Friday, November 03, 2023

The day dawned and we slowly got out of our sleeping bags to survey the surroundings that we weren’t able to see last night.

Over breakfast of oatmeal and some pancakes we discussed the route forward. Options include north to the border lakes or west to the chain ending in Moose. Eventually the three 100 rod portages up to Birch Lake and the border won out and we packed up for the short paddle to the first carry. We had to break through a bit of shore ice to get to what we thought was the portage out of Trident, but it turned out to be just a well worn rest spot. After a little bushwhacking around we discovered the actual portage to be towards the end of the little stream coming in from the north. This stream contained walkable ice, but getting there from the marsh was a bit dicey. Sam got a little water in over the top of his boot in the process of hopping from the grass clumps to the solid stuff. Thankfully it wasn’t that cold of a day and later on we even saw sun after a couple of snow flakes floated down on us. Other than the remains of a wolf visit, there wasn’t much to see on the route through Frog Lake and we were soon on Birch Lake which was clear of any sign of ice. We threaded our way through a few islands and narrows on the Canadian side of the border and stopped briefly to decide to have lunch at Prairie Portage. This was Sam’s first time out of the country and he was enjoying the fun of traveling abroad without a passport! As we neared the historic portage into Basswood, we saw what appeared to be a slightly rusted, but colorful roof. Once much closer it was clearly a billboard with a Canadian flag welcoming us into the country that we had been paddling in the past hour or so. After a little exploring around the signs and sights of the falls and Prairie Portage (and seeing how expensive a week long trip into Quetico would be!), we settled down for lunch beneath the white pines with a view of the south approach from Sucker Lake. It was a surprise to see a canoe with two paddlers and a dog. It was even more surprising to see that the only gear they had was an empty plastic container. They pulled up next to our canoes as we were getting ready to depart and we found out that they had been around camping nearby for about a week and were checking their nets on Basswood. The woman was 8-1/2 months pregnant and seemed to appreciate Doug’s cheese and summer sausage portion. Pretty tough couple to be up here at this time of the year! Before leaving the area we landed at the dock on the American side of the falls to check out the truck and trailer miles away from any real road. $19 seems like a lot of money to carry your boat 60 rods, but I guess worth it for those motor boats heading into Basswood. Unfortunately the truck was locked so the dead mouse in the trap will probably be decomposed by next spring. As we paddled into and out of Splash Lake on our loop back to Ensign, we noticed a couple of bald eagles hanging perched and flying nearby. Turns out that they were feasting on the hundreds of fish (whitefish or suckers maybe?) that had congregated in the moving water. I dangled a Rapala in front of them, but they didn’t exhibit any interest. Our curiosity was (and still is) piqued about what they are doing. We were rewarded by a beautiful view of open water at the end of the long portage into Boot. The only tricky part came when we encountered ice at the narrowing by the laces (?) of the lake, but we were able to break through with a little push and shove from the rear canoe. A glorious sunset met us as we entered back into Snowbank after leaving it about 30 hours before. As is almost always the case for me on Snowbank, the wind had produced some nice waves that we fought against for a short paddle to a partially sheltered campsite on the east side. It was starting to get a bit chilly as we set up camp once again in the dark. On our approach to the campsite I had noticed some nice looking firewood along the shore and so paddled over to load up the canoe with my favorite - dried and seasoned cedar. It made for a nice fire that we huddled around until it was time once again for sleep.