Congrats on 40 years, OS! Hope you can have 40 more  :D

I made my first trip to the Q only 17 years ago (I was much older than you when I got started ;)) We did a loop from Prairie Portage up through North Bay, up the S Chain, over to Agnes, to Kawnipi, then back down through Kewatin, back through Agnes and out again.

The thing I remember most about that trip was the very first portage I ever did in the Q. It was the lovely cadillac portage from Bailey Bay to Burke--sand landings at both ends, nice wide portage trail, etc. Anyway, we single carried back in those days, so I'm hauling two packs over a portage for the first time, and about half way through, I was thinking that it was not the most pleasant thing I'd ever done. I got to the end and finally dropped my packs and thought that was truly a pain the arse. Our group leader told us that was the best portage we'd ever do, and I thought he was joking!! He most definitely was not. But I sucked it up and actually took to the challenges of all of the portages on that trip. By the time we tackled the Meadows portages toward then end of the trip, I was a portaging machine  ;D

The other thing about that trip I'll never forget was that we weren't 30 minutes out of Prairie Portage, and an eagle plunged into the lake, almost in the middle of our canoes, and pulled an awesome northern out of the lake. I've never seen that again in all my trips back up there.

All in all, a great trip and I'd love to do that loop again some day.