Gopher and I (who were sharing a tent this trip; Matt and Donnie were in Gopher’s tent) awoke shivering. It did not rain during the night, (it was a crystal clear night and morning) but the temperature had dipped a bit. Not a lot, but the difference of camping with the rain fly of my tent off, versus on, made a larger difference in the amount of heat the tent held that I imagined.

We were in for a very long day of paddling, intending to make the length of Knife Lake, in order to stay on one of the sites that split Knife from Ottertrack Lake. We packed away breakfast, drank our coffee and once again hit the water strong, crossing Carp Lake quickly.

The portage into Knife Lake followed a stream and, instead of packing our gear, we decided to leave the canoes loaded and guide them up by walking along side. Some of the spots ended up being deeper than they looked and Matt and I (who were on the bow sides) ended up taking more than one impromptu swim break. It was actually a very fun portage and it did not bother us at all.

Once we hit Knife Lake we noticed that we finally were about to head into some wind. And, of course, it would not be complete if that wind was not blowing straight at us. We took our time at the end of the portage, filling water bottles and eating some snacks (and taking a swim because, even early in the morning it was getting hot) before we got the canoes ready to take on the lake and the wind.

The first part of the trip was very simple, if tiring. I had waited all year for this moment; I was finally going to get on Robbins Island, a place we did not make it to due to the wind, last year. It was a nice campsite, but very disappointing as for seeing anything that might have been left behind by Dorothy Miller (The “Root Beer Lady”). I was hoping for something; a chunk of foundation from her cabin, a bottle or two lost in the woods, vague traces of any human presence. But I was out of luck. Too many years had gone by for anything to be left at her old homestead so we hit the lake again.

The rest of the day was backbreaking work. Into the wind for the entire length of Knife Lake we struggled to keep a straight line. The canoes tracked very well however. Their weight, something that was a pain in the ass during portages, cut through the water like a cleaver. No wave could upset them and the wind had a hard time upsetting our course as well. We tracked straight, for the most part, for the entire day.

As we neared a narrow section of Knife Lake Matt and Donnie were a full mile ahead of us (something we had gotten used to due to our differences of traveling goals; sightseeing and exploration for me, fishing for Donnie, and who knows what for Matt and Gopher) and missed the turn to continue on Knife Lake. They ended up well into a bay on the Canadian side before they noticed that Gopher and I were nowhere to be seen. It only took them a little under 30 minutes for them to realize what happed and to make up the distance to the narrows, where Gopher and I were waiting, and for all of us to continue up the length of Knife Lake.

We made out campsite location near the end of the day. As we paddled up to a group of sites that sit on the Knife Lake / Ottertrack Lake boarder we were slightly disheartened at first. A man and a woman were leaving a site. At first we figured it was full and that we would have a few more hours of paddling in store for us, but as the man and woman got in their canoe they told us that the site was all ours. We chalked it up to good fortune and took the site.

After we got the camp set up we found out why we were given the site; snakes. There were shed skins all over the rocks and we even caught a glimpse (though could not catch one directly) of a few Garden Snakes basking on the rocks. Nothing to worry about but I guess the woman would have none of it.

As evening fell we cooked up dinner and had a large fire (Donnie the pyro and his dead pine bows) after Matt and Donnie once again got some fishing. As we were all sitting in camp, Gopher, in his infinite abilities at balance, was showing off by tightrope walking on a log. A log that did not wish to be tightrope walked upon; a log that rolled over and tossed Gopher to the ground in such a graceful manner that I could almost imagine Gopher as a ballerina.

Our evening complete we were on our way to bed when Donnie decided to take a crap in the middle of the trail (Donnie, skittish about pooping in the toilets during the trip absolutely refused to do so; instead, he would usually go into the woods) leading to the toilet. After his HUGE fire this annoyed me to no end, but, surprisingly, I kept my mouth shut for the most part. By this point I was getting very annoyed at some of the things he was doing (all because he was out of booze) but I knew that I did not want an arguement out in the wilderness so I just had to let it slide; no matter how pissed I was.