Boundary Waters Canoe Area
I was able to go camping in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) for a week-long camping trip before heading back to school. The last time I had gone, my wife and I were just married, so it's been over 15 years. BWCA is part of Superior National Forest and runs along the Minnesota-Canada border. Six men, including myself, spent a full week on the water.
It's a little bit of a tradition to keep a diary on trips like this, so I kept notes about our days on some paper that I'm transcribing here along with photos I took on the tip. I also put together an interactive map so you can see the routes and stopping points for each day on the trip.
Day 1 - Sunday, August 3
We left South Bend, IN at about 5:30 AM for the 11 hour drive to Ely, MN. This is a small town near Fall Lake, which is one of the entry points for BWCA. We always go through an outfitter called Packsack because they are incredibly friendly, are a family run business, and have a great lodge/bunkhouse for a really reasonable rate. We grabbed one last meal in Ely at the Frisky Otter and then decided to check out the Kawishiwi Waterfalls between Garden Lake and Fall Lake. This dam used to be a place to run lumber down from the logging camps in the north before being turned into a hydroelectric plant for the city.
We went back to Packsack and checked over gear one more time before turning in.
Day 2 - Monday, August 4
We woke early to load up the van and head out. Campsites are on a first-come basis, so we wanted to beat any early rush for the day to try to get some prime location. We put out from Entry Point #24 around 9:00, canoed across Fall Lake and portaged into Newton Lake. We paddled the length of Newton and portaged again into Pipestone Bay. The site we wanted was already taken, but site #1587 was available.
We set up camp and then went back out on the canoes to fish along New York and Gary Islands across the bay. We caught some smallmouth bass and northern pike and enjoyed seeing several eagles. In the evening, the wind died down and the lake went glassy while we listened to loons wailing across the water. We enjoyed a dinner of steak and au gratin potatoes cooked over the fire.
Day 3 - Tuesday, August 5
Gray and windy this morning. Pancakes and bacon with potatoes for breakfast before breaking camp. We pulled out around 9:00 and headed north for Basswood Falls.
We canoed the length of Pipestone Bay - there was a lot of wind and some rain threatened, but didn't actually come. It was a leisurely paddle - we stopped to fish in a couple of coves along the way but didn't have any luck. We had a short early lunch at the USDA gauging station where they monitor water flow and lake depth automatically for the bay. This is just past the point where motorboats are allowed to go (they can't get across portages further in the park), so from here, it got much quieter.
We continued north on Basswood Lake across very windy open water, but we did see a loon floating nearby on the way, so that was nice. It didn't dive too quickly, so we were able to get a good look at it.
We landed on the Basswood Falls portage near the Canadian border around 11:30 AM. It was a very busy spot today, with a large group heading into Basswood from the portage and another group heading in ahead of us. This is a long portage - 340 rods (5,610 feet) - which is over a mile in one direction across some rugged terrain. You have to portage here because the waterfalls of the river aren't navigable by boat. We couldn't get it all in one load, so that meant we had a three mile hike to get past this point.
I carried a canoe on the first leg with two other men while the other three carried packs. We didn't try to double-pack this portage...it's just too long and you'd get too tired. We stopped on the way back after dropping the canoes at the end to rest at the waterfall and eat a second lunch. The falls have a large granite slab you can sit on and dip into the water to cool off.
We pulled out of the falls and paddled along the Basswood River to another portage at Wheelbarrow Falls. We considered a campsite just past the portage, but decided to just push on the last mile and a half to get to Lower Basswood Falls. We pulled into site #1548 midafternoon. We took some time to admire the waterfall and then set up camp.
There was a large open space for all the tents with a nice fire grate set up looking out over the water. A large granite rock gave a windbreak, which did us some big favors later in the week.
We were all incredibly tired, so we settled in for jambalaya for dinner. On this stretch, we saw a river otter, several beaver lodges, and bald eagles. Still no moose.
Day 3 - Wednesday, August 6
Our new site was so nice, we stayed the next three full days to rest and enjoy fishing and paddling day trips. We woke up on Aug 7th to a little rain in the night that continued into the morning. We had pancakes and bacon again around the fire and then hopped into a couple canoes to fish the inlet right off the campsite. I caught two good-sized smallmouth bass while some of the other guys caught a total of six walleye. We had fried walleye for lunch instead of the normal summer sausage, cheese, and nuts, which was a real treat.
After lunch, we took the canoes and made the short portage to the lower part of the falls to check it out. We ended up paddling up Crooked Lake to some Native American pictographs which you can see on the cliffs of the western bank. The "Picture Rocks of Crooked Lake" have a very interesting history which suggest they're over 200 years old. We spent the entire afternoon fishing and drifting along in the canoes.
The paddle back to camp was tough - a strong headwind kicked up in the afternoon and we had to work our way back. We fished and caught a couple of northern pike and another smallmouth bass right before we decided to portage back to our site.
Dinner was wild rice soup with more fishing after. No more walleye, but I did get another smallmouth. That's all I seem to be able to catch so far.
Day 4 - Thursday, August 7
Today was our first nice sunrise of the trip. We had burritos for breakfast and anoter full day of rest at camp. I caught a little smallmouth after breakfast and spent the rest of the day reading my book. I finished the book after dinner.
We were treated to the "swan mafia" show today. When some Canadian geese arrived at our small cove, a pair of trumpeter swans came from way across the lake to kick them away. One of the swans - I'm assuming the male - would paddle over and chase each goose individually, honking and hissing. Later in the day, I spotted a pair of otters coming into the cove to eat. They came up on shore and wandered around for a little bit before popping back into the water and hunting in the reeds.
Today was hot - maybe 80 degrees, which was hotter than every other day so far. Some more thunder in the afternoon while we swam to cool off, but no rain. We made a big pot of macaroni and cheese for dinner with cornbread cooked on the flatiron. A dragonfly swarm took over in the early evening and I watched them hunting flies and mosquitoes. Bugs got bad after sunset again.
I did not get in a boat today and we're planning on spending one more day here because the fishing is so good.
Day 5 - Friday, August 8
Another gray morning. We had oatmeal and coffee for breakfast and decided to paddle up to Moose Bay in Canada in hopes of actually seeing a moose.
The trip there was calm - no wind and glassy water. We climbed an enormous granite outcropping just before the bay to get a better view of the area. There was so much moss and lichen on the rock that it felt like walking on a sponge.
We paddled north to the river at the end of the bay, watching for moose, but didn't get lucky. The wind was really picking up and clouds were moving in, so we went south to a campsite and ate lunch on shore. After lunch, we let the wind push us all the way back across the bay to jig for bigger fish one more time. We had a loon pop up out of the water less than ten feet from the boat before he realized what he'd done and dove again. We had a couple strong bites, but no luck, which is probably for the best.
The paddle home was hard. The wind really picked up and we had to work the entire way back to make any kind of progress. When we got back, I immediately fell asleep. When I woke up, I decided to do a couple of paintings. I need to work on painting water...I'm no good at that.
Dinner was tuna & noodles, which was very filling after a really hard day of paddling. I went fishing after dinner in a canoe and caught the smallest smallmouth in the lake.
Day 6 - Saturday, August 9
We had an enormous thunderstorm over night. It brought very strong wind and over an inch of rain with constant lightning and thunder from 2:00 AM until after 7:00 when we came out of our tents. A tree fell down and landed 15 feet from our tent. We were quite fortunate that no one was hurt.
We managed to get a wet fire started and made burritos for breakfast again. When we finished, we broke camp and started our way down the Horse River for the first five miles of the day. It was extremely reedy and hard to tell where a good path through the water might be, but broadened out after the first portage into something more manageable. The river was home to at least a dozen beaver lodges along the way to the next lake.
We stopped for lunch at campsite #1116 on Horse Lake before paddling across the lake to make our way into Fourtown Lake for our final night camping. This was a long trip with five separate (shortish) portages and three carryovers through shallow areas on the river. We landed at campsite #1106, right on the entrance to Fourtown Lake.
At camp, we took out our wet stuff and dried it on the large rock outcropping over the water in the afternoon sun. Most of us jumped into the water to try and get rid of some of our accumulated camping patina.
We ate chili and cornbread for our final meal and were gifted with an evening of shockingly few mosquitoes. We stayed out around the glowing embers of the fire, looking at the stars before the full moon rose over the lake and washed everything out. We saw one large meteor flash across the sky, leaving a blue wake behind.
Day 7 - Sunday, August 10
We all woke up around 7:00 this morning and at the last bag of oatmeal for breakfast before cleaning up. We pulled into Fourtown Lake before 9:00 and paddled south into a strong headwind. Once we were off the lake, we had three portages between small ponds before Mudro Lake.
Mudro ends in a long, winding channel through the reeds at the southwest corner of the lake. We saw several more beaver lodges and had to cross one beaver dam built across the stream. We made it to entrance point #23 on Mudro Lake at about noon. We pulled all of our gear off the water and made a phone call to Packsack for a pickup.
When Gene - the former owner - arrived, he offered us cold drinks (I had a Sprite) and a nice ride back to the bunkhouse. At Packsack, we were offered cold beers to celebrate our safe trip. It also happened to be the final day of Ely's "snowmobile motocross" event where men race snowmobiles across the water. It was nuts.
We drove home on the 8th day of the trip, August 11th. This was the longest I'd been away from my family by myself and I'm thankful to my loving wife who encouraged me to go. I feel rested and relaxed and ready to head back into the school year. I'm hoping that we'll be able to take our own kids in the next couple of years for their own adventure.
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