We began our journey canoeing on the Little Indian Sioux River North. That afternoon, we saw a mama black bear and its cub at a campsite on Little Shell Lake. The pair paid no attention to us, but we decided to put on a few more miles until we camped on Lynx Lake that night.
Day two was particularly tough because we had lots of portages. Things did get a lot better, however, when we saw a moose swimming its way down the lake, with just its head and antlers peeking out of the water! That night we stayed at the Chairs of the Gods campsite where there are large stone thrones around the fire grate.
The next day we made our way to Lac La Croix. We saw really cool pictographs on the cliffs. That night, we set up camp at a beautiful site on Tiger Bay.
On day four, we made it to the end of Lac La Croix and into Crooked Lake. We portaged around Curtain Falls. We had planned to travel farther, but it started pouring so we camped near the falls. The sound of the falls and rain ensured we slept like hibernating bears.
On day five, not far from our campsite, we found a rusty old frame of a crashed plane in the woods that Wyatt had heard of from a Boundary Waters treasure hunting forum. Later, we took pictures with the abandoned old Buick on Crooked Lake. We spent the night at Table Rock, an old Voyageur landmark. The next day we made it to the end of the Crooked River and on to Basswood Falls, where we walked our canoes up a few sets of rapids and spent the night along upper Basswood Falls.
Day seven was our last full day of the trip. We continued forward and spent the night on Pipestone Bay. That morning, we received a message on our satellite phone that the fire ban had been lifted! It was nice to finally have a campfire during our last breakfast of the trip. We enjoyed smooth paddling for a while until we reached Fall Lake, where we battled headwinds across its entirety. As we reached the end of the lake, we stopped along the portage at Kawishiwi Falls to eat our last meal together overlooking the cascades. We raced through Garden Lake and Farm Lake back to camp, just in time to beat an incoming storm and enjoy hot spaghetti in the Mess Hall. - Story by Will Causa, 1st year camper, age 13
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