The Cloquet River is also one of my favorites.  I have spent more time on this river than any other body of water.  Paddling on the Cloquet has been a family tradition started by my great-grandpa.  In two weeks I am going to take a trip from the Cedar Bay campground area to Island Lake (if the ice is out on the lake by then).  One of my favorite parts of this section is the huge white pine on the island above Cedar Rapids.  I have spent more time on the lower Cloquet (from the Munger Shaw Road to the St. Louis River) than the upper, but I really appreciate the remoteness and beautiful rapids of the upper Cloquet.  One story from my dad is about fifteen to twenty years ago on Labor Day, he and friend took a late afternoon paddle down the Cloquet from the Carrol Forest Road to Island Lake.  As it was getting dark, they rounded a bend in a narrow section and were stopped in their tracks by a bull moose up its chest in the water.  The moose nearly blocked the entire channel with its size and would not move.  They admired it for a time, but because it was getting dark, they had to proceed.  They tried to get it to move by smacking their paddles on the water, but got no response from the moose.  Reluctantly, they quietly attempted to paddle the narrow space between the moose and the shore.  Just as they passed the moose, the water that had been up to the animals chest was now at his knees.  The moose had been laying down in the river.  My dad and friend were now being looked down at by a huge moose in knee deep water only a few feet away.  The moose, however, just ambled off in teh opposite direstion.  They finished their trip without another incident.  They did, however, pass a canoe wrapped around a boulder in Whitesides Rapids.  Does anyone know the story behind this?