The best canoe trip I've ever taken was this past summer (1999). It was a ten-day trip (August 15-26), with two lay-over days. We put in on Kawishiwi Lake, and went through Square, Polly, Koma, Malber, Alice, Thomas, Fraser, Kekekabikc, South Arm Knife Lake, Eddy, Ogishkemuncie, Gabimichigami, Little Saganaga, Mora, Tuscarora, Cherokee, and we took out on Sawbill. I don't remember where went each day, but I kept a journal of some things that happened each day...

Day 1--"We're back in the B-Dubb... It's awesome! I did a 186 portage today w/a pack and then w/a canoe--all alone!"

Day 2--"We did an awesome "I'm a water buffalo" kind of portage today--we were up to our chests (and some up past our heads) in this mucky water in the middle of one of the portages. It was lots of fun"

Day 3--"I did a 240 portage woday, w/the canoe--yeah! I did fall over once and it was super muddy (one girl got stuck in it!), but it was lots of fun. When I was duffing today, I had to pump water--that was difficult! Good thing I had my rain gear on! We saw some incredible moose tracks toady. We went swimming in Kekekabic lake today. We haven't seen anybody since like early yesterday, I think. We're totally alone on all these lakes, and it's so quiet. The blow down stuff it crazy! It's like a bulldozer came and ran over random parts of the whole forest."

Day 4--"We went to Canada today (lay-over day, and we paddled like 8 miles!)--it was super cool! We went swimming off this rocky edge that went like straight down.. We went gunnel pumping too, which was really fun! We sang all kinds of fun songs, too"

Day 5--"So I'm sitting here on a big rock, and watching the sunset. It's super cool, and I'm feeling pretty relaxed right now. Today was fun, b/c it was voyageurs day, so we got up super early, and our leaders gave us all voyageurs hats to wear, and we sang French songs, and made other ones up. And it was insanely hot today!"

Day 6--"I was leader of the day today. It was super stressful! But I made it--yay for me! I learned how to read a map pretty well. We had a silent paddle for the morning, and we got to see a mama moose and her baby, which was totally cool! And we got to watch the stars last night, which was really nice."

Day 7--"We paddled, and portaged, and made it:)"

Day 8--"Me and one of the other girls made donuts for breakfast--really fun! It's our last layover day. We played games all day and just had fun."

I didn't have anything written for days 9 or 10. The whole trip was beautiful, and we got to see up-close what kind of storm damage there was. When we went to Canada, it was so weird--there was all kinds of blow-down stuff on the US side, but nothing on the Canadian side! We saw some awesome pictographs around Lake Alice. Overall, it was the best 10 days of my life. a I learned so much about myself, as well as the wilderness. And I learned a ton more about canoeing and camping in general. I set goals for myself at the beginning of the trip, and evaluated myself at the end. I thought this was both a fun and helpful thing to do. We had so much food, that we couldn't hang our food packs until like Day 7. On our very last portage, we all covered our faces in mud (I have no idea why!), and carried the last canoe over all together (there were 9 of us). It hardly rained at all, which was great. We saw a loon on every single lake. We affectionately called each one Norman, pretending it was one loon following us:) We saw bald eagles, fish, frogs, an otter or something, snake, and many other animals. As we left the BWCAW, we all dipped our hats into the lake and bit it a fond farewell.

I can't wait to hear what other trips people have taken.

Posted by Meg on January 18, 2000 at 18:16