Tuesday, July 17, 2007

We did the 75 rod portage over to the series of four islands leading up to Four Falls. (Strangely, this vital portage shows up on Fisher maps, but not on McKinzie). Navigation was easy as we followed the Western edges of the islands.

I had a bit of trepidation about the Falls Chain, the warnings from the Quetico Rangers and board members over on QJ, Janice's hand drawn and copied maps and the 'Dangerous Waters' stamps on the McKinzie maps all occupied my mind and concerns.

Nonetheless, as one of our members and several souls on our neighboring website indicated, unless you are a complete idiot, this stretch of the Maligne River - at normal water levels - poses very few extraordinary risks. Reading portages, and watching for water drop offs all came easily to our group.

We took our time heading down this river, the portages were easily found, though not always so easily traversed! There is quite a bit of grade change from the Southern end to Kenny Lake. We often took time to fish below these falls and took many pictures.

The blueberries were out, ripe and there for the harvesting.

At one of the portages I found a fanny pack left by a Scout named Hunter from Iowa. Inside was his poncho, tee shirt, whittling chit, whistle, two water bottles and more. We made room in our crowded packs and we added Hunter's pack to our load. We'd eventually get it back to him.

Late afternoon found us on Kenny Lake, six portages… the longest at 111 rods and one at 95 rods and just eight miles travelled. Following the excellent advice from another Board member we camped on the point site on Kenny Lake. This is a pretty four star site, the thundering roar of the misty Canyon Falls was easily heard in the background. None of my fellow travellers had ever caught a serious Northern - I opined that this might be a good place to get that experience.

I tossed a red and white Daredevle to Pete and suggested that he and Logan fish the turbulent waters below the falls. Kurt and I followed suit - we fished amidst whoops and calls (these from our Southern members - Pete and I were more apt to be quiet) as the Northerns, Walleyes and Bass cooperated. We kept one Walleye and invited him back to join us for breakfast.

The largest Northern Pete ran caught some 30"… Logan scored a few on a fly and Kurt began to earn his title as 'Walleye Slayer'.

I came across a cache of silvery beaver wood and pointed it to Kurt, Logan and Pete. It turns out that they had no idea of what I'd been referring to in the earlier days when I suggested that they find some beaver wood - must have thought it was some kind of exotic native tree. We loaded up a pretty good supply - enough so we were able to leave a bit for the next camper - all cut to length and split as needed. There is no better firewood than well seasoned beaver wood - it burns hot, quickly and with almost no smoke.

The consensus among the group was that we lay over here… I demurred and suggested that promised land of Kawnipi lie just one portage away.

It's worth noting that we'd seen only one party in the past 36 hours - Quetico was truly empty this beautiful July.

Darkness crept in slowly as we paddled back to camp following the tiny yellow beacon of the candle lantern we'd lit and left hanging from a branch at our campsite.