The squirrels woke me up at sunrise with their chattering and chasing each other across the campsite, so I decided to try for some fish for breakfast. I caught a nice sized bass off the rock porch overlooking the lake, and planned to fish for a little longer before breakfast, but an otter must have noticed my catch, as I watched it swim across the bay directly towards where I had my stringer in the water. I hurried back to the fish and the otter stopped, then came a few yards closer before diving into the water and apparently swimming away. I decided not to risk a sneak attack, and took the fish out to prepare it for breakfast. The morning was lovely, with low clouds, warmer temps and no wind. I thought about staying another day, but decided I really did want to get home, though I certainly wasn’t in a hurry. A flock of birds descended on the site as I ate the fish, filling the smaller trees around the fire grate, but they didn’t stay long, taking off again as a group. A few squirrels approached tentatively as I ate, but I was aggressive towards them again, and they settled down to wait for me to be finished. I was careful to clean and put away everything before I headed to the tent to break camp, and they immediately swarmed my chair, pack and the fire grate looking for any scraps I may have missed.

When I woke up, I’d heard an occasional thumping noise that made me wonder what was happening, and as I watched the squirrels, I discovered that regularly during their chasing each other, they would leap out of a tree, landing on the hollow sounding ground with a distinctive drum-like thud, probably due to the configuration of the ground and underlying rocks. Sometimes they’d drop pine cones or branches from high in the trees too, and those would also make the drumming noise. I was glad I’d seen it happen, or it would have bothered me wondering what it was well after I left.

I didn’t see any other paddlers until late in the morning, but by the time I was ready to leave, there were a few canoes on the lake. The wind picked up again a bit while I headed toward the portage, but I wasn’t in a hurry, and slowed to fish whenever I saw an interesting spot. There was still a group at site 646 (as always) and there were tents up at site 645, just across from the Lizz Lake portage, but I didn’t see any people there, so they were likely day tripping somewhere. As I approached the portage landing, a group of 2 couples emerged from the trail, so I paddled past them a bit and fished in the bay East of the landing until they were done. They were not quiet, and had to reload for some reason, so it was almost a 20 minute wait, and I started to get frustrated with the concept of giving other paddlers space. I didn’t run into anyone else the rest of the way back though, and reminded myself that I had plenty of time, and was even enjoying the casual fishing as I went. It was not easy to fish on Lizz as I made my way to the final portage, because the wind would take over as soon as I stopped paddling, and it was (of course) pushing me back to the South. The same thing happened on Poplar, and I marveled that only a few days earlier I had fought the wind to start my journey in the other direction. Back at Rockwood, I enjoyed chatting with the outfitters, and they agreed that the memorial on Horseshoe was probably related to Dan Cooke, as he had liked that particular campsite. I took a long refreshing shower, checked in with the family to let them know I was on my way home, and started looking forward to planning my next trip.