Day 1 Due to the pandemic the plan was to meet and assemble at the Menards in Janesville, WI as the group was coming from 3 different directions and this seemed to be the most central location where nobody had to backtrack. We met at 7am, consolidated our gear in the Jeep and started the trip to Tuscarora Outfitters off the Gunflint trail. This year’s trip through Duluth was without event and a much better experience than last year. We made great time stopping off at the Earthwood Inn, Two Harbors for a late lunch. Back in the car we continued our trip arriving at Tuscarora about 5pm. The plan was to leave Tuscarora Outfitters on Round Lake and make a loop through Tuscarora Lake over to Little Saganaga Lake up through Ogishkemuncie Lake and out on Sea Gull Lake over the course of 5 days. We talked with Andy to get some expert advice on the best campsites and fishing spots along our chosen route. We had to modify our timing a little due to the bear issues being experienced on Alpine and Sea Gull which set us up for a longer day 5 than originally planned. We received our assigned cabin and got to work unloading the Jeep and consolidating gear to remove any duplicates not needed and cut as much weight as possible. We hit up the trail center for dinner which was order out only and took it back to the cabin to eat. We turned in early wanting to get an early start as we had an ambitious first day planned. I don’t think any of us knew what we were in store for the next day, especially portage wise.

Sunrise on the way up North In the car Minnesota!!! Cabin assignment

Day 3 Rest day. It was decided that on this trip we would try a travel, rest, travel, rest, travel sequence to our days. This would allow for some additional exploring and fishing as each member of the party wanted. At this time, it is worth mentioning the weather. Although it was mid 70’s yesterday August 2nd, something happened overnight and the temperature dropped. I woke up sometime in the night and added my jacket to keep warm. My main problem was in an effort to cut weight, I didn’t bring a sleeping bag. Instead I brought an insulated blanket, kind of like a top quilt. Needless to say, it wasn’t enough. I checked the historical weather when we got back to civilization and the low for our trip was 43 degrees (Aug 4th)…. In August….. wwwwwwhhhhhhhaaaaaattttttttt??? The low for the night of August 2 was a balmy 51, needless to say I was not prepared for this. I will ALWAYS bring my 20-degree sleeping bag regardless of what month I travel to the BWCA. We slept in a little this morning as we were all tired and needed the rest. Breakfast planned for this morning was to be our only non-oatmeal breakfast. We were going to treat ourselves to egg, cheese and bacon sandwiches!! The only question was, did the eggs survive day one. They were packed away in the bear barrel and their own egg protecting carry case. However, the bear barrel took multiple tumbles off the back of my pack as it slipped its rigging and crashed onto the ground, wood and rocks. I fully expected a mess when I opened the bear barrel. I am happy to report this was not the case and all 6 eggs were intact and good to go. I was amazed!! I was totally convinced that we would be having bacon sandwiches for breakfast. After breakfast was made, consumed and cleaned up Nate and I went out to try our luck on some lake trout. Little Sag is a very deep lake and we have zero experience in catching lake trout. Whatever we tried didn’t work so we explored a little. We saw a really high vantage point that we were going to try to get to and ended up finding a campsite that had a path leading up to the lookout. We spent some time up there and took some pictures before heading back down and exploring some more. As we were following the shoreline back north towards the campsite, we ran into a friendly otter. Well he wasn’t that friendly; he didn’t stick around for a photo op that we hurriedly planned for our new animal friend. After some more canoeing we went back to camp and hung around lounging and resting with a little fishing mixed in. We had a great sunset that night, another fire, dinner and off to bed. We were going to get an earlier start in the morning to try and beat any wind that might build throughout the day.

g src="https://photos.bwca.com/thumbnails/WATERBADGER-300121-120000.JPG" align="left" > Happy faces means good food Fishing from shore "Fishing" from shore

Day 4 Travel Day. It was another cold night with a low recorded at 51 degrees. We woke up to an absolutely beautiful morning! We were up early and there was mist all across the water, we were completely misted in. After about 20 minutes you could feel the sun burning through the clouds and the lake changed so quickly!!! There was literally no wind and as patches of fog were disappearing and the lake was being exposed bit by bit. I have never seen anything like it, it was really something to behold!! Morning Fog Clearing quickly absolutely beautiful

While this interrupted our packing, we still were on the water a little before 8am. The skies were blue, no wind, the water was a mirror and it was warming up quickly!! We made great time and were at our first portage before to long. The Little Sag to Rattle Lake portage is really beautiful in my opinion. It is only 26 rods and some up and down but takes you a long a stream that is really peaceful. It was one of my favorite portages of the trip. Maybe it was the angle of the sun, no clouds in the sky and the time of day. This is burn area although I am not sure from what fire so there was newer growth everywhere. I loved this portage Entrance into Rattle Lake

We were across Rattle Lake in no time and on to the portage to Gabimichigami Lake. Gabi Lake is big. The map doesn’t give it justice. I think its an illusion as there are other lakes in the BWCA that are just as big (ala Little Sag), but Gabi is an unbroken expanse of water. There are no islands to break up the lake or hide behind. We were feeling very blessed and fortunate that the day had no wind to speak of. With a north, south, east or west wind, or any combination of directional winds of any substance would make this lake a challenge. The next portage was a float through. We paddled to the beginning of the stream/river between Gabi and Agamok Lake, got out and wadded/floated the canoes to the other side. Easiest portage ever! If one were to take the actual portage its only 18 rods, but why do all the work if you can leverage your natural resources? Work smarter, not harder. Right? Gaby, the lake with no islands Gaby, no wind, blue skies = perfect Gaby - objects in picture look larger than they appear Float portage!! I will take one of these every time!

Agamok Lake is a smaller lake and we were across shortly. This lake had some shallow spots that we had to look out for but we got across with no major issues and started the portage to Mueller Lake which was 114 rods and had some degree of difficulty. Just from reading reviews and stories on this website I knew the next two portages would be challenging. But reading about portages and experiencing portages are two different things. The one saving grace on this portage is that once we got the canoes across, we took a little break and saw Agamok Falls off the Kekekabic Trail. Totally worth the side trip!! The falls were impressive!!! We had lunch at the falls and then turned back and went on our way. Amagok Falls

Mueller is a smaller lake as well and we were across in no time. The only bad thing about a short paddle is your legs have not recovered from the last difficult portage and your back at it. And the portage from Mueller to Ogishkemuncie Lake was the hardest albeit not the longest of the trip. Measuring 107 rods in distance, there is quite a bit of rocky elevation change to contend with. When we got done with this portage, we were all ready to find a campsite. Luckily for us we planned on staying on Ogish Lake that night. As we were paddling, we started to notice more and more people. We wanted to be on the eastern portion of Ogish to make our last day a little shorter while still avoiding the bear trouble areas on Alpine and Seagull. It was early afternoon as we paddled through the narrows on Ogish and as we came out into the main part on the eastern side, we just happened to see a group leaving a campsite that we were interested in. We stayed on Ogish last year and wanted the same campsite but could tell that it wasn’t available so this site almost straight across the lake would work so we snagged it. The timing worked out perfect!! setting out on another lake, I think this was Ogish..... I need to take better notes.... Campsite for the night, not the one we wanted but there were a lot of people out and we weren't going to let this one pass.

Campsite 790. This campsite is on the south side of the lake in the eastern portion before the narrows if you are heading west. Its is not a bad site. It has a really nice hammock set up right on the water that I enjoyed for two nights despite the colder temps. The nicest tent pad is on the south side of the campsite in a little grove of trees with another bigger tent pad behind the firegrate area. There was a nice tree to hang our bear bags about 100 yds if you take the trail that goes east. We had both bear bags hung there with no problem. Definitely not the best site in the area but it did the job. It was still relatively early so we set up camp and took a BWCA bath also known as a swim. It felt really good after the long hard day. Once changed and dried off we lounged and decided to break our streak of catching no fish for the trip. We had a fair assortment of lures and leeches at our disposal so cast we did. Nate was the first one on the board with a smaller smallmouth bass. We would go on to catch 3 northern and the aforementioned smallmouth that night right off the front of the campsite, no size of consequence, in about an hour right at sunset. With tomorrow being a planned rest day, Nate and I were going to check out a fishing spot that Andy gave us a heads up on.

Rods portaged: 287.08 (0.89 miles) Lakes Traveled: Little Saganaga Lake, Rattle Lake, Gabimichigami Lake, Agamok Lake, Mueller Lake, Ogishkemuncie Lake First fish of the trip!arget="_blank" href="index.cfm?fuseaction=photos.display&img=WATERBADGER%2D300121%2D121236%2EJPG&name=TripReport">! rc="https://photos.bwca.com/thumbnails/WATERBADGER-300121-121236.JPG" align="left" > Another spectacular sunset!! And the night cap

Day 5 Rest day. Wow…... that was the coldest night of the trip. It got down to 43 degrees…………. I literally had every piece of clothing on, including my rain gear to stay warm enough to sleep. We woke up at no specific time as we were taking another rest day. The sun was out again and warming things up quickly. After breakfast and just hanging out for a little while, Nate and I took off on our fishing expedition at roughly 10am. This included one portage which was pretty tight and included an up and over a beaver damn, my first such experience in the BWCA. Leaving on our fishing trip Beaver damn

We arrived with no problems and started fishing. Nate was all ready to go and bagged the first smallmouth within 10 minutes of our arrival. It was maybe 8 inches and was released to grow some more. As we worked our way down a channel, we decided to try a small shallow bay, maybe 4 feet of water. Nate had a crankbait and as I guided us into the bay, he hooked into the first keeper sized smallmouth of the day. It was an absolute football!!! Probably went 18-19 inches and was at least 4lbs. We decided to keep this one and hoped to give it some friends to hang out with on the stringer as the day progressed. As we were coming back out of the bay, we noticed that it got really deep really quickly, also known as a drop off, where fish like to hang out. It also had a cliff face that went straight down into the water with timber hanging out into the water. Jackpot. We switched to slip bobbers, jig heads and leeches. It was a bonanza!!! I had two jig heads that were bent because of the weight and strength of these fish! But the biggest fish of the day came from Nate. He hooked into a good-sized fish and when he got it to the boat and got the head above the water, it was a northern that would have probably gone 15 lbs easy. I say probably because we didn’t have the net which we accidentally left on the portage between Tuscarora to Owl (or so we think) on day one. And in all honesty if we did have the net, I think the fish would have been to big for it!! When we both saw the fish, we looked at each other surprised and that was all the time it took. The fish shook its head, broke the line and disappeared. Although we were never going to keep that one it would have been nice to take some pictures because it was a good-sized fish! I have never in my life had such a day as that on the water catching fish after fish after fish with a majority of them decent sized!! The last fish we caught was an absolute battle-axe of a smallmouth, a dark bronze with scars marking its sides. We released it back for someone else to catch, it seemed a fitting way to end the day. We probably caught over 40 fish on the day, a majority smallmouth bass. We ended up keeping only 3 for dinner and couldn’t wait to get back to camp and fry them up! First keeper (of many!!) Nate's average fish my average fish I did catch a couple of footballs! Last fish - The Battleaxe, note all the scars The special guests of honor at what we hope to be our inaugural fish fry.

We cleaned the fish before heading back on through the portage and got back to camp about 5:30pm. We fried up the fish with some shore lunch and it was absolutely delicious!! Once dinner was done, we started to get ready for our exit day. We packed up what we could and laid things out for the next morning to make it easier to get an early start as we had to get to entry/exit point 54 on Seagull Lake. Once this was done, we were treated to a nice sunset…….. and bugs. You could tell it was going to be warmer that night because the mosquitos were out in force. They say ignorance is bliss and I can attest to that. We had a fire and while some of our party were complaining about the mosquitos, I wasn’t having any issues. I could hear them but they weren’t biting me, they must have had better hunting elsewhere. Then mom and dad went to bed and Nate and I started to garner more attention but it still wasn’t that bad…... until I turned on my headlamp to check things out. Wow…… they were everywhere. That ended the night as we doused the fire and scrambled to our respective shelters to get away from the bugs. But overall, this was our only night with actual bugs as every other night was too cold.

rods: didn't care, it was totally worth it!! lakes traveled: wouldn't you like to know :)

Fish fry with shore lunch, yummmm!! Sunset Night cap

Day 5 Rest day. Wow…... that was the coldest night of the trip. It got down to 43 degrees…………. I literally had every piece of clothing on, including my rain gear to stay warm enough to sleep. We woke up at no specific time as we were taking another rest day. The sun was out again and warming things up quickly. After breakfast and just hanging out for a little while, Nate and I took off on our fishing expedition at roughly 10am. This included one portage which was pretty tight and included an up and over a beaver damn, my first such experience in the BWCA. Leaving on our fishing trip Beaver damn

We arrived with no problems and started fishing. Nate was all ready to go and bagged the first smallmouth within 10 minutes of our arrival. It was maybe 8 inches and was released to grow some more. As we worked our way down a channel, we decided to try a small shallow bay, maybe 4 feet of water. Nate had a crankbait and as I guided us into the bay, he hooked into the first keeper sized smallmouth of the day. It was an absolute football!!! Probably went 18-19 inches and was at least 4lbs. We decided to keep this one and hoped to give it some friends to hang out with on the stringer as the day progressed. As we were coming back out of the bay, we noticed that it got really deep really quickly, also known as a drop off, where fish like to hang out. It also had a cliff face that went straight down into the water with timber hanging out into the water. Jackpot. We switched to slip bobbers, jig heads and leeches. It was a bonanza!!! I had two jig heads that were bent because of the weight and strength of these fish! But the biggest fish of the day came from Nate. He hooked into a good-sized fish and when he got it to the boat and got the head above the water, it was a northern that would have probably gone 15 lbs easy. I say probably because we didn’t have the net which we accidentally left on the portage between Tuscarora to Owl (or so we think) on day one. And in all honesty if we did have the net, I think the fish would have been to big for it!! When we both saw the fish, we looked at each other surprised and that was all the time it took. The fish shook its head, broke the line and disappeared. Although we were never going to keep that one it would have been nice to take some pictures because it was a good-sized fish! I have never in my life had such a day as that on the water catching fish after fish after fish with a majority of them decent sized!! The last fish we caught was an absolute battle-axe of a smallmouth, a dark bronze with scars marking its sides. We released it back for someone else to catch, it seemed a fitting way to end the day. We probably caught over 40 fish on the day, a majority smallmouth bass. We ended up keeping only 3 for dinner and couldn’t wait to get back to camp and fry them up! First keeper (of many!!) Nate's average fish my average fish I did catch a couple of footballs! Last fish - The Battleaxe, note all the scars The special guests of honor at what we hope to be our inaugural fish fry.

We cleaned the fish before heading back on through the portage and got back to camp about 5:30pm. We fried up the fish with some shore lunch and it was absolutely delicious!! Once dinner was done, we started to get ready for our exit day. We packed up what we could and laid things out for the next morning to make it easier to get an early start as we had to get to entry/exit point 54 on Seagull Lake. Once this was done, we were treated to a nice sunset…….. and bugs. You could tell it was going to be warmer that night because the mosquitos were out in force. They say ignorance is bliss and I can attest to that. We had a fire and while some of our party were complaining about the mosquitos, I wasn’t having any issues. I could hear them but they weren’t biting me, they must have had better hunting elsewhere. Then mom and dad went to bed and Nate and I started to garner more attention but it still wasn’t that bad…... until I turned on my headlamp to check things out. Wow…… they were everywhere. That ended the night as we doused the fire and scrambled to our respective shelters to get away from the bugs. But overall, this was our only night with actual bugs as every other night was too cold.

rods: didn't care, it was totally worth it!! lakes traveled: wouldn't you like to know :)

Fish fry with shore lunch, yummmm!! Sunset Night cap

Day 6 Travel day. We were up early again as we wanted to get an early start since we had to get out and back home today. We had approx 9 miles of travel today to get to entry/exit point 54. First up was Kingfisher Lake. Since we did this part of our route on last years trip, albeit heading west instead of east, we knew what to expect and the portages were going to be easy compared to what we already traveled. The Ogish to KingFisher portage is pretty tight, lots of growth that the portage cuts through although its not a difficult one measuring only 34 rods. Across Kingfisher we went which did not take very long as it is a pretty small lake. Next up Jasper. The portage between the two is only 29 rods and a quick up and over. The landing on the Jasper side is nice and shallow and easy to navigate. In no time we were loaded up and on our way. Jasper took us a good 45 minutes to get across and then it was on to Alpine. The portage from Jasper to Alpine is only 37 rods long but is a bit tricky in some spots especially as you get to the Alpine side. Since today was our exit day, we were all business and moved as quickly as we could and were making good time. Across Alpine we went and after waiting for a couple of groups that were hanging out at the portage we moved through and on our way. As a right of passage, we decided to have mom and dad portage the canoe’s on the last portage of the trip. And they did great! The portage from Alpine to Seagull is 101 rods but relatively flat and well-traveled. As Nate and I were waiting on the Seagull side for the canoes I noticed some movement in the grass. I went to investigate and to my wonder and astonishment there was a decent sized garter snake holding on to a decent sized toad by its backside. I was not even aware that garter snakes went after toads. I snapped a few pictures and let it be. After a short while the toad came and joined us on the portage snake free. Apparently, the snake got tired or the toad got free somehow and came close to us for protection. As the day wore on it started to get hot (low 80’s), we would dip our hats in the water and put them back over our head and let the cool water drip down and cool us off. It was great especially as we crossed Seagull which was our last but biggest lake of the day. We made it across about halfway and stopped in the shade for lunch before continuing on our way. Back in the canoes we paddled our way along the north shore of Three Mile island and found our way to the entry/exit point and called to be picked up. Back at Tuscarora we had showers and relaxed for a short time before leaving for the long ride back. We stopped in Duluth for dinner and ended up staying the night in a hotel before finishing the trip home the next day.

Rods portaged: 202.73 rods (0.63 miles) Lakes traveled: Ogishkemuncie Lake, Kingfisher Lake, Jasper Lake, Alpine Lake, Seagull Lake The landing on the Kingfisher side, portage from Ogish to Kingfisher Portage landing heading east from Kingfisher to Jasper Portage from Jasper to Alpine The waterfall between Jasper and Alpine Canoeing on Jasper Lunch on the shore of 3 mile island And the trip comes to an end. happy but tired

While there were many obstacles facing us even before we even left on this trip it was great to once again embark on a canoe trip in the BWCA. A couple of lessons learned, I will be bringing a sleeping bag on every trip going forward no matter what time of year and packing food that does not weigh a metric ton. I know I said this last year and it still holds true, you cannot put into words the range of emotions you go through as you travel the BWCA. The feelings of adventure, challenge, accomplishment and satisfaction to name a few and not necessarily in that order. And having the chance to introduce and watch others experience and enjoy the BWCA for the first time adds another level of emotions as you get to share one’s passions with those closest to you. I have only been to the BWCA twice now and it amazes me how each trip has been so individually specifically different from the other. While certain aspects of a trip may be familiar, the motion of paddling, the call of the loon to name a few; each trip has its own challenges and adventures to be experienced. As life pulls us in different directions and priorities change, one priority will always stay the same. I will be back again on another BWCA adventure.