BWCA Photos

I went a bit crazy with posting 42 BWCA photos, but I had over 400 to choose from. Before going on I need to put this BWCA thing into context. Besides Grandma’s marathon, looking forward to a family adventure in the BWCA was instrumental in fighting off depression and despair during the time I didn’t know if I would be physically capable of such a thing, or worse yet, alive. It would have been easy to temporarily give up future dreams and concentrate on the task of fighting cancer and preparing my family for the worse. However I found that the best thing for me and my family was not to push future plans aside, but rather embrace them. My brother Cary stepped in by proposing a BWCA adventure.

Cary and I have done many adventures together, sometimes with our brother Mark and sometimes with other family members. In the last few years our adventuring has gone mostly to the wayside; life was way too busy. Then aggressive cancer threatened to swiftly take my life. That was a wakeup call to refocus on the truly important things. I wasn’t the only one to get this wakeup call, others close to me also benefited from my cancer. Yes, you heard it right - benefited. As horrible and ugly cancer is, there are also a lot of positive things that can be harvested from it. Cary and I are now planning other adventures, such as a backpacking trip into the Crazy Mountains and a sea kayaking trip from the Minnesota north shore of Lake Superior out to Isle Royal, an island in Lake Superior that is a national park and a primitive wilderness area.

On our BWCA adventure we canoed over 24 miles of water and portaged more than 4.5 miles in six days and five nights. My brother Cary and his wife Pat, being pros at this thing, could have covered at least twice that distance in the same time, but my wife Renee, my sons Chris and Daniel, and I are rookies and thus set the pace. Trying to cover as much distance as possible wasn’t on our docket anyways. Thanks to Cary and Pat we learned how to do things efficiently and comfortably. We saw other groups that were obviously rookies with no clue. The right methods can make the difference between flirting with disaster, misery and pain and having a fulfilling and enjoyable time. Besides, it just feels good to do things the right way. As you can see from the following photos, we had a wonderful time.



Preparing dinner at the Sawbill campground the night before our adventure.

Day 1: Cary and Pat find a quiet nook out of the wind while waiting for the rest of us to catch up on Sawbill Lake.

Renee and Chris unloading at our first portage at the northern end of Sawbill lake.

Daniel digs in with a paddle on Ada Creek. During this stretch we had to drag the canoes over a beaver dam.

Renee and Chris bring up the rear on Ada Creek. If you try to step out on the grass you'll find yourself sinking into waist high muck.

For the first day Cary and Pat take the lead, but after us rookies learned a few things, they let us lead the way for most of the trip. I think this is Ada Lake.

Daniel and I unloading the canoe to prepare for a 180 rod portage. This was an easy landing. For some landings I would have been over my head in water if on the outer side of the canoe.

I think this is Cherokee Creek. I need to find a way to take notes along with pictures. I could record some voice memos on my camera if it wasn't inside an underwater housing. Since canoes are very prone to flipping, you don't want to take out an expensive camera while on the water. To safely get pictures on the water I put my camera in an underwater housing that is normally used for scuba diving.

Still on Cherokee Creek. Much of our water travel was not on big lakes but rather streams, small and narrow lakes. The forest here is very dense with brush and small pine trees. The only way to travel any significant distance in this land is by canoe.

Campfire at our first campsite on Cherokee Lake.

My youngest son Daniel (13) slept by himself in a hammock tent. Canoes are stored well within the confines of trees. My brother Cary learned not to store canoes on the lake shore where winds from storms can carry them away.

Day 2: Having breakfast in camp was also an important social time.

Pat grew up exploring the BWCA. Her family started as rookies but honed their skills over decades of practice. They made their own equipment and even their own canoes. Pat's family introduce the BWCA to Cary, who then added his own touch to methods and style. Cary has even done some solo trips into the BWCA.

Making Jiffy Pop popcorn at our second campsite on Cherokee lake. We decided to make day two a short travel day to spend more time playing in camp. This camp we found was a beaut, a rare find in the BWCA. This campsite was the only one on a big island at the northern end of Cherokee Lake.

Day 3: Sunrise on Cherokee lake. I tried to get up early enough each morning to catch the sunrise. This morning the sunrise was glorious. This day we planned to hang around camp or do a day trip and return.

Making bacon for breakfast.

Daniel and I found a nice rock to jump from into the lake. Here we are swimming back from the rock to our campsite.

Cary and Pat did a day trip to Frost Lake and my family stayed more local. After swimming, fishing and catching leaches on our island, the four of us jumped into a canoe and crossed the bay to a beach. Here Chris is doing his favorite thing - fishing.

Daniel and I like to make sandcastles.

Yours truly relaxing in nature's recliner.

Chris watches the sunset at a vista on top of a huge, granite outcropping near our campsite.

Day 4: Renee and I enjoy the sunrise with tea and coffee. Today will be a big day because we'll start on a loop to return to the Sawbill entry point. Our goal is to make it all the way to Brule Lake. At some point we'll be committed to finish the loop. Little did we know that some very difficult portages were ahead.

It's not the rocks you see that are the problem, it's the submerged ones you don't see that can ruin your day. Kevlar canoes are great because they are lightweight, making portages bearable and moving quickly on water. But they don't like contact with rocks. A punctured canoe can result in a really bad day, especially when you are two days away from any help.

Chris and Renee clear the rocks just fine. Chris steered from the stern for the entire trip.

Pat takes a break. Cary and Pat have Duluth packs, which are specifically designed for traveling by canoe and portaging. Duluth packs are shorter and wider than backpacks. Duluth packs and portage packs are optimized for canoes by keeping the weight low to maximize stability. Something you appreciate when the wind is strong and the waves are high.

Daniel took this picture of me carrying a canoe on a rocky portage. This is actually an easy one. During this day we picked our way through a couple of portages with relentless difficult terrain of steep climbs, slippery moss covered rocks, boulders, tree roots and knee deep muck. Care and absolute focus had to be put into every single step. A wrong step could lead to a serious injury.

Renee prepares for another rocky portage.

Cary and I prepare dinner at our campsite on Brule Lake. It felt good to find a vacant campsite after a long hard day of portaging. Cary and I each had a backpacking style camp stove. A canoe is turned upside down to serve as a table for preparing food and washing dishes.

Day 5: Cary and Pat are making pancakes for breakfast and I'm baking a strawberry muffin mix in a backpacking oven.

Checkout the strawberry muffins. Mmmm good. Some of the food wasn't that tasty, but when your hungry enough you'll eat anything. Everything from the backpacking oven was great, that is once I learned how to bake without burning the food to a crisp.

Renee and I washing dishes.

Chris packing his cloths into a waterproof compression bag. By pulling on straps attached to the compression bag, cloths and sleeping bags are squeezed into a much smaller size, resulting in fewer portage packs.

Renee checks our next move on the map.

Lilly pads that covered many of the small lakes were in bloom.

Day 6: Yesterday was a long and hard day with two monster portages, long stretches of water, at late camp setup, and dinner in the dark after waiting out a storm. We were very lucky to find this vacant campsite on Burnt Lake. Here Renee and I are planning out our last day to the Sawbill entry point. The winds are strong and the waves are challenging so careful planning is prudent.

Every campsite in the BWCA has a throne which is placed a little hike away from the campsite.

Cary and Daniel discuss things at breakfast. A lot of bonding happens over the course of a few days with no TVs, cell phones and video games.

Chris on our final portage to Sawbill Lake.

Renee still has a smile after six days of adventure. That's my girl.

Cary carries a 40lb canoe and a 50lb portage pack at the same time. This method eliminates double portaging which can take a lot more time and limits how deep one can travel into the BWCA.

A rest stop at the end of our last portage on Sawbill Lake. The winds are very strong here and some of us are a bit nervous about canoeing on the lake.

We make it back to Sawbill Outfitters with no mishaps. Our adventure is over, but the experience will continue to influence us for a lifetime.