Quetico 2006
The first trip was in May, while
the second was the first week of July. The weather contrasted sharply
between the two trips.
In May we began the trip on a cold blustery day with a north wind at 10 - 20 mph and an air temperature of 35 degrees. Snow and sleet blasted our faces as we crossed Bayley Bay and Burke Lake. We called it quits at 4pm on the large island at the south end of North Bay. We were wet and chilled and the precipitation continued well into the next day. We were tent bound until about noon. We stayed in the same camp and enjoyed our steaks and mushrooms on the second night out. In the morning we moved to Shade Lake where we base camped. The weather was decent for the rest of the trip, but we had a horrendous breakout of black flies. Normally, you can leave black flies behind by canoeing out into a lake, but on this trip they pursued us even when we crossed relatively large bodies of water such as North Bay. We did have a fresh fish dinner on Shade after Pat landed a lake trout.
Our second trip started with an entry date of June 30.
This was the latest date we have ever selected for a Quetico canoe trip.
Our route took us from Prairie Portage up the border through Birch lake to
Carp Lake. From there we steered into the Quetico via the Man Chain.
Our first day was very hot and we ended up camped on a small island in the
north end of Carp. The heat lead to a violent 4am thunderstorm with
brief, but strong, winds. From there we portaged through Sheridan and
camped on That Man near the ruins of a cabin on the northwest shore. We
base camped on the northwest shore of This Man after a difficult pull over a
beaver dam to get into No Man Lake. Unfortunately, I injured my back
on that pull over which required yanking the fully loaded (dog included)
canoe up about a two foot dam. On the way back it was quite easy
negotiating the dam downstream. We camped in a different site on That
Man and finally crossed Sheridan and Carp to reach our last campsite on an
island in Birch Lake. By then my back was pretty much wasted.
Our weather was generally warm, but not too hot, and fair. In the
interior of Quetico it was sparsely populated by canoeists, but on the
American border there was a virtual traffic jam of canoes.
