My family has been taking vacations to northern MN almost ever since I can remember.  We started with fishing trips to a little mosquito-infested lake near Cass Lake, renting a small motorboat.  Then we discovered canoeing and vacationed at the end of the Gunflint, paddling and fishing big Sag.

When I was 11, my college-aged brother, Old_Salt, inspired by his Sunday School trip from years ago, decided to organize his own trip into the BWCA.  He convinced 2 other cousins that were around his age to join him and somehow or another he was able to convince my parents that he should be allowed to take me as the 4th member of the party.  I suspect that he just couldn't find anyone else of his age to go, but he claims that it was his intention to take me all along.  Regardless, my parents relented upon a promise of pain of death for my brother if he failed to bring me back relatively unscathed.

Old_Salt was not a fan of portaging so he eagerly eyed a Meander Lake entry.  Meander Creek flowed out of it with nary a marked portage along it, eventually leading to the Nina Moose and saving us 5 portages.  Brilliant!

After a fruitless day of bushwhacking in an attempt to follow the creek (which of course had no portages marked as it was not even navigable) we slept in the van and entered the park the more traditional way along the Moose River and made it to our destination, Iron Lake.

We really had no idea what we were doing and I was by far the most clueless of the bunch.  Our equipment was the finest that K-Mart had to offer, the food was unappetizing to say the least, and our mistakes were both legendary and plentiful. But we caught fish and the scenery was incredible!

Far from being scarred for life by the ordeal, I was entranced by the possibilities.  I mean, if we could ever hit a week where it didn't rain, the K-Mart equipment would work just fine, right?  More trips followed, we learned mostly by trial-and-error, and we slowly amassed a cache of equipment that could withstand the elements.

Bottom line, I will never forgive forget my introduction to the BWCA/Quetico and I've been hooked ever since.  ;D