Quetico, Day by Day, 2024, Part II
By Mark Neikirk
Continued….
This is the second half of our trip, picking up at Woodside Lake as we prepare to leave it. Woodside is a two- to three-day paddle north from the United States/Canadian border. It’s remote with a main body and extended bay on its north end and another, a fingered bay, on its southwest end, near the island where we camped while here. Sometimes, when coming or going, a moose — one year with her calf behind her — swims from one shore to the next in front of you. We did not encounter her this year, but the mere possibility that we might gives Woodside a little more wilderness cred.
The lake is about 450 meters above sea level, which puts it about 33 meters above Agnes, and you learn that viscerally carrying your canoe, packs, and other gear in and over hilly, rocky portage trails. Having been to Woodside a few other times over the years, we are aware that each step is worth whatever difficulty it presents, as the lake ahead is a rare beauty.
We arrived on Woodside on Monday, and now, after three nights on the island with its big granite nose pointed due north, we are leaving to the next big lake to the west, Trant, another place we have visited in the past and know to be among Quetico’s best places.
Day 8, Thursday, September 5, on Woodside and Trant lakes
This is a travel day from Woodside to Trant. There will be four portages, some difficult. The first is easy and brings us into an unnamed pond. The portage is just four rods, and after emptying the canoes we just carry them by the bow and stern handles, one person front, one back, and leaving lighter gear and paddles in the boats.
The next portage was mislabeled on our map — that is, its location was not correctly pinpointed. Conveniently, someone had put an old moose antler in a fallen tree to mark the portage, I suppose realizing it is tricky to find. Eric and I paddled in and announced to the Mikes, “Guys, we found it.” Coolly, Mike Hammons replied, “You mean where the moose antler is?” We had not seen the antler, which was the equivalent of announcing that you “found” Chicago at an interstate exit with a sign that said “Chicago” but hadn’t read the sign. We found the portage the old-fashioned way. We looked for low spots beside a stream pouring from one lake to the next. Those are logical places for portages. But I must admit: a moose antler is a very cool backwoods sign. Eric took a selfie with it.
We did the antler portage and the next two portages. Some tough passages, those.
We saw footprints on the trails, and were reminded that the one couple who had passed through Woodside on Wednesday might still be on Trant. Or maybe they moved on after one night. That was my guess because we saw them early on Woodside. That probably meant they came from somewhere close — probably Agnes. That in turn meant they likely were traveling people who stay in a place one night then get up early and head out. They commented to us on Woodside when we said we were staying that we must be taking a “wind day” — which means they were not. They were by God moving, wind or no wind. So if they did this on a windy Wednesday, they likely would be doing it, too, on a calm Thursday. This was my supposition, but it was only that. A guess. We would not know for certain until we arrived at Trant and paddled to the campsite, which is not visible from the portage. Until we knew for sure they were gone, we faced the possibility that we’d have to paddle beyond Trant today. So there was a little anxiety.
As for their assumption that we were taking a wind day, we were not. For some reason, people often like to project their view of why you are doing what you are doing onto you. Presumption and assumption thrive, even in the wild. We would not logically take a wind day on these smaller, interior lakes as they have good wind sheltering. On Agnes or another big lake, a wind day is a good idea. We took one on Sunday on Agnes, when a brutal headwind would have challenged our progress north toward the entry portages to Woodside. Once on Woodside, we just wanted another day to enjoy it, and on a 14-day trip you can move unhurried, whether or not the wind figures into it, and here it did not.
I think I know why the assumptions people make in the woods irritate me so much. It’s because you come to places like this to get away from the little irritants of daily life and, yet, here they are. Everyone wants to be a damn expert. Everyone wants to be the smartest person. Actually, it is not everyone; it’s that there’s one in every crowd. One year some years back, we were windbound with some other groups near the park entrance, and Ken had a plastic cup latched to his belt loop. And old-timer, with a self-affected grizzled look and demeanor, informed Ken that his cup would not make it past the first portage, to which Ken dryly and factually replied, “It’s made it just fine for the past five years.” Or maybe it was ten years. Either way, touché, Mr. Know It All.
I’m overreacting. I realize that. I could say I — we — just want to be left alone when in Quetico, but actually it is a pleasure to meet people from time to time on a trip, and exchange pleasantries. Where are you from? Where are you going? How’s the fishing? Now and then, you might cross paths with someone who has built the canoe he’s paddling. As someone in progress on such a project, I have a few questions. And compliments. Sometimes I’ll see someone with a fly rod among his gear, or hers, and because that is what I bring, I’m interested in their experience. Are they fishing wet, dry or both? Which flies are working for which species?
The Trant site was empty when we got there, but a tent site had dry ground under it, meaning the couple likely stayed there overnight and then left early. The surrounding ground was still damp from the rain overnight. There also was a handwoven birch bark basket sitting on the fire pit. It was a remarkably crafted creation. I’m not sure if the recent visitors made it or someone before them. When we left, we left it there for the next Trant visitors to enjoy. It seemed to speak to what it means to be in Quetico, where you connect with what’s there in the way that best suits you. Someone found an old birch long deteriorating on the ground and, from that, pulled 1-inch strips of bark, then wove them into a basket — just as, thousands of years ago, native people probably did, too. On another campsite, someone had made a walking stick with a snake’s head on the upper end of it, the snake’s snarling mouth open. The body of the snake was carved to wrap around the stick, and maker had taken pains to carve scales. It was quite impressive in conception and execution.
Upon arrival at any campsite, a ritual always unfolds for us. Eric fixes the fire pit to his satisfaction. He’s a perfectionist about that — and the rest of us appreciate his commitment and skill. It means the fire grate will be, as John Prine sings in “Grandpa Was a Carpenter,” level on the level. Eric, by the way, hates that song, but I like to sing it while padding. It took me several lakes to remember all the lines. That last one I was missing was “He chain-smoked Camel cigarettes and hammered nails in things.” Finally, I managed to recall all three verses and sing it all the way through. Eric usually howled like a wolf when I did to mock my singing voice. Or he just said, “Oh, no. Not again.” He cannot be faulted for this intolerance.
We had an interesting little thing happen as we arrived in camp. We smelled gas, as you might at home if you had a gas leak. At first, we could not figure out what it might be. What could be the source of that? Then Eric, in moving a pack, figured out immediately why. I’d left a butane canister in the stove but with the safety lock to keep from activating the canister. The stove is carried in a protective, hard shell plastic case. So it seemed secure from activating. However, the canister had been knocked about enough in portaging that the nozzle had gotten itself crimped and activated, spewing butane. The gas comes out like a mist of dry ice, and everything around it, including the top flap of the portage pack and the stove’s plastic case, was cold and frosty. The canister was now empty, as were two others that we had burned through cooking breakfast and dinner up to now. We’d now need to be more conscience of fuel use for the balance of the trip.
The ritual of a new campsite continued thusly at Trant: Mike Hammons gathered wood. Mike Scheper and I organized food and gear and got water. Eric then started fishing. He practices the best rule of fishing: to catch fish, have a line in the water often. Mike Scheper joined him, and both got a couple of nice if smaller largemouth bass, which are abundant in Trant, as we discovered on a trip here two years ago. Until then, largemouth were a rare catch in our experience in Quetico. That has changed. There are more largemouth, and they are fat and sassy. When we caught them in years past, they had the oversized mouth of a largemouth attached to miniature bodies. It just looked wrong. Aliens in the water! Now, they are beautiful fish.
With camp set, Eric and I went out in the canoes for a bit, working our way along nearby shores. For a fishing session shortened by travel on this day, it was productive. We caught a few more bass, missed a few others. Since we only needed three fish to make a dinner, we let most of the fish go, then filleted and fried three of the largemouth.
This was one of our best meals. To save fuel, I cooked in the cast iron skillet over the open fire (on the grate) rather than on the butane stove. Cooking on the fire grate was the obvious solution to conserving fuel. It was a good call for another reason. The fire was hotter than the stove; thus, the fish cooked faster and with greater crisp. It would use the fire grate for fish fries henceforth on this trip — barring rain, which would require the stove.
Maybe it was just how they cooked on the open flame, but the largemouth seemed to be the most succulent fish yet — superior to the walleye, smallmouth, and pike that had fed us to this point. Our side dish was Annie’s brand mac and white cheddar, which was better than the Annie’s yellow cheddar variety that we had on our first fish night. I made sure to add enough milk (mixed from powder) and butter (we take a bottle of gooey margarine, Parkay) and also added a couple of slices of Velveta to contribute to the overall cheesiness. Those additions made all the difference. We fried the fish in Andy’s Cajun, by now our clear favorite batter, and ate it on rye bread with spicy mustard and a slice of cheese. A year will pass before I have a meal equal to this. I’ll have to be back in Quetico. No restaurant in the city, no matter its supply chain, can deliver fish this fresh. Maybe a seaside grill right by the fishing boats can. Otherwise, this is the bomb.
We had a nice evening around the fire. A wonderful fire at that. The weather radio predicted a night in the low 40s. There was a little chill in the air, and we all had wet feet to dry out by the fire. We huddled near the flames, told a few stories and jokes until it was bedtime. An early night after a great but tiring day.
Day 9, Friday, September 6, 2024, Trant Lake
We are now well past the halfway point of this trip, which seems amazing. At the start, 14 days seemed so long. Now it seems like it will be over too soon. I have read of people who spend a month in Quetico. I get it.
Even with the days ticking off, there is yet ample time to enjoy the five days ahead. Two weeks really is a game changer. The pressure to be “here by then” disappears. Too often on a trip, you get to the planned destination and it seems you cannot enjoy it for long. The pace of trip is altered by having more time. We stayed from Thursday through Monday morning (four nights) on Half Agnes, then our three nights on Woodside, and now this extended stay on Trant. We plan to leave on Sunday, vying us three says to get back to the international border and to our motorboat ride back to civilization.
This morning, we woke up to a blue sky; it had been rainy off and on Thursday. Today will be in the 60s and sunny. We have pancakes again and the last of the multi-grain cereal that is like a kind of oatmeal. It’s mushy, so Mike Scheper is not eating it but he’s content with the pancakes, which are filling on their own. We have enough honey and butter still to gussy them up properly, along with coffee and tea.
We are out of Red Rooster coffee and now switch to Deeper Roots, which is different but also quite good. Not sure I can exactly say how except that the Deeper Roots has some darker roast in the blend while the Red Rooster is a medium roast. Both are good but they taste quite different. Looking at our baggie of coffee, I am beginning to think we might run out before the trip ends. Mike Hammons said he is fine with tea. Mike Scheper already is drinking only tea. “I tried coffee once in my life,” he tells us, smiling, “It was in Quetico.” “How was it?” “Not that great.” We have a lot of tea (and, it would turn out, just enough coffee).
It is 9:50a as I write this, seated in my Helinox chair on “wolf point” — so named because it was here in 2022 that we heard the howling wolves overnight. The sun is warming things up. I remove my wool pullover sweater but as soon as the sun moves behind a cloud I put it back on. When the sun returns, I slip the sweater off again.
I am nearing the end of Willa Cather’s novel, “Death Comes to the Archbishop,” published in 1927 and set in the mid-1800s in what is now New Mexico but was then new territory in the United States, a nation not yet 100 years old. It is the story of a priest who is assigned to restore Roman Catholicism to a part of the world first introduced to it by Spanish conquerors in the 1500s.
I don’t know how I missed Willa Cather’s novels until this point in my life. She writes with a deep, deep understanding of human nature and at least as deep of a respect for the natural world, and in this book at least, a deep respect for the spiritual life. Having been driven away from the Church by its sins, and my own disregard for a fully realized spiritual life, I was drawn by this book’s regard for both the Church and the importance of mystery and miracle, which is presented side by side with the main character’s humanity. As I read the novel’s “Book Seven” and chapter one, “The Great Diocese,” while seated at the edge of Trant Lake on a day this perfect, I was frankly overwhelmed by Willa Cather’s abilities as a writer. Mike Hammons was seated next to me, and I asked if I could read this chapter to him, and I did.
One passage stands out as an example: “It was the month of Mary and the month of May. Father Vaillant [he is ill and bedridden for months as he recovers in this remote place] was lying on an Army cot, covered with blankets, under the grape arbour in the garden, watching the Bishop and his gardener at work in the vegetable plots. The apple trees were in blossom, the cherry blooms had gone by. The air and earth interpenetrated in the warm gusts of springs; the soil was full of sunlight, and the sunlight full of red dust. The air one breathed was saturated with early smells, and the grass under foot and a reflection of blue sky in it.”
I found that passage to be one of rare beauty, and one demonstrative of Willa Cather’s grand ability to use words precisely as they should be. Who uses the word “interpenetrated” and uses it, without pretension, just once in a 297-page book, and then as precisely as it should be used. Interplay. Interwoven. Interconnected. Any of those could be stripped of the prefix and still work but, when properly used, the new word with the prefix added has dimension the word without it does not have. In Willa Cather’s garden scene, with the infirmed priest healing as he observes the garden in spring, she deploys “interpenetrated” in, what to me, is exemplary fashion — and I am in awe, and tell Mike Hammons as much.
Much to my eternal dismay, Eric is seated to my left and, I think, napping. Turns out he is semi-conscious and hears my whole expository yammering about the aforementioned paragraph. Alerting us to the fact that he was not asleep, he begins immediately to poke fun of any appreciation of the word “interpenetrated” in ways that anyone who understands the humor of 12-year-old boys would instantly recognize. And this is how it would go from time to time for the rest of the trip. He need only say the word “interpenetrated” to amuse himself at my expense. I suspect this will be true for years to come. My friendship has been interpenetrated with this little bit of anti-literary ridicule. As Kurt Vonnegut would say, so it goes.
All that notwithstanding, reading this book beside this lake and reading aloud to friends who appreciated the passages (Mike Hammons obviously, Eric Krosnes left evidently — but as we would learn, he listened to the whole reading and appreciated all of it; he just couldn’t resist a little salacious commentary given the inherent innuendo of a word like interpenetrated). The perfect words, the perfect place interpententrated toward a higher perfection. Amen.
This is a beautiful lake. It is broken up by points and islands and also by boulders that rise out of the water like the backs of giant turtles. The water channels between these bits of land, breaking up this lake in interesting ways and creating pockets of water, each with its own character. Like Woodside, it feels wilder than the lakes in lower Quetico.
In fishing this lake, its character is further revealed. The bits of land create places fish like to be, and exploring those places is just fun. So, after the late morning reading, Eric and I gathered our gear and headed out to fish. The Mikes did, as well. They went south. Eric and I went northwest. By 4 p.m., when we checked in, both boats had a couple of fish on the stringers — enough for dinner. The Mikes decided to head in. Eric and I stayed out and made our way toward a bay in Trant’s southwest corner.
At the bay’s dead end, a riverlet veered off. It was the width of a canoe, with brush and other marshy growth pressing against the sides of the boat as we moved through it. It became impassable after about 300 yards. We backed out, and as we did Eric excitedly announced he had spotted a pitcher plant: “I’ve never seen one of these in the wild!” He photographed it and later, enlarged on his camera’s digital screen you could see a small bug trapped in the pitcher’s sticky fluid. Ah, nature. Your wonders. What have we not yet seen, not yet learned, not yet appreciated?
Coming back to the bay, we resumed fishing. The water was at first mossy but then the moss gave way to a patch of lily pads and then deeper water. Soon, I had a fish on. It was nice largemouth caught on a green wooly bugger with an orange head. For the next 30 minutes, I had constant catching until I caught a big one that leaped and tugged my knot loose.
Earlier, when I tied this knot, I was wearing sunglasses without reading lenses. I really could not see what I was doing. I tied something not in the books, then tugged to see if it would slip, It did not. And it held until this fish, which was just too much for it. I think I didn’t worry much about the knot at the time because the fishing was so slow. I’d caught only one fish before we came to this bay. Eric had caught more but no trophies. So I got a little lazy with my knot, thinking, “This will do,” and it did — until it did not. I found another fly and, this time, tied a secure knot.
We fished a little more and then went in with five largemouth and one smallmouth on the stringer. At camp, we pared that down to the three larger largemouth, and I fried them in the cast iron skillet on an open flame with Kentucky Colonel fish flour. We had rice and burritos. This was a very good meal. We followed it with cookies and hot chocolate for dessert.
Eric’s intestines bothered him all day (though he ate two burritos plus the last of the rice and three cookies), so he took some Tums and Pepto to settle his stomach and maybe get a night of uninterrupted sleep. In the backcountry, you are shielded from a lot of communicable diseases. You are not going to get COVID out here unless someone in your party brought it along. But you can get a drink of questionable water. Or fall and get a scrape or a break. We had some scrapes (none major) but no breaks, and everyone handled the sharp instruments (ax, saw, fillet knives) without a major incident. Everyone’s legs were scratched and scruffed. Not much more damage. The rocks were slick, the hidden roots on portage trails good at catching a toe, and the blades sharp but the gods were good as was Saint Christopher, the saint of safe passages.
Day 10, Saturday, September 7, 2024
I’m up early by the standards of this trip: 7:30 a.m. At home, I’m usually up by 5:30 a.m. but here it is great to stay zipped in a little later. Alone in a tent, there is time to say a prayer, to contemplate then and now and next, to marvel at the comfort of a down sleeping bag combined with an air mattress and a pillow, and notice the morning arriving as dark becomes light.
Arising, it is cool, not cold, and there is a beautiful fog on the lake. Because there is a land mass right across the water from us, maybe 80 yards away, the whole scene is mystical, with the land appearing and disappearing as the fog moves, its dense patching hiding, its ten patches revealing. As the sun comes into its fuller powers, the fog thins and lifts. The land, never gone, is announced. Firm beneath the firmanent.
Each lake here is a dynamic scene, never the same from minute to minute. The sky changes, as does the air itself, the water. The rocks and trees are more constant but they change too. On Woodside, Eric took a picture of a little tree growing miraculously out of a crack in a big granite rock. He took a picture of the same tree a couple of years ago. It was shorter then, maybe six inches, and now nine but it had maybe one leaf now and that leave prematurely brown. The little tree will have to fight the elements, and lack of nourishing soil, if it is to be here when we return in some future year. Trees do start like this, and finish big. All over Quetico, as in in other wild places, you see trees that have woven — interwoven — their roots into every available crack in the hard, hard rock, finding any patch of soil. Perhaps their roots, as they grow and bulge, even make new cracks or at least widen little ones. Such trees grow to impossible heights and seem to practically dangle from the sides of cliffs and outcroppings.
Seeing such trees, or a morning fog lifting, is a reminder that one reason we come to places like this is to see. To see the natural world. To see it closely. To be in it. Of it. In Quetico, you are in and of nothing more than you are pristine waters of its many, many lakes. What color is the water? It is of course clear, and you can see that plainly when you fill a bag with water to purify through a filter. But in the lake, the water takes on colors given to it by its surroundings. Looking directly into the water, it is a rich olive but if you look out on a clear, sunny day, the olive turns silver and then a sparkly light blue. Honestly, I cannot tell staring at it when these color changes happen. They just do. They are not abrupt, but blending. As little sense as that makes, it is so. A painter would have, I think, a time capturing this reality, though I know the best have the talent to do so. I’ve given you what I can in words.
For breakfast, I make the Apple Crisp, which had been a big hit as a dessert last year but I realized it could make a great breakfast. It did. Downside, I chip my cap and the tooth below it. I thought I had burned some sugar in the cobbler and had a chunk of that, so I spit it out. Soon enough, I realized I’d spit out some dental work. I’d have to get that repaired once home. This is maybe the third time over the years that I’ve done this same thing with different foods. Starbursts were, I think, the original culprit — so now I avoid them. I’m not ready to give up Apple Crisp. I just will need to chew on the left side next time.
Apple crisp is a mix I buy in a box at the grocery store. It calls for fresh apples or a can of apples. Those are not options for us. I buy a bag of dried apple slices and let them first soak in boiled water to soften them. The mix also is supposed to be baked in an oven; also not an option for us. I combine the apples and the mix in the iron skillet, add butter, and put the whole thing on the fire grate over a cooler fire and stir a lot until the dough cooks and browns a little. This is a crowd pleaser of a dish. Trust me. We also brought the peach version and ate it for breakfast last Friday morning. For that, I used those little plastic cups of diced peaches you buy so kids will eat fruit. They were kind of heavy but I could not find dried peaches. Given the weight, we ate that dish early so we didn’t have to carry it long. It’s not a lot of weight, but all weight adds up.
With breakfast over, it’s time to kick back a little at the water’s edge. Maybe read a little.
After the fog lifts, the lake is glass. Soon, a gentle wind gives it texture. It’s now 10:40 a.m. It is sunny with only tiny white clouds south and a sunburst of clouds north. I start tortilla soup (Darn Good brand) so it would have time to thicken and get more delicious by lunch time. It had a lot beans in it, so knew Eric wouldn’t touch it. His stomach is not yet settled either. But we’ll have something he can eat, even if only a granola bar. For the soup, I add a chicken packet, dobblette of olive oil, tomato powder, corn, herbs, paprika, dried peppers, s&p, and 1/4 onion. And it turns out quite tasty.
We fished from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. and put seven fish on the stringer plus four more from the Mikes and one from morning shore fishing. We kept three for dinner and set the others free.
Tonight I used Andy’s hot and spicy chicken batter and the last of the peanut oil. Cooked the fish over the fire. Side: made a sauce by crisping the garlic and sweating the onions then adding a bouillon cube and milk. Boiled mini gnocchi and poured the sauce over it.
After dinner, Eric fished off Wolf Point with a whopper Plopper and caught several 12-inch largemouth. I had rigged my dry fly rod and so got it and joined him. No hits on a Chernobyl ant. Time for a different dry fly? Not tonight, may tomorrow.
Note that muddler minnow was very productive in the canoe today. In the boat, I’m fishing with my Orvis Access rod, an old faithful, and a new Battenkill III reel spooled with sinking line so I can get a wet fly down fast to about 16 feet. I bought this reel and line after I returned last year knowing I needed my flies to get down further, faster. It works like a charm.
Here’s a bummer of thing: The sole of my Keen portage boot has come unglued and is now a loose flap of Vibram. The next morning I will glue it with Super Glue (useless) and some tent sealant that Mike Scheper has. It is promising but, time will tell, ineffective too. Back home, I try Gorilla Glue. No field test as of this writing. May not be one. I don’t trust that boot any longer. I don’t blame Keen, I blame an unknown pointed rock on a portage somewhere along the way. It likely tore loose a corner of the sole and then the whole thing came unglued. These boots are four years old and have served me well until now.
It is supposed to be colder tonight. Maybe in the 30s (we learn later than it got down to 28 in town). But it is clear as clear can be, and the stars are just fantastic. My LL Bean zero degree bag is cozy. Not so much as a chill. This bag is probably 30 years old at least and still a gem. It’s too heavy to take backpacking, but canoe camping permits you to carry a little extra weight. It’s a luxury.
Day 11, Sunday, September 8, 2024
We’re on Trant for another day, having decided this morning to give this special lake another day and then bust out to Prairie Portage on Monday and Tuesday so that we can be in place for our scheduled 9 a.m. pickup on Wednesday with the LaTourell’s motorboat.
It could make for a couple of difficult travel days but the weather forecast is favorable (that radio is great!) and we know we can make it to Half Agnes on Monday and then to Praire Portage from there. And if we get further on Monday, then Tuesday gets easier. What if we make it all the way to Meadows (the little lake between the Twin Agonies)? That would be an epic day. A paddling achievement for the books, right?
It’s another sunny, lovely day and we again start with coffee and also the last of the pancakes. We got three meals out of one box of buttermilk pancake mix and a bottle of honey, that also sweetened our granola and our peanut butter and graham cracker lunches.
Around 11 a.m., Eric and I went out to fish and immediately caught some in the opening of the narrows by our campsite. We caught more intermittently as we slow drifted and/or paddled southeast. The wind is light but temperamental, changing directions a lot.
I called home on the satellite phone to check in. Anna and Nils were at the Bengals game (1st game of the season and playing the rebuilding Patriots; Bengals lost). Kate and Sarah are watching Baby Sebastian, who is about a month old now. He doesn’t sleep.
We each had two fish on the stringer until we were almost back to camp, at which point Eric landed the largest largemouth of the trip. The bass in Quetico are said to fatten up on shad in August, and this one certainly had done so. I’m pretty sure we both hooked and lost larger fish on the trip based on the fights; but this was the largest landed.
We came in for a late lunch around 2:15 p.m. just as the Mikes were headed out. We had some Lipton’s chicken noodle soup (slow cooked on the open fire since just after breakfast) with some pita chips. We headed back out after about an hour, hoping to meet up with the Mikes by the southwest lily pads, where we found largemouth previously.
Around 5 p.m., Eric and I returned with more fish but let them all go as we have plenty for dinner as is. We didn’t kill it fishing this afternoon, but we did OK. Got a few more. Eric more than me. We both lost what seemed to be bigger ones. Darn barbless hooks!
Also, I have to get the hang of quickly adjusting my drag. I keep it tight while drifting so that I can set a hook. But I like to loosen it immediately after a fish is hooked so that the fish can run as much as it wants as I reel in. I’ve lost a few fish on this trip while pausing (i.e., not reeling) to loosen the drag. The tension is relieved on the line for a split second, and a fish takes advantage of that — especially a larger fish, for which a loose drag is especially important. My leader ends in 4-pound test monofilament, so it will break under the pull of a big fish if the drag is too tight. I realize I need to get the hang of this transition. Or switch to a heavier leader.
At camp, Eric weighed his big largemouth (4 pounds) and measured it (18 inches). I had a 14 inch, 2 pound smallmouth — big by this trip’s standards, which produced a lot of 12 inch fish (nothing wrong with that; but last year, we were catching 18-22 inch fish in other lakes).
As the day grows late, it remains warm. In the 70s. Pillow clouds are in a blue, blue sky.
Our dinner is simple: Fried bass with Andy’s “hot” chicken batter with two sides, mashed potatoes and stuffing. Afterward, Eric fished Wolf Point with a Whopper Plopper and, though he didn’t match what happened here in 2022 (50 fish in 50 minutes), he was catching quite a few. I still had my Moonshine rod rigged with floating line and the Chernobyl Ant tied on. I casted a few times and caught two largemouth and got a strong hit by another. Fun. They make this big gulping sound (gah-lop”) when they take the fly as if it were the last bug on earth. Great fun.
Later, the moon is out. A crescent. We sat on the south point where I camped in 2022 and enjoyed it, all four of us. We saw a succession of satellites about 30 seconds apart, one after the other in the same path. Elon?
This was our bonus day on Trant. It was, in a way, as if we were at our own private fishing lodge just minus the lodge itself. Eat breakfast, drink a second cup of coffee, read or piddle, then go out to fish — knowing you will catch some nice bass — come back in for lunch, go back out, come in, make dinner and eat it. Relax. Turn in. Repeat.
Day 12, Monday, September 9, 2024
We will travel today but are not sure to where. At least to Half Agnes but maybe as far as Lower Agnes or even Meadows. I am writing this at day’s end so I can tell you what happened. We made it to Meadows. We came across the very difficult portages from Trant to Silence and across the easy portage from Silence to Agnes, where we had some granola bars and gorp for lunch while seated in the canoes and in the shade of the Agnes shore. There, we discussed where to go. How far, how many more hours?
There was still some sentiment for Half Agnes, which was less than an hour away. But it was early, so going further seemed logical. All distance traveled today would make Tuesday an easier day. The weather was good, we all felt good, it was still early afternoon (a bit after 2 p.m.) We could make it south of Half and maybe to Louisa, which is near the start of the south Agony, and maybe even on the Meadows. It worked out like this: We pushed on to Louisa with a strong interest in the campsite tucked in the eastern bay below the falls, but it was taken. There are no site options after than one, and Mike Scheper spoke for us when he said: “I don’t want to go backward.” We would press on, portaging the first of two Agonies from Agnes, and then padding out into Meadows to see if the campsite was unoccupied. We needed it to be available as the sun was fading fast. It was.
We left Trant at 9:30 a.m. and set foot on the Meadows island campsite at 7:30 p.m., so ten hours of padding and portages and about a 15 minute rest for a lunch in the boats. Kind of impressive.
I made chili from a scratch recipe:
3 beef bouillon cubes
1 pack of chili seasoning
2 tubes of tomato paste
1/4 cup of cocoa powder
1/4 cup of fresh onion (our last from 2 onions on the trip)
1/4 cup of tomato powder
1 cup plus of orzo
1/3 cup of “large” mac shells
1/4 cup of olive oil
S&P, garlic powder, paprika
Hot sauce, cheese, and oyster crackers to be added by each diner.
Fast, good.
Eric and I had a moment when he came to dinner and said emphatically: “Are their beans in the chili? There better not be! I hate beans.” Look, pal, I put this together specifically to meet your “no beans” rule. How dare you bitch at me. He, in turn, said he was not bitching. Well, I said, you had some attitude. No I didn’t, he said. And that was that. 14 days and no cross words but these. Pretty damn good. We were tired and I was pissed about the worst mosquitoes yet and the fact that I’d left the top cross pole to my tent at Trant. I had fashioned a replacement from a pine branch (and ordered a replacement pole from Big Agnes when I got home, $20 plus shipping). Bugs. Missing pole. Tired. Hungry. I was a little on edge for the night. Sorry about that, friends. I needed a moment.
I’ve had a running commentary in this journal about Mike Scheper’s unwillingness to eat “mushy” foods. In his defense, he never complained. Not once. He just said, “I won’t eat that.” No mushy multi-grain hot cereal. We didn’t have oatmeal this year, but if we did, none of that. No granola, which is crunchy not mushy but looked too mushy to him. No mashed potatoes. No polenta. We had alternatives for him, so there was not a problem. But I did not know of his anti-mushy diet when I bought food. I could have planned around that and will next time. I did know that Eric would eat neither beans nor mushrooms, and planned our meals accordingly. No mushrooms (a pity) and limited bean dishes. Had Dan Hassert come with us, dairy would be out for him — which means no mac and cheese and no slice of cheese on his fish sandwich. Again, easy to plan for. There are things I won’t eat, too, but since I plan the menus I don’t think about my anti-proclivities. They just are. I say all this to underscore that no beans, no mush, no cheese is no problem.
We had the last of cookies for dessert. I had a cup of chamomile tea, which I have found helps me sleep better in the woods. I expect it will be a regular camping luxury for me henceforth.
Meadows is a pretty little lake tucked between the two Agonies. Most people — nearly all — bypass it. When you take the Twin Agonies from Sunday to Agnes, or vice versa, one portage is right around a small bend in the shore from the other, so you don’t even need to securely load your packs. Just get ‘em in there and go. Couple of minutes later, you are at the next portage. But if you take the time, you can veer out from there into this beautiful little lake. It’s a great spot to introduce yourself to Quetico, and it was my introduction.
It has been a few years since I have been to Meadows, which is where this all began in 1975 with boyhood friends, including the aforementioned Ken Hogan (also my cousin), James Caudill (who has been back three times since and is considering a return next year)m and Rob Lawrence (who did not come back, and moved away to Winston-Salem with his wife, fell off our radar, and died a few years ago, which I learned too late to properly mourn). Suffice it to say, Meadows carries important memories for me.
The four of us came in June, and soon after that trip I would go off to Cape Cod to live and work for the summer and be with a girlfriend, whose parents had a small summer home there. The year would bring a lot of changes in my life. One of those changes was the birth of an affection for Quetico. I would want, even need, to return time and time and time again.
We were all 20, we thought we were on a grand adventure by coming here. In hindsight, we had barely penetrated Quetico. But it was all new then. Wild. Exotic. Now, 49 years later, the park is a second home. Part of an annual routine for me. More precisely, an annual need. I am acutely aware when here that it is inaccessible to me 11 and half months out of the year. Once this trip is over, I won’t expect to be back here until September of 2025. I’ll have memories. Vivid ones. That’s all. That is true now, and it is true of 1975.
We didn’t know how to portage a canoe then. We had rental aluminum Grumman canoes that weighed 70 pounds each, and two of us carried one of them at a time over each portage including over the longer of the two Agonies. We didn’t do the other because we went no further than Meadows. Then James saw some other people carrying their canoes the right way: one person with the center thwart on his shoulders, the canoe balanced there. He carried it thus over the long, muddy and messy North Portage that goes from Sunday to Basswood, one of only three portages required on that trip. We had learned. Never again would we use two people to carry one canoe. Live and learn.
I had my dog, Arlo, an Irish setter, with me on that trip. He was such a good boy. He would curl up between the front thwart and the middle one for each ride across the water, then wait for my command to exit the boat as it landed. He only did one thing wrong the whole trip but it was consequential to him. He ran circles around the Meadows island’s rocky shore, barking at the ducks and loons and gulls and whatever other birds were there. When we got home, I learned there were holes in his padded feet, poor boy. The rocks tore those, and they would take time to heal.
He would have that time, as our next trip was the 970 miles to West Harwich, Mass. Our home for that summer is a beat up old pink clapboard house turned into a boarding house for college kids, most of whom went to the University of Rochester in New York, and the big pink house was known locally as the University of Rochester House. I had a twin bed in a room with a fellow we called Hank with No Common Sense, because he was thoroughly lacking it— though in the most charming way. I wonder what became of him. He wasn’t suited for the world in some ways but he didn’t seem concerned about it, kind of like the protagonist in “Being There,” Chauncey Gardiner (Peter Sellers played him in the movie).
The house actually looked pretty nice from the outside. It was the inside that was a rat trap. One student had rented the house and then sublet the rooms to the rest of us at a handsome profit to himself. I have since imagined him as someone who graduated the University of Rochester, or dropped out, to become the Donald Trump of Rochester, owning buildings and being the bane of his tenants. I forget his name. Maybe Grinch or Ebenezer.
That fall, I returned to Lexington and the University of Kentucky. The young woman and I parted ways at her request. Arlo ran off or was stolen or maybe stuck by a car. I just know he didn’t come home one day and the explanation was lost to me. He was just gone, a sort of metaphor for my life at the time. Like Quetico of 1975, other parts of the year were lost to me except as memories, some good, some harsh lessons for life.
Now back on Meadows Lake all of these years later, I thought of all this while having my tea by a magnificent campfire under the stars and deep enough into the night that the mosquitoes were gone until morning.
And I thought about where I am in life now at age 69. Back then in 1975, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to be in life professionally. Now, I’m done being anything professionally, having retired in January. Then, I thought I was in love for life. Now, I actually am. Then, I wondered about having kids one day. Now I have three daughters and three grandkids. I also have three canoes. The one that came this year is carbon fiber and weighs just 38 pounds though it is 18.5 feet long. It’s so easy to carry that it is ridiculous. Nothing like those lead-weight Grummans of 1975 vintage.
The Mikes and Eric went to bed. I was left to be lost in my thoughts for a time before I, too, unzipped my tent door and tucked in.
Day 13, Tuesday, September 10, 2024
This is the day of the presidential debate, and we plan to attempt to listen to it on the radio tonight. We’ll be close enough to Ely, we think, to pull in a station.
We have no need to leave Meadows early as we have a relatively short distance to go to a campsite that’s just minutes from the exit the next morning. I’m not writing from that campsite. We left Meadows at 10:20 a.m. and were at the Prairie Portage site by 2:30p. We had to carry everything over the long Agony, which takes about 20 minutes each way. With a double load, that’s 20 minutes over, 20 minutes back for the second load, and 20 minutes over with that second load. So, one hour. Then we had to paddle across Sunday, a sizable lake. That took about 50 minutes. A little wind and wave action slowed us some. There were small whitecaps. And the wind was sort of diagonal; not quite a crosswind, not quite a headwind. That can be difficult to keep a boat on course in.
Then we had the North Portage, which is a far cry from its 1975 self because of improvements made by the Quetico portage crews. We stopped for some granola bars, gorp, and water at the end. And then we had to paddle from there across a segment of Basswood Lake, including the sometimes terrifying — but this day, tame — Bailey Bay.
When you are on Bailey Bay and look west, you see a vast, vast body of water as if Lake Superior had been transported to this place.
A day from now, we’ll be in Duluth for our first dinner back in civilization, and we’ll walk along Superior. Basswood actually is tiny compared to Superior but that’s not the impression sitting in a canoe and looking at it. A small scale archipelago creates the bay as well as wind tunnel, collecting wind through a wide channel and, in that channel, kicking up three foot waves on some days. A three-foot wave is a six foot differential. Having crossed it in those conditions a few times, I wish to never do so again and today we did not have to do so. The wind was light. The passage uneventful. The weather was a pleasant 80 degrees, the wind present but gentle.
Our camp, on a very large island parallel to Basswood’s south shore where the Ranger Station is located, is a place we’ve camped often in recent years. We used to stop on islands on Sunday, get up early and portage over North Portage, and hope to cross Bailey while the water was still calm from a still night. But this is easier, and removes the need to get up at 4 or 5 in the morning. The exit is a seven-minute paddle. And the campsite is not bad. Also, the fishing can be good, though it was not this time. But Eric caught one 13-inch smallmouth, which we cleaned and cooked as an appetizer to go along with the last dinner of the trip, Cantonese noodles and chicken with a coconut lime sauce. The later comes in a small foil bag, weighs a few ounces, and keeps unrefrigerated. This was quite a good dish.
We made hot drinks and tuned in the debate, which was not interesting on the radio. We missed all those Trump/Harris facial expressions and body language—things that mostly made the debate interesting (although the claim that immigrants were eating cats in Springfield was memorable; I wonder if the immigrants eat all the cats if there will no longer be any cat ladies, only catless ladies, and JD Vance might then welcome those voters into the civic fold — always look for the bright side, folks!) We gave up at halftime, stayed up talking for a bit, then called it a night. Here, the debate and who won seemed irrelevant, as it would for a few more hours yet.
By now, we had text message access and read Ken’s note that he and his party had abandoned their attempt to get to Half Agnes because of the pop-up storm. I’ll call him when we return and hear the full story.
Day 14, Wednesday, September 11
This is kind of a veni, vidi, vici day. We rose, we packed, we departed. Our ride from LaTourell’s was prompt at 9 a.m. We got the portage early and stopped at the Ranger Station to catch up with Jason and buy some souvenirs. The ride back to LaTourell’s is about 25 minutes on the motorboat. Once there, we packed the trailer, took a shower, headed toward Ely with a stop at US Customs to check in by kiosk.
We looked forward to a meal in Ely but that wasn’t to be. There was a water main break and all restaurants were closed. We shopped a bit in town. I bought new yoke pads and a resin touch-up kit for the canoe. I also looked for portage boots to replace the damaged Keens. One store had the same boots on sale for 30 percent off but not in my size. So this replacement will have to wait.
At U.S. Customs, the flags were at half staff in remembrance of September 11, 2001. Even with a weather radio, Quetico shelters you from the world and its matters of grave importance. But it cannot do it for long. For us, it did so for 14 days, minutes the 30 minutes when we learned of immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating cats and dogs. Or at least of the lie about that.
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NOTES TO SELF: A few observations for trip planning for 2025:
For 14 days, 2 small bottles of oil plus about a cup more is good
If you use the butane stove, one canister per 2.5 days is about right. Do not leave a canister in the stove when traveling.
- Bring a whisk and also a bigger serving/stirring spoon.
- Use the skillet and grate to cook often: They work very well.
- Jiffy muffin mixes make good sweet rolls; just put them in the skillet with some oil and butter — stir and keep moving and build the mush into square “rolls”.
- Ran out of salt and pepper in the spice rack but the little rack is great for secondary spices.
- 1 full butter was just the right amount for 4X14.
- Batter bag lasts about 2 1/2 nights; Andy’s Cajun is a clear favorite.
- Thai/coconut sauce is a good base element for a noodles or rice dish.
- Don’t underestimate the value of bullion cubes. Very useful,
- A Guilden’s Golden mustard was a right size.
- We used 4 loaves of bread.
- A good after dinner snack: “toast” a piece of bread on the skillet over the fire and then drizzle honey over it.
- Oversized mac shells are handy for their own dish and also work well in chili.
- Darn Good soups are great. Chicken noodle and minestrone are especially good and easily improved with a few additions, including chicken.
- Velveeta mac and cheese is better. Dinners prefer it (we didn’t have it).
- 5 pounds of coffee was about right for 4X14
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