Day 1: Wednesday, August 10th, 2022 -Drove up to Clearwater Outfitter in the evening and stayed in the bunkhouses. The planned route was to start on Round lake and head east to Poplar through a chain of several lakes over the next 4 days.
Day 2: Thursday, August 11th, 2022 -Woke up around 0630 to organize gear and make our way to breakfast at 0730. After breakfast we headed to the outfitter to get our permit and discuss the shuttle plan. Plan was to get shuttled to the launch on Round Lake and enter through EP51 on Missing Link. Once we were packed up, we threw out gear in the outfitter truck which had our canoes ready to go. We drove about 35 minutes from the outfitter to Round Lake boat launch. After breakfast, gearing up, the drive, and loading in, we launched a little later than we hoped, but hit the water around 10. We were targeting a couple sites on Long Island Lake and knew the trip was about 4 hours, so we weren't in too much of a rush.
We paddled south across Round Lake to portage #686 (137 rods) to start. This portage was steady incline, rising about 30 meters over the entire 137 rods. The portage passed through Entry Point 51, into Missing Link Lake. Another quick paddle across Missing Link to portage #86 (136 rods). This portage was the opposite of the last, a decline of about 30 meters over 136 rods into Snipe Lake. Next we paddle southeast through some channels and islands on Snipe until we hit portage #395 (44 rods) on the east side of Snipe. This was a relatively short and flat portage into Cross Bay Lake. We continued southeast targeting portage #399 (59 rods), another short and flat portage into Rib Lake. Once in Rib, we headed south to portage #49 (36 rods) into Lower George Lake. This portage was a quick and flat. Continuing south through Lower George, we came to the short, flat portage #437 (28 rods) into Karl Lake. A quick 5 minute paddle across Karl to portage #107 (33 rods) in Long Island Lake. Our last portage of the day, this one was short and flat as well. Finally we were into Long Island Lake. We stopped to check the map so we could point out a few sites to investigate. This first site we stopped at was #569, the western-most site on the lake. Upon landing, it looked like a decent site, but soon after walking around, we started to hear the swarms of mosquitos. It quickly became apparent that the site was a breeding ground. We found large pools of stagnant water not far from the camp. We figured there were better options on the lake a decided to look elsewhere. We targeted campsite #570, just to the southeast on the western shorline of a small peninsula. Once we landed at site #570, around 3pm (after a couple site-seeing stops along the way) it was clear it was our camp for the night. It had great tent pads, and nice open kitchen, and some good views to the southeast. We spent the rest of the day setting up camp, choring, and fishing. Our plan was to move again on Friday morning, so we didn't get too comfortable.
Weather this night was warm. It was also a full moon (called a Sturgeon Moon), and the skies were clear, so the view of the moon rise in the east was amazing. It lit up the night sky for almost the entire night.
Day 3: Friday, August 12th, 2022 -Woke up early to eat breakfast and break camp. We wanted to be on the water no later than 10am and planned on targeting Winchell Lake. We knew this trip was going to be a 4-5 hour day, so we planned to eat lunch on the way. We launched right around 10am and headed east through Long Island Lake. The paddle was fairly easy, through some nice channel and around islands. The paddle to our first portage was roughly an hour, heading east. We made it to portage #472 (24 rods) which led into Muskeg Lake. When we landed, it was difficult to tell which way the portage was, so we picked a direction we thought headed to Muskeg and followed it. It quickly became clear that the portage was not well maintained, and we thought for a minute that we might have veered off course. We kept moving forward and eventually came to a wall that turned out the be a beaver dam. We essentially had to lift the canoe onto the top of the beaver dam, slowly scale the wall of timber, and load our gear from below the water level. It was an interesting portage experience, for sure. Then we had to paddle a quick stream created by the beaver dam to the next portage, #117 (7 rods). This was actually just some quick up and overs through some smaller beaver dams. Then we were into Muskeg. The paddle east across Muskeg was a quick 20 minutes to portage #478 (178 rods), the longest of the trip. This portage started out pretty level, than about 30 rods in, it started rising. For the next 60 rods it was a pretty steep 50m incline. Then it leveled out for the rest of the way into Kiskadinna Lake. It took about 20 minutes total, with unloading/loading on either end. We then paddled the length of Kiskadinna, west to east, aiming for portage #471 (37 rods) at the far east end of the lake. The paddle across Kiskadinna took about 45 minutes. We reached portage #471, which had a slight elevation change in the middle followed by a steady decline into Omega Lake. The portage took about 10 minutes. Paddling east/southeast through Omega was a nice 25 minute paddle. Around this time we could start to see the weather change as clouds started to roll in. We knew there was a slight change of rain later this day. We wanted to make sure we found a site in Winchell before the rain showed up. We hit portage #489 (46 rods) and headed south. This portage was flat almost the entire way into Winchell. Once we hit Winchell, we started forming a plan for site exploration. We knew we wanted to keep heading east, knowing that our goal on Saturday was to continue the loop towards Horshoe Lake. So we kept moving east in hopes of find a quality open site.
We stopped first at site # 761. It was serviceable, but we thought we might get luckier further down the northern shore line. At this point, the group split and one canoe stayed behind while the other paddled on. Thankfully, our radios had a 1 mile range. About 39 minutes later we got a radio call saying that they had found another site further down. We jumped into our canoes and headed east along the northern shoreline. It was a race against the weather at this point. About 25 minutes later, we landed at site #767. No sonner did the rain start falling. Thankfully, it was a light drizzle as we set up camp, but we could see darker clouds rolling in from the west. We set up camp and hunkered down for the night. Most of the camp was open on the west side, and the kitchen was really exposed, so dinner was a bit uncomfortable as the wind and rain continued off/on throughout the evening. Thankfully, we were still able to get a fire going and relax a little bit, but it was an earlier night than anticipated.
Day 4: Saturday, August 13th, 2022 -Woke up early again. Went down to the shore around 0800 and spotted a beaver making its way through the water. After breakfast, we plotted out our final big stretch of travel. The plan was to break camp by 10am and head east/northeast into Horshoe. We figured that would be a good landing spot, assuming there was an open site, so that our paddle out of Sunday was shorter.
After breaking camp, we paddled east for 20 minutes to portage #124 (53 rods) which led us north into Gaskin Lake. This portage took about 10 minutes. It started out with a slight incline and then a steady decline for the last 25 rods into Gaskin. We then paddled north/northeast, targeting portage #467 (92 rods) into Horseshoe Lake. This portage was relatively flat until a short decline over the last 20 rods. It took about 10 minutes to get into Horsehoe. The paddle through Horsehoe was really cool. It was a long narrow lake, so it felt kind of like a river, with old growth on both sides. We were aiming for a site closer to the northeast corner in hopes of shortening our trip on Sunday morning. We also knew that if the sites were taken we would have to double back in search of a site, or continue north into Caribou. AFter a 30 minute paddle, we came to site #677 near the northeast corner. It was open, and it was perfect. It was raised off the water by a nice rock slope that provided a good landing and some decent shore fishing. The kitchen was nice and open, but still protected from the wind from the west. We spent the rest of the day setting up camp, choring, fishing, and exploring our part fo the forest around camp. We also heard from some passersby that the lake was known for moose sightings. Unfortunately we weren't lucky enought to see any. Although, at night, was we were sitting around the fire one last time, we heard a very lound splash in the water down around camp. We went to investiage but didn't spot anything out of the ordinary.
The weather this night was clear, calm, and pretty warm for the season. It was a great last night in the park.
Day 5: Sunday, August 14th, 2022 -Woke up around 0800. We planned a roughly 2.5 hour trip out of the park with a flexible pickup time at our exit point, so we lingered around camp a bit, until around 1130. We launched and headed north to portage #440 (24 rods). This a quick, flat portage into Caribou Lake. From there we paddled around a peninsula and targeted portage #431 (73 rods) into Lizz Lake. The paddle took about 30 minutes and the portage into Lizz took about 10 minutes. From there we headed north, straight across Lizz for 20 minutes towards portage #931 (52 rods). This portage was pretty quick and flat, taking about 10 minutes to get into Poplar Lake. We then paddled straight north for about 20 minutes and landed on the back porch of Poplar Haus. There we got a hot meal, called the outfitter, and waited for our ride back to base.
The ride back to the outfitter was about 30 mintues. Once there, we showered, loaded up the truck, and headed into Grand Marais to stay one night. We ate dinner at Voyageur Brewing and wandered around town a bit before hitting the hot tub at the hotel.
Day 6: Monday, August 15th, 2022 -Drove home from Grand Marais.
