Dates of Trip: 5-8 August 2022
Adventurers: Travis, Amy, Andrew, Clara, Nate
Location: Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, MN, USA
Trailhead: Sawbill Lake - Entry point #38
Trip Objectives: Cherokee Lake
Distance: 23.7 mile
An epic summer (with no small amount of stress) requires an epic conclusion (with some off grid time to decompress.) A canoe trip in Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) National Wilderness has been on Travis's bucket list for approximately 30 years. I had never heard of it until I met him, but it rapidly went on my bucket list too. Though permits are a bit hard to come by right now, because the Forest Service has reduced daily quotas to limit wilderness impacts from humans, Travis got on the ball when permits became available in January and speculatively grabbed one. We then spent the next 7 months (right up to the week before the trip) wondering if life circumstances would allow us to actually use the permit. Many other things were cut from our summer docket, but we fought hard as a family to keep this one. When we rolled into the Sawbill Lake Campground it felt surreal that we actually made it.
The BWCA is 1M+ acres of pristine northwoods wilderness in northeastern Minnesota, west of Lake Superior. It flanks the Canadian border, and there is a corresponding wilderness preserve on the Canadian side as well, bringing the wilderness area to well over 2M acres, combined. In the Land of 10,000 Lakes, the BWCA is a network of big and small lakes, ponds, rivers, and navigable creeks and marshes linked by short hiking segments over which you can portage your canoe and gear. On a single entry permit you are allowed to stay inside practically indefinitely. Fish abound - large and smallmouth bass, lake trout, northern pike, and walleye - and many of them have never even seen a hook. There are almost infinite numbers of route variations you can take.
Prior to this trip, we had built nearly all the skills we needed (both adults and kids) -- we've backpacked, hiked in varied terrain under heavy loads, canoed in various conditions, and this summer, we were able to do a shake down canoe camping overnight trip to put the final piece in place. The only thing we hadn't practiced was the portage itself.
Typically you rent some gear from a local outfitter. Outfitters can supply literally all the gear for your trip, or if, like us, you are already well outfitted for backpacking and general light wilderness travel, you can simply rent the super lightweight Kevlar canoes that are "easy" to portage - which you do by bearing the 40lb canoe on your shoulders via a yoke designed for the purpose. The portage weight can get up to about 50lb if you strap in your paddles and canoe chairs for the journey, which we did. Of course you can then throw a backpack on your back to add another 20-30lbs, which we often did as well. Portages are measured in "rods" - a 16.5 ft length intended to approximate the length of one canoe (our canoes were 18ft.) As we were putting in at Sawbill Lake, we rented our canoes and paddles from Sawbill Canoe Outfitters . We spent the night prior to our trip in the frontcountry National Forest Service campground at the launch spot.
On Friday morning we launched into Sawbill Lake with two canoes, gear, and around 50lbs of food. After checking in with the outfitter the previous evening, we had decided to aim to take three nights / four days and do the Cherokee Loop - a rather ambitious trip over the Laurentian Divide (which separates the Atlantic Ocean watershed from the Arctic Ocean watershed) around a 23 mile loop. The first day's journey took us up Sawbill Lake, across a 72 rod portage into Ada creek, paddling past sheer rock faces to a 78 rod portage to Ada Lake, followed by a challenging paddle up a marshy section that allowed us to cut off most of a 96 rod portage and make it about 8 rods instead, on a short paddle across Skoop Lake to the most challenging 189 rod, level 7 portage across the Laurentian Divide (approximately 0.6 mile one way), then a buggy though beautiful paddle down Cherokee Creek, across two beaver dams, into Cherokee Lake. It was... challenging, to say the least. All the kids helped to carry packs across portages and we were able to "double portage" all of them - meaning two trips across for me, Travis, and Clara, one of the trips with canoes on Travis and my shoulders. By the time we were working our way down Cherokee Creek, we were hearing thunder rumbles in the distance. We took the first campsite available on Cherokee Lake (site 900) after seeing a lightning bolt strike the opposite shore. We threw up camp - two tents and a tarp - just in time for the rain to start. Laying in sleeping bags, sore, banged up, and listening to the rain pound, we seriously questioned the wisdom of the expedition.
But the morning dawned a new day, and everyone woke up mostly dry and in good spirits. We adjusted our trip plan to spend a low key day on Cherokee Lake with a second night, then go back the way we came and spend the final night back on the north side of Sawbill Lake, still inside the Wilderness. We made this decision feeling significantly challenged by the 189 rod, level 7 portage the day prior and knowing we'd be facing a 233 rod, level 10 portage if we continued on around the loop. We figured the devils we knew were better than those we didn't. This turned out to be a brilliant decision, as we had a lovely trip after that, with just the right amount of challenge.
We spent Saturday hanging out in camp, conducting canoe explorations of Cherokee Lake, swimming, and fishing. A friend of ours had given us a shopping list to set us up with "everything you need to catch fish." After some practice casting from shore, we headed out in boats to the middle of the lake. Within a few minutes of casting with a jig and some fluorescent yellow artificial bait, Andrew had attention and then a bite... but as he was reeling in, the line broke. We ended up "catching" 5 fish, but every one of them broke the line and got away. It turns out that I didn't realize that fishing line gets brittle with age. Though I did know I was using old line, I hadn't bought any new line. Alas, I never got to use my brand new filet knife, my MN fishing license, or my new knowledge of how to dismantle a fish from studying YouTube videos before we left. We assume, based on the lake we were in that the buggers that got away were lake trout, but there is a chance they were northern pike. Somewhere out in Cherokee Lake there are 5 fish looking badass with our hooks in their lips. Sorry, fish. I wish you'd have been dinner.
After our second night on Cherokee Lake we packed up camp and headed back out the way we came in. This time things felt a lot less challenging (though still challenging) because we were acclimated to the work and knew what to expect. There was much rejoicing after each portage that each, in turn, was done. Once back on Sawbill Lake we headed out to look for a cool site on an island (site 916) which did not disappoint. The sheer rock slabs of the island's sides made for some fun running leaps into the water. There was more shore fishing with no luck, a cool evening, and a little more gentle rain overnight.
On our last day, we explored the north end of Sawbill Lake, scoping some of the other campsites for future reference, before making our way back to the outfitter at the south end of the lake. The dock where we took out seemed unreasonably peopley after four days in the wilderness with two large families there to swim.
This trip was epic, and it was incredibly awesome. Mostly type 1 fun with only a few moments of type 2 fun. All of the kids expressed how awesome they thought it was and how much they wanted to come back and, well, after you've made your kids paddle and shlep gear through 23+ miles of wilderness, you can't really ask for much more than that, as a parent. We are all contributing ideas to what we want to do on our next trip to the BWCA, and topping the list is "BUY GOOD FISHING LINE."
All of the Simpkinses highly recommend the Boundary Waters for gorgeous, peaceful, invigorating wilderness adventure.
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