Adventures... West of Quetico
by Bryan Whitehead
Day Four June 7, 1995
This day started off with the boys piling into several canoes and heading across the lake to a small waterfall to bathe in the cold water. They didn't seem to mind the chilly water temps as they splashed around and played in the falls.
Later that morning my friend showed me an island cabin. We cruised at a respectful distance around the island. The red painted deluxe wood cabin built high on the small island was complemented by a full sized water level float plane hanger painted to match. The owner, a wealthy trader from Chicago, owned this island and remote but luxurious cabin and would fly his float pane up for weekends! This trip takes 14 hours from Chicago by car to our entry point and 8-10 hours by boat after that, but this guy had it down to a matter of hours of travel by private plane. Lights came on in the cabin and I could hear the muffled drone of a Honda generator back in the trees. If you're going to be rich, this guy absolutely has it figured out.
We used the rest of our leech stash and fished for bass in the shallows and Walleyes out deeper. We caught our collective limit and had fish for dinner - running out of food on this trip was not going to be a problem.
A strong wind the evening before brought a delightful visitor. A tiny duckling obviously separated from its mother and siblings had taken shelter behind some shoreline plants. The boys huddled closely around the duckling, taking turns feeding it crumbs. They had to be convinced that taking it back to the States to raise would be problematic. That's right; our departure was set for the next day!
