In the summer of 1994 at the age of 13, I took my first trip to the Boundary Waters (and Quetico) with my father, younger brother, and the aforementioned Uncle Bruce. Uncle Bruce, who is actually my mom’s uncle, was an experienced canoe tripper and my father had gone with him on a trip to the Quetico once in the 80’s. The three of us relied very much on him to help us plan the trip. While my brother and I had been canoeing with our father since as long as we could remember, this was the first time that we had ever combined it with camping and over the course of multiple days.
This trip would become a defining experience to me in how it exposed me to a sense of traveling in nature with respect for its power and beauty. Someday I want my boys to experience that as well. Hopefully they will find the same appreciation that I do.
We took this trip in early June, right after school got out. We left our home in Southeastern Wisconsin in the morning and picked up Uncle Bruce from Northern Wisconsin along the way.
We made it as far as Gooseberry Falls State Park in Minnesota, before we stopped for the night and camped. Gooseberry Falls State Park is a pleasant state park, centered upon Gooseberry Falls that tumbles through the park on its way to Lake Superior. There is actually an Upper Falls and a Lower Falls, and the highway crosses the river in between the two falls. The Lower Falls is more grand in that it is wider and longer, with numerous ledges. Trails follow both sides of the falls and a bridge crosses below to provide lots of vantage points. The Upper Falls, is equally impressive, but for different reasons in that the Upper Falls is more concentrated to a single, more narrow drop. Therefore the Upper Falls displays more power and force of water than that shown by the Lower Falls.
The next day, we continued our trip, first to Grand Marais. Hwy 61 from Duluth to Grand Marais is a beautiful stretch of highway as it tracks the coast of Lake Superior. The coast in that area is sharply elevated above the lake and in some areas the highway travels through tunnels cut into the hillside. Once in Grand Marais, we obtained our BWCAW permits, got some breakfast at a local diner, and continued North on the Gunflint Trail.
Upon reaching the Top of the Trail at Saganaga Lake, we packed up the canoes and began our trip. I canoed with my uncle while my dad and brother shared a canoe. By this time, it was getting late in the day, and our Quetico permits only allowed us entry on the next day. We settled for camping on Spruce Island in Saganaga Lake. Only later did we find out that since the Island was neither in the BWCAW nor Quetico, it is considered Queen’s Land and you are not permitted to camp there without further permit. However, this went undiscovered. That night Uncle Bruce caught a couple of lake trout in between the small Islands to the South of Spruce Island. It was my first taste of Boundary Waters fish, and it was good. We set out early the next day for Cache Bay and the Quetico Ranger Station there.
I remember thinking that it was pretty cool that the previous day we had to canoe to customs and then today we were canoeing just to get to get into the park at the ranger station. I think that it really emphasized to me that we were traveling using a non-traditional form of transportation. Or rather, we were using a traditional form of transportation that has fallen out of mainstream use. I always enjoyed the journey or traveling aspect of the multi-day trips, and particularly in the Boundary Waters that I have taken since then and I think it started from this trip.
From the Cache Bay Ranger Station we were now in the Quetico and we first headed East, into a narrow corner of Cache Bay to view some pictographs painted on some rocks near the water. The Boundary Waters area has been inhabited by people for hundreds of years, and remnants of their existence are all over the parks. After this detour we headed into the narrows in out the Northeastern end of Cache Bay. We caught a pair of lake trout right at the mouth of the narrows and decided to keep them for a shore lunch or supper that night.
At the end of the narrows lies Silver Falls and the 780 meter portage around it. It was impressive to come upon such a large waterfall in the middle of the wilderness. I somehow felt a sense of accomplishment by making it to this site, knowing that relatively few people had ever been to this place. The portage around the falls was my first taste of portaging. The climb was long and difficult to get over the height of land and descend down to Saganagons Lake below. Portaging the lake trout didn’t help either. As my brother and I were young (my brother was 10 at the time), I am sure that we didn’t actually do much to help. In retrospect, my dad and uncle probably did most of the carrying, but we sure felt like we had accomplished something once we got back in the canoes.
There was something about having that portage behind us that made our journey into the Quetico feel more complete, more isolated than I had ever been before. We had finally left civilization behind and had begun the next leg of our trip. Just below Silver Falls is a point of land, a flat rock that extends into the water for at least a hundred feet. I later read that this point of land had been a common stopping point even back to the days of the fur traders, where the local Indians would make and repair canoes, and travelers would stop for a meal. Even hundreds of years later, it is still a popular camp site, one that I have only been fortunate enough to stay at one night in all the times that we passed over Silver Falls.
Not long after Silver Falls, Saganagons Lake splits into a Northern and a Southern channel with a large island dividing the lake. We chose the Southern channel and made our camp about half way up the channel on the large island. It was there that I caught my first wilderness fish. The fish was a walleye and we ate it for supper along with the lake trout.
The next morning we packed up our camp and made the final leg of our trip out. Our destination was an island on the far Eastern end of Saganagons Lake. A campsite is located on the Western end of the island, facing the rest of the lake, and we hoped it would be available for us to make a base camp and spend two or three nights there before turning around to retrace our route to go home. It was our luck that the campsite was available and we began to make camp. The campsite is was a great place for us to establish camp, especially with how young my brother and I were. By making a base camp, we did not have to worry about any more long days of paddling or the tiring process of packing and repacking our camp. The campsite itself was relatively open with plenty of space for tents. The rocks of the island were pretty low to the level of the water which provided easy access into and out of the canoes. The island elongated into a point of rock that extended into the lake past the campsite proper; however a small bay protected by the point of land made a good place for swimming.
We enjoyed ourselves the next day, paddling around the island and investigating the shoreline. What made the day better was the fishing. The smallmouth bass and the walleye were really biting, it seemed like on every lure that we would cast out. We caught our fill of fish that day.
The next day, however, the wind picked up out of the West. It blew along the entire length of Saganagons and ripped through our open campsite. The winds were so strong that it blew the tent over with my brother and I inside of it and broke one of the tent poles. We decided that a contingency plan was needed in case the winds didn’t die down for the next day. Looking at the map, a portage was marked in the Southeastern corner of Saganagons lake through the intermediary lakes of Wolf Lake and Mud Lake and directly into Saganaga Lake. We thought we would check out this portage as an in case we were windbound the next day.
The opening to the portage was reedy and difficult to find. After much searching, we found the start of a swampy trail. The swampy trail soon changed to a trail through a swamp as we trudged through six to eight inches of mud and water for most of the way. In parts of the trail, we were able to float the canoe while we walked in front or behind. Eventually we made it to the first of the two intermediary lakes and had come to the conclusion, that while we could make it out this way, we would only do so in the case of some emergency.
Luckily though, we did not need to use that portage, as the next morning, we awoke to clear skies and calm water. We decided not to take our chances, and packed up and left as soon as we could. As the day progressed, the wind picked up, but we had already made it across the most open portion of the lake. This time we took the Northern channel of Saganagons Lake, to maximize our protection from the wind. We found a campsite at the Western end of the channel and being tired from a full day of paddling against the wind, made our camp.
The next day, we packed up our camp and paddled to Silver Falls, to begin our portage back to civilization. The portage around Silver Falls and the paddle across Cache Bay took most of the day, and past generally uneventfully. We camped again on Spruce Island in the middle of Saganaga Lake.
The next morning, my brother and I awoke early, packed up our kits and broke down our tent. We started a fire and were prepared to finish the last leg of our trip. My dad and uncle slept in a little while. The weather seemed calm enough as we started our day, but it wasn’t long before the wind picked up and the early morning sky began to darken. It wasn’t long before the rain was coming down hard. My brother and I sought refuge in the tent along with my dad and uncle to get out of the storm. We passed the storm by playing cards while the rain pelted the tent and thunder crashed all around us. Eventually the storm passed and we left the tent to begin packing up. It was then that we noticed two downed trees through our campsite, fallen right between the tent that we had been in and where my own tent had been only a few hours ago.
But we did not worry about what might have happened, as it was now midday and we still had to cross the remaining portion of Saganaga. To make things difficult, the rain had stopped, but the wind certainly had not. In fact, the waves were as large as they had been at any point during the trip. My dad and uncle were concerned if my brother and I could handle paddling in those waves. The solution that was decided upon was that all four of us would paddle in one canoe, thus allowing my dad and uncle to safely guide us across the lake while we towed the second canoe behind us with the gear.
This plan worked relatively well. The wind and waves made the traveling tough and slow though. At one point we stopped close to shore to take a break. I was curious to see the second canoe behind us and leaned a little too far over the edge of the canoe and with all of the weight in the canoe already it didn’t take much before water was pouring in over the side. Everyone got more wet than they would have liked and we decided it was worth it to stop for a while and dry off a bit and eat some lunch before finishing our trip. We tried to make a fire, but the wind was blowing too hard to get one started. After building a windbreak that looked more like a dilapidated log cabin, we were able to block the wind and get a decent fire going to warm up for a little bit. After a some warm soup, we were ready to get back into the canoe and finish our trip.
The rest of the trip was covered smoothly, and before long we were back in our car headed home along the Gunflint Trail.
After that first trip, I was hooked. Nothing we had done in Boy Scouts even came close to the fun and wilderness that I experienced in that trip. My father, brother, and I frequently returned to Canada or Northern Minnesota for canoeing trips, making it nearly every year for over a decade. I think now about whether I’ll be able to do that with my boys when they are the ages that my brother and I were. I feel more confident now that we will be able to. Had I not started to make some changes in my own life, I don’t know that I would feel as confident as I do now.
Our crew on that first trip.
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