Thanks.

We were in Quetico for eight days in September (Friday through Saturday). The sunset on the second Friday was almost a spiritual experience, what with the many hues and the rapidly changing sky. Its effect was made even more powerful because it was the first time we'd seen the sun since that Monday. For the longest time that evening, there was but a ribbon of blue on the far western horizon, and as the sun slid toward that opening, the clouds seemed to evaporate more than blow away.

It truly was a Crayola box of colors.

It's intriguing how Quetico likes to rough you up, and then -- as you wave good-bye -- it gives you a gift that erases the discomfort and has you longing for a quick return. We had more rain than usual this year, but after that sunset I couldn't remember the wet or the long slogs, only the beauty, the vastness and the untouched wilderness.

Last year a similar thing happened. Our last full day in the woods was just miserable: rain on and off all day, cold temperatures, a stubborn fire (as in it just didn't want to roar) and poor fishing. The mood in camp, in a word, was morose. I particularly felt the darkness. Then ... after we woke early to paddle to the take-out, we were greeted with a beautiful dawn sky, a calm lake with light fog, a beaver paddling in front of us and "slapping tail," loons on the water, a portage where smells seemed to etch themselves into your memory and maple leaves were sprinkled like vivid drops of blood on the trail (and a grouse walked along just ahead of us), and eagles sat like statues on the "sentinel" dead pines on that point of Bayley Bay.

-- kypaddler