along the North Shore of Lake Superior. Very sad! Well, maybe not that bad, but there’s still a drastic change taking place.

I got to Ely just 5 minutes shy of the six hour mark, since leaving home. I stopped into Piragis’s and bought some more stuff. Let’s see, what did I buy? I bought another stuff sack, because I needed a different color. I bought a couple books; Runes of the North by Sig Olsen and Quetico Provincial Park by Shirley Peruniak, some Dealy Bobs, and another map case, why, because eventually I might need another one on a future trip and some smaller plastic bags for one of my other packs that I’m not taking on this trip. I used to get these bags at REI in the Twin Cities, but two out of the three stores I’ve been to don’t carry them anymore. I bought $106 worth of items.

My next stop was at the DQ for a double hamburger and large fries. I needed to grab a cup of coffee, so I drove back west down the main street to the coffee shop, it was closed. I then drove to the Northern Grounds down from Piragis. I got a large coffee and a delicious strawberry rhubarb pie. Very good pie!

While driving back to the east I stopped by Voyageur North to browse before heading to the Fall Lake Campground. I was going to introduce myself to the owners, but I didn’t see them. There were a couple younger guys there, and one of them was accusing the other one of taking his keys a week ago. This was my last stop before the campground.

I got to the main building to check in at the Fall Lake campground around 1830 to 1845 hours. They gave me some information, the code to the restrooms and then it was off to the campsite I went.

After getting to the campsite and grabbing my camera I walked a short distance from my campsite down to the water. I came back up to a very clean campsite and made camp. I began writing in my journal and I’ve been writing for over one hour.

The wind seems to have picked up some, gusty. The time now is 2042 hours.