A Through-Paddle from Ely to Atikokan
Rod Franz
We made camp in Budside Lake in mid afternoon right in front of a storm. Rod's curse came home to roost, we did get rained on a little, and everyone had to put rain gear on. It was, however, a brief event, but with some thunder and lightning. We were glad that we were off the lake.
Both Rod's foot and Mike's knee are somewhat improved.
Eating is important.
Relatively speaking, the trail food is good. When one paddles 10 to 15 miles
daily, and carries the load on the portages, one needs calories. A typical
breakfast would be granola or hot cereal and breakfast drink, maybe some dried
fruit.
Lunch is peanut butter, jelly and crackers, a peanut bar, dried fruit, or sometimes a half roll or summer sausage, and granola. For three lunches we had the best lunch of all, Hudson Bay Bread, a high calorie concoction that tastes like maple flavored peanut butter. It was always eaten with peanut butter and jelly on top. Left over peanut butter and jelly were taken straight, right out of the container. Simply hold the squeeze bottle of jelly above the head, tilt the head back, and squeeze until mouth is full. Normally kool-aid was available for those who wanted it.
Dinner is usually a one pot meal — beef stroganof, spiced rice and chicken, etc.
Day Nine (7/15/02) Day 6 on the water. (Through Mary's Lake, Jenny's
Lake into Quetico Lake. 13 miles, 4 portages
Slept in this morning. Up at 6:00 and on water by 8:00. Just about got trapped
in Mary's lake. Spent about an hour looking for the portage out, and finally
found it. Wasn't even close to where it was marked on the map.
Quetico is another large lake, and once again, we had a substantial headwind for the bulk of the way. As usual, fighting the wind is fatiguing for everybody, but overall we are in much better shape, and paddling and steering are much easier than the day we started. Camped on a point of land most of the way through Quetico. Tomorrow we get to see the pictographs.
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