Grey Lake was like a mirror when we got up on the eighth day of our trip -

We enjoyed a leisurely morning hanging out with Mr. Banksiana -

I wanted to get a picture of the big rock that loomed over our campsite. It's bigger than it looks in the photo, dwarfing us campers -

Rock abstract -

Morning camp scene with Jon and Piwi -

David, Piwi and I left camp around 10:15. We asked Jon to get a "group picture" for us as we got underway. Photo courtesy Banksiana -

Jon had told us that the heat wave was supposed to break today. He also said that high winds were expected one of the next few days, but he couldn't remember which one. We would see.

It was a quick paddle to the day's first portage, the infamous Boggy Portage. Piwi at the takeout -

This 160-rod portage is pretty rugged. But its main claims to infamy are the bog obstructing the middle of the portage, and the trick second landing at its far end on Unnamed Lake that can threaten an infinite regress of return trips through the bog if you don't know about it. Having learned our lesson the hard way many years ago, we were not going to fall for the trick landing again. Nor was the bog a problem this year. It was comparatively dry and even had some useful corduroy -

Piwi doesn't like to get her paws muddy so she was pleased with the corduroy -

But she was also willing to offroad it if something in the bog required investigation -

The heat wave had not broken yet. Though it was still early, the day was hot and humid with no air movement. We were soaked with sweat by the time we finished the portage. But there was no rest for the weary. A quick 200-yard paddle across the tip of Unnamed was all that separated Boggy Portage from our next carry, into Shade Lake.

Fortunately, the portage into Shade is only half the length of Boggy Portage, and much easier. Fungus and lichen were the highlights. Here are two little mushroom villages side-by-side -

A close-up of the upper settlement -

Some kind of crazy growth -

Lettuce lichen? -

After the pleasant mycological tour along the portage, we were dismayed by conditions on Shade Lake. The wind had picked up and was blowing from the southwest, directly sideways to the direction we wanted to paddle across the lake. White caps had whipped up pretty fast, and though the waves were not in the terror category, it seemed prudent to wait a bit and see if the wind would die down as quickly as it blew up.

And so we sat and relaxed at the edge of Shade Lake for about half an hour. Eventually the wind did abate somewhat, though the rollers coming down the lake were still pretty big. David wanted to get moving, but I didn't like the idea of those waves coming directly at our side. So instead of paddling straight across the lake to the outlet, we followed the shoreline, paddling into the waves until we got near the end, where the water was calm enough for us to turn around and get pushed by the wind along the opposite shore to our destination. That worked great - probably we could have done it sooner when the wind was at full strength.

The little outlet bay of Shade Lake is very pretty, really one of my favorite spots, but having been through it several times, we opted not to take pictures. Soon we had portaged into sinuous West Lake, where the wind was blowing but did not have much opportunity to make trouble.

As we neared the portage to South Lake, I "cheated" by navigating with the GPS. There are a number of little bays along the shore that look alike. With a glance at the GPS, I determined that the little bay we were in was one shy of the portage bay. So we quickly paddled to the next bay and made the short carry into South.

By now it was 1:30 and we were ready for lunch. We headed for a campsite on South we had seen several times paddling the route between North Bay and Shade. The view from our lunch site -

Over lunch we discussed our plans for the rest of the day. We had been thinking about taking a new route from North Bay via Anchor Lake to Sunday Lake. You don't hear much about Anchor Lake, probably because going that way adds several portages compared to the alternatives. That attracted us. But we were now realizing that we had spent too much time earlier in the day hanging out with Jon and waiting on Shade Lake. Anchor would have to wait for another year. Maybe, though, we could still make it to Sunday Lake via Burke today, then take an alternate route out to Prairie Portage through Poacher Lake tomorrow.

With that plan in mind we set out for the beaver creek leading to North Bay. At the short portage into the creek we ran into a group going the other way. We were wondering about the wind out on North Bay, but they made it sound like it was not too bad. And, in fact, it was calm in the sheltered waters of the beaver creek as we headed downstream -

It was a different scene when we got to North Bay. The creek empties into a cove protected by several islands. But beyond that protected cove, we could see the bay was whipped into a fury. The wind and waves were coming more or less across the bay from the direction of the portages to Burke Lake, a mile and a half of open water away.

We decided to go for it. We pulled on our PFDs, battened down the gear, and informed Piwi she had to hold still. Then we paddled out from the shelter of the islands into the big waves.

But after six or seven strokes I yelled to David "Is this a good idea?" It was hard to hear what he said over the howling wind and pounding surf. But we quickly agreed that it was NOT a good idea. Now what? We couldn't turn around or we would immediately swamp. So we backpaddled back to shelter, propelled by the powerful forces of nature, while struggling to stay perpendicular to the waves. Thankfully we had not gone far and made it back to the protected cove without swamping. That was a lot of excitement packed into a minute or two.

The cove where we had beat a hasty retreat is surrounded by numerous good campsites - perhaps because people get windbound here with some frequency. We could see a canoe at one site, but the rest looked unoccupied. We headed for the same site where we had camped at the end of the Day of the Deluge in 2003. It was still before 3:00 when we got there, so we decided to wait to see if the wind might subside enough for us to paddle further. If not, then this campsite would be an fine place to stay.

We waited, and waited some more, passing the time watching the waves out on the bay (which, as always, looked much bigger in real life than our photos seemed to capture) -

I got out my binoculars and scanned -

People were visible at campsites in the distance, but no one was out on the water -

Still blowing -

Conditions showed no sign of improving during the next hour, so we decided to make camp -

Piwi was tuckered out from all her hard work exploring the large campsite and wave-splashed shoreline -

After setting up camp we went for a dip. The air was still fairly warm - though not as hot as previous days - otherwise it would have been hard to get wet in that wind. Then we found a comparatively sheltered spot to cook and eat dinner.

Later on, as we drank our last rations of Maker's Mark, the wind died down some. Evening calm is typical in canoe country, but not a sure thing, and we've had strong winds blow all through the night before. Tonight we hoped for the best, and planned an early start to get across North and Bayley Bays in the morning.

Total distance traveled Day 8: 8.0 miles (including all trips across portages).