By Chris Wilmot
Straight from Ogishkemuncie, Crash Wilmot, Reporter Extraordinaire.
Hello folks, it’s a beautiful day here in the wonderful Boundary Waters. We’re bruised and battered, bitten and scratched, pretty exhausted and darn it, we’re lovin’ it.
Just to rehash the first few days… We started on Sawbill Lake and paddled 6 miles up the lake to a quaint campsite on the north end of Sawbill. The first day was kind of a get the… stuff… together type of day. We soon found out, for example, the guys tent needed a lot of getting together. Beautiful, 80 degrees, hardly a cloud in sight. We woke up early (with the dawn) and ate an exciting meal of Instant Oatmeal and raisins. Packed up our equipment and took of on the exciting adventure it has become to be. On the second day we canoed up the Ada Creek into Ada Lake and Skoop Lake. Next we hit Cherokee Creek and paddled into Cherokee Lake where we ate lunch. Gordon Lake was next, then Unload Lake, and finally Frost Lake, our final destination for the day. We paddled a total of approx. 12 miles that day, and portaged (carried all our equipment across mudslides and mountain terrain (yes, our canoes too…)) 546 Rods. A rod being 16 1/2 feet, or 5 1/2 yards. 360 rods equals a mile. Also remember we had to walk each portage 3 times to get all of the equipment across. The canoe partners for the rest of the trip were made this day: Jill with Kris (an unstoppable crew), Cory with Jed (erratic, but they got there), Dan with Raeann (Truly remarkable portaging power), and finally last (as always) Katie and I (the loudest and latest crew.) We enjoyed a lay over day on Frost (Doug said so we’d eat some of the extra weight for Saturdays hard portaging, but I think it was because he’s getting old…) The campsite on frost lake was really beautiful and there were a couple of nice sand beaches around and we really lived it up there. Some people went to the beach and enjoyed the sun, Dan went fishing with Doug, Joanne and I sat at the camp in relative solitude and enjoyed being in one of the quietest places on earth. On the 4th day we paddled up (or was it down, we couldn’t quite tell) the Frost River through Octopus, Chase, Pencil, Alton, Fente, and Whipped Lake. (I Liked that idea, Frost river… Whipped lake… okay never mind…). Then we Paddled through Mora Lake into Little Saganaga where we camped. For the 4th day in a row, it was blue skies and 80 degrees. We had paddled 10.5 miles and portaged 580 Rods. I believe on this day Jill’s presumptions of the Trip were shattered irreparably, as she found out that we were actually going to paddle through the B.W.C.A, not camping one spot. On the Fifth day (usually considered a day of rest) We paddled through Little Sag into Rattle and proceeded into Gabimichigami Lake (say that 10 times fast) through Agamok, Muelier and into Ogishkemuncie, where we are now. We ate lunch on a portage that just happened to have a very beautiful waterfall. It was between Agamok and Mueller. A select few of my companions decided to try to shoot some Rapids above the waterfall, they all biffed. I didn’t go because I was too skillful for all of them. The weather is getting cooler and it might rain. We paddled 15 miles today, and portaged 250 Rods. I’ve stayed at this campsite before (in fact last year at this time), it is beautiful here, the growler isn’t too bad… well, comparatively…
That was Crash Wilmot, Head Alligator… I mean Navigator, at Ogishkemuncie Lake, write ya later.
Well, this is Crash Wilmot again, with the second half of the trip… Heh, I was surely surprised after Ogish on how far we could go in a day. The sixth day we paddled 20 miles and portaged 325 Rods. It was dreary, wet, and at least I was lovin’ it. We paddled through lakes like Annie, Jean/Jenny (it all depends on which map you’re lookin’ at), Eddy, The Kekekabic ponds, Kekekabic (we ate lunch here), Strup, Wisini, Ahmakose, Gerund, and into Fraser, where we camped. Fraser was supposed to be a heck of a Walleye Lake, but I only saw ants and some nasty biting black flies. We tried out a Kris Mann mix of muffins… Mannly Muffins? Apparently he was supposed to put a couple of Cups of liquid milk, well we didn’t have the luxury of liquid milk… so he put in a couple of cups of powdered milk… which makes about a gallon of liquid milk. On the 7th day of hell, heh, just kidding, of fun… we paddled an easy 20 miles with a mere 640 Rods. The weather was rotten and everything was going fine. Thomas, Cacabic, Alice, Mabel, Koma, and Polly were the fine, friendly lakes we met that day. At lunchtime we stopped and looked at some ancient graffiti on the side of a cliff (and I mean ancient). I also got a good laugh because of Katie’s little known phobia of spiders… We ran into quite a few Wolf spiders… and they are big (and I mean big), and mean (and I mean mean…) On the 8th day we had a quickie down the Phoebe river to Hazel Lake. Doug and Dan caught us some Walleye, and Katie The Fisher Steger caught the biggest Walleye, it was THIS BIG, well you get the idea. We had a Helluva Fish Fry and if you smell Jed’s hands you can smell it still, The Growler was nice, well, until Dan got done with it… Finally on the last day, after a quick bath in the steaming waters, we paddled through Hazel, Knight, Phoebe, what I call the Grace rivulet, Grace, Beth, Alton and back into Sawbill Lake for a grand total of Approx. 120 miles of paddling and a total of 60 portages and 2740 rods, for a Trip Total of 127.6111— miles of Pure chewing satisfaction.
Crash Wilmot Reporting.
The Wonderful People on this trip…
Doug “The Fearless Leader” Berg
Joanne “The Real Leader” Storlie
Jed “The Schwann” Norman
Katie “The Fisher” Steger
Raeann “The Big Eater” Rasmussen
Jill “The Baggy Foot” Maxon
Kris “The Man” Mann
Cory “The Passionate” Paxton
Dan “Bum” Teri
And Me… Chris “Crash the Alligator” Wilmot