I awoke at 4:00 A.M. on May
16, 2001 and was soon on my way to Red Lake,
Ontario. The trip from my farm at Baudette,
Minnesota to Red Lake took five and a half hours.
A
stop at the MNR headquarters was the first order
of business. I talked to Doug and Claire about my
proposed route and secured my permit for 13
nights in the park. My route was a loop in the
central portions of the park. The entry was
through Onnie Lake and then West to Carroll, up
the creeks to Simeon Lake, up the Bloodvein River
to Murdock Lake, exiting Murdock Lake to the SW
and following a chain of long narrow lakes to
Royd Lake. The route then went East on Gammon
Lake and followed creeks to Prarrie Lake. From
Prarrie Lake it passed through Indian House,
Crystal, Hatchet and Douglas Lakes where I then
took Douglas Creek back to my starting point on
Onnie Lake. The distance would be 150 miles with
about 13 miles of that being on portage trails. My first navigation problem came as I
left Red Lake. My park map refers to the road as
the Suffel Lake Road but the road is posted as
the Flat Lake Road. Once I verified that the road
had two names I was on my way again. It was a
very rough ride on some portions of the thirty
miles to the gravel quarry where I would park. I
passed the sign for Cook Road and soon saw the
yellow Woodland Caribou sign that marks the
portages into the park. It shows a person
portaging a canoe and has the park name on it. In
preparing for the trip I had used the 50,000
scale topo maps to plot my course. I fed these
UTM readings into my Garmin III Plus GPS unit.
This was just a back-up to my park map and later
would prove very useful as I paddled my way up
the small streams. As I entered the portage it
assured me that I was in the right spot.
When I packed for the trip I
assumed that I would be wearing wool on most of
the trip. Fortunately I had put some light cotton
pants and a T-shirt in my duffel of clothes that
I would change into from my traveling duds. The
wool got sealed in a plastic bag and put in the
pack for later. There was no thermometer handy
but it felt to be about 80 degrees as I made the
first portage at 2:00. Claire had warned me that
the 365 meter portage was really a 600 meter,
which was good or I may have thought that I had
bitten off more than I could handle.
My
plan was to get to the West end of Telescope Lake
so that I would not get wind bound early in the
trip. The wind was blowing when I headed out on
Telescope Lake and soon it was a real struggle
paddling into it. I was staying close to shore
for safety reasons but the waves were still
breaking over my bow occasionally. It was a
workout but I kept working my way down the lake.
The North shore had been burned recently and I
could find no place to make camp anyway. There
was a possibility of a thunderstorm so I wanted a
place that I would not be exposed to lightning.
At about 8:00 I neared an island campsite and
decided that I had better use it. I was reluctant
to do so because Claire had explained to me that
in the spring and early summer the caribou and
moose used the islands for calving. If they are
used or approached too closely the animals will
be driven to the mainland where they are very
vulnerable to predators. With a storm and
darkness approaching I decided there was no other
choice.
The storm clouds were coming so
the tent went up first and my gear put inside. My
supper was quickly prepared and eaten. I had just
settled back with a bowl of pudding prepared
using powdered milk and a mug of tea when the
rain started and forced me into the tent. The
wind really picked up and as I looked out the
screen at the swaying trees I wished I had not
read that book about the Boundary Waters Canoe
Areas big wind storm on July 4,1999. Today
I traveled 10 miles and did 1555 meters of
portaging.
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