We got up before dawn on the last day of our trip in hopes of beating the wind across North and Bayley Bays. It was much calmer than yesterday afternoon, though still a bit breezy given the early hour. After coffee and some bars, we broke camp and got on the water about 7:00 - hours earlier than usual for us. This picture looks from our campsite out over North Bay just before we pushed off -

It was a beautiful paddle across the big bay. In less than a half hour we were at the first portage into Burke Lake. When we returned to the North Bay end after our first trip across the short but bouldery portage, a father-son team paddled up. We talked for a bit and learned they had been windbound on Cigar Island yesterday - one of the groups we could see off in the distance as we scanned the bay from our own windbound site.

While we were talking, a trumpeter swan suddenly flew in and landed in the channel right by the portage. That was something we had never seen on a canoe trip before! Piwi was just as interested as we were - she immediately went into pointer mode. Alas, we had left the camera at the other end of the portage, so we couldn't get a picture of the scene.

After watching the swan for a while, we carried the rest of our gear across and paddled up the creek and pond to the second portage into Burke. The father-son team was right behind us as we unloaded the canoe for the carry -

After portaging we paused to let them go ahead, then followed down Burke Lake. At one point we paused so I could take some pictures of Piwi snoozing in the canoe right in front of me. Of course that made her sit up -

Puppy checking out the shoreline -

Time for a nap under my calves -

One of Piwi's funny poses - she likes to rest her head on the gunwale or thwart as if it were comfortable -

After the photo ops, we paddled the rest of the way down the lake to the Yellow Brick Road portage into Bayley Bay. We encountered several groups on this portage, and were pleased when Piwi actually came and sat at my feet by the side of the trail as we let them pass. But her good behavior was balanced out by an unsanctioned romp through the (unoccupied) campsite at the Bayley Bay end of the portage.

Once we managed to collect Piwi, we got ready to cross the bay. By now the southwest wind had picked up, and as we got out to open water I had to steer the canoe a little west of our direct route to avoid going directly sideways to the waves. In real life this maneuver felt much more like we were steering into the middle of the bay than we actually were according to the GPS track shown on the map above. Once we got far enough south, we turned sharply toward the opening to Inlet Bay, and the wind and waves pushed us along.

With our early start, we had a couple spare hours until our tow. Although the wind had kept us from taking the alternative Anchor-Sunday-Poacher route back to Prairie Portage, we thought we could at least hike the mile-long portage from Inlet Bay to Poacher Lake and back to see what it was like. So we circled around the big island in Inlet Bay toward the portage. But as we went further east, the wind at our back had room to pick up speed and soon was blowing us along pretty fast. After getting windbound yesterday, I suddenly felt nervous about hiking a couple miles while the wind could be picking up and howling directly in our face on the way back to Prairie Portage. And so we scuttled the hike and paddled into Prairie Portage a couple hours early. The paddle around the big island was at least a nice little detour, and we had the bonus of seeing a beaver run out from under the shrubs on the island and fling itself into the water as we paddled by.

At Prairie Portage it was pleasantly warm in the sunshine and out of the wind. We hung out for a while at the picnic table there on the Inlet Bay side, eating an early lunch and getting out the stove for some midday coffee. We also talked for a while with one of the rangers, I think her name was Carol? My experience in the past was that this ranger could be pretty frosty. But Piwi drew her right out and we had a great chat.

Eventually we carried our gear over and waited a little longer for our tow. As we were there, a group of three aging hippies arrived with their dogs to start their own trip. That got Piwi excited. Then our towboat arrived and we loaded up -

The excitement was not over yet. The wind had whipped Newfound and Moose Lakes into a frenzy. It was a rough ride in the towboat - I thought my vertebrae might fuse from the impact as we hit the waves - and we were sure glad that we ended this trip with a tow not a paddle.  And yet, as we approached the landing, there was a group of scouts with really small kids in the bows battling the waves back to shore. I think their leaders should have kept the group off the water, but it was still impressive to see them paddle in those conditions.

And with that, Piwi's first Quetico adventure came to an end.