Fighting the Wind (and Our Foray Into the Boundary Waters)

We enjoyed paddleboard camping so much the first time that we immediately started looking for other opportunities.  We decided to head northwest toward the Island River Canoe Route the next day. 

Before doing so, we wanted to take a little rest day and just enjoy paddling around Whitefish Lake.  We headed around the edge of the lake, sticking to the calmer waters near the shore.  It was incredibly peaceful watching the sand and rocks go by under the water and the trees and rocks go by above.  

We relaxed on our boards for a while and then I made the brilliant suggestion to cross the lake and head back up the other side.  When we got out into the lake a bit, the wind and waves started to pick up and they only seemed to get bigger the further we went.  Did we turn around at that point?  Of course not! We pushed on and I somehow thought that it would be easier once we got near the shore, ignoring the fact that the wind was blowing directly toward that side of the lake.  Once we crossed, we quickly decided that we had to head back across the lake to make it back to our campsite.  We could never fight the wind the whole way up the shore.  So we turned around and, amidst whitecaps, made our way very slowly back to where we started.  By the time we made it back to calmer waters, Mike and I both were dealing with hands that had fallen asleep (wrist issues for both of us) and sore muscles.  We paddled back to our campsite and I decided that I was no longer making any paddling navigation decisions again!

So the next morning we headed up to the next paddling adventure already feeling a little worn out.  We dropped the trailer at the closed Section 29 Lake Campground knowing that the rest of the way was best left to just the truck.  As we headed toward the starting point, we passed through a forest that had clearly been decimated by a forest fire.  It was coming back to life, but our surroundings were a mixture of tall burned tree trucks and new birches and pines around 8 feet tall. 

We made it to the trailhead and hauled our boats and bags down to the lake where the route started.  As we headed out, the wind hit us and we were hopeful that once we got onto the narrower river, things would get easier.  On the map, the route looked to be a mixture of areas where the river widened into almost lakes and narrower stretches.  It only showed a couple of portages and passed through a section of the Boundary Waters before coming out again and offering a campsite soon after.

We pushed into the wind to make it to a narrower section only to find the river very shallow with rapids to make our way though.  We removed our keels and pushed through only to get to another wider section where the wind pushed against us.  Almost the whole time we had to either fight the wind or work our way through the rapids (going downstream at least).  We found the first portage and were disheartened to find that it didn’t seem to have been kept up.  We had to pass the boards over fallen trees at certain points.  We went a little further down the river (making it through a larger set of rapids) to the second portage.  This one was slightly easier to get through, but the end was where I decided to throw in the towel.  I set up a hammock and we enjoyed a beautiful spot, waiting to see if the wind would die down.  We were in the Boundary Waters at this point, but I was ready to either camp there without a permit or head back.    

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Mike paddled a little further to look for a campsite.  During this paddle, he apparently learned a very zen lesson that I needed earlier in the day.  Paddle hard when you can, but if the wind is blowing hard against you, don’t fight it, just try to not lose ground.  He was never able to find a campsite, but saw quite a bit of recovering forest.  We later learned that the Pagami fire had come through this area in 2011 and removed all previous campsites.  It seemed like the route had been somewhat abandoned by the time we explored it.

We turned around and headed back up the river, feeling somewhat better about making it through the rapids and enjoying the tailwind on the wider sections.  The area was quite lovely and I was in a better place mentally to appreciate it on the way back.

MC:  I really enjoyed this area.  The portages were a little rough on the boards and the wind was pretty ridiculous.  Our last paddle camping we paddled 9 miles including in the wind and rain on the way out.  This time we went 1 ½ miles and we were pretty beat up and we were going with the current of the river.

The rocks and rapids were a challenge.  It would have been easier to to tube through them than navigate the board and gear through them.  The area was beautiful and the river transitioned between rapids and lakes bordered with wild rice, rock outcroppings and large trees untouched by the fire.

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We headed back to the campground to pick up Scarlet and pull her around to the other side of the lake where we had passed a beautiful open area that had clearly been used for camping before.  We took some much needed recovery time at this site, enjoying the sound of the wind in the trees and a little bit of a cell signal.  After camping for a while in fairly dense forest, it was nice to enjoy some open space to recover and plan what’s next.

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