Boundary Waters canoe trip

Saturday, July 26: I headed north from St. Paul with Chris Bashor for a three-day canoe trip into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW). The 1.1 million acre Boundary Waters was first established by the Wilderness Act of 1964, with further refinements in 1978 which phased out motorboat use on most lakes, banned logging and mineral development and established a buffer zone around the wilderness. 

Chris and I made several stops on our way: in busy Duluth for lunch and provisions, Palisade Head, Tettegouche State Park and Tofte, where we turned north off of Highway 61 and drove to Sawbill Lake Campground, arriving with plenty of daylight left to set up our tents and enjoy a pleasant evening in camp. Map link: Sawbill Lake Campground

Baptism River, Tettegouche State Park

Sunday, July 27: It was a pleasant morning, but rain was in the forecast, so we broke camp and went to nearby Sawbill Outfitters to grab some rental gear and pick up our permit. The BWCAW operates on a reservation system which limits the number of groups that can enter the wilderness each day. For example, we had a permit to begin our trip at Hog Creek on July 27; one of only three groups allowed to enter at this location that day, with a maximum group size of nine people and four watercraft. Once in the wilderness, you must camp at one of the hundreds of designated campsites established by the U.S. Forest Service, but campsites are first-come, first-served. 

While we were checking in, the sky quickly darkened and an aggressive line of thunderstorms passed over, lasting less than an hour. We waited out the storm inside the outfitter’s building, then waited a little longer when word came back that the road to Sawbill was blocked by a downed tree. We pondered the situation for a bit with other customers anxious to get their trip started, or get home, for those just pulling out of Sawbill Lake. We decided to check out the scene and joined the queue of cars waiting to get through. The county maintenance crew was called, but before they could arrive a couple of Sawbill Outfitter employees showed up with a chainsaw and tow strap and were able to open up a narrow passage to allow cars to get through. We were on our way, but not for long. On the road to Hog Creek, we found a second downed tree, with another car and two young men with a hand saw studying the problem. None of us had a cell phone signal, so we lent them our hand saw and headed back towards Sawbill to get help. On the way, we encountered a U.S. Forest Service worker headed our way in his truck, and we flagged him down. He had been called alread, so we turned around to follow him to the offending tree, where the two lads had already cleared it by hand. We were on our way, but again not for long. At least four more downed trees blocked our path and we followed the friendly Forest Service worker down the road, with him cutting up the obstructions and canoeists and campers dragging the pieces into the ditch. Slowly but surely, we made our way to our put-in at Hog Creek.

Moose tracks on the road

We launched into Hog Creek, almost immediately portaging around a set of rapids, then navigated the moderate current (in our favor) through the windy creek for the 3.5-mile trip to Perent Lake. Fortunately, recent rains had raised the water level high enough to float over a couple of beaver dams that normally must be dealt with by getting out of your canoe and dragging it over the dam. Once on 1,500-acre Perent Lake, we encountered a moderate chop and began our search for an unoccupied campsite. We soon found a large, elevated site on one of the larger islands, which would give us nice views and some breeze with the prevailing westerly winds. Perent Lake was named after Tom Parent, an early 20th century trapper who worked the area with his partner Bill Pembles. The pair was known as “Tame Tom” and “Wild Bill,” and portages to and from the lake (the name was misspelled by government surveyors) still follow the two trappers’ original routes. Chris and I set up our camp, enjoyed a hot dinner of freeze-dried something-or-other and spent a quiet evening enjoying the peace and solitude until the mosquitos drove us into our tents. Map Link: Perent Lake campsite

Monday, July 28: Chris and I enjoyed a leisurely morning, then took a paddle around Perent Lake, checking out the other campsites, without getting too close to any other groups. Our plan for this voyage was to keep things simple and leisurely, using our site as a base camp rather than moving a loaded canoe every day and setting up anew every night. After our day trip, we relaxed, swam/bathed in the lake, got some hammock time and took an after-dinner paddle on the still water and watching an amazing sunset.

Bonus Question: Can you place the following distances in the correct order, shortest to longest: Hand, parsec, furlong, cable, rod and Angstrom.

Tuesday, July 29: We had a round of severe thunderstorms after midnight that lasted about two hours and lashed at our tents. Both Chris and I got some water inside, and we spent the first part of the morning hanging up wet gear in the welcome sunshine. The plan for today’s exploration was to check out the west end of the lake, where the Perent River begins and connects to Isabella Lake through a series of portages. When we reached the headwaters, we heard and saw rapids, getting as close as we dared in the swift current before concluding that they were too powerful to run without swamping and/or damaging the canoe. We went ashore to investigate the long portage shown on the map, which proved to be overgrown and muddy in places, so we opted to skip the river adventure and keep paddling around Perent Lake, stopping for lunch at an empty campsite on the northern shore. The sky became hazy, as yet another batch of smoke from Canadian wildfires plagued our air quality; now a regular summer occurrence in Minnesota. Otherwise, our late afternoon and evening were spent doing much the same as the day before—one of the joys of camping—as we swam, lounged, read and relaxed until bedtime.

Wednesday, July 30:  Chris and I ate breakfast, packed up our gear, loaded the canoe and shoved off around 11:00 AM. We paddled across Perent Lake with a light following breeze, found the entrance to Hog Creek without difficulty and headed upstream. We passed three groups of down-bound canoes, one using only a single paddle in the current with limited success. The group had apparently not brought enough paddles for their three-canoe group, but decided to venture out anyways. It’s not what we would have done. They asked if we had a spare paddle, which we didn’t, and they carried on in surprisingly good spirts as we wished them well. After portaging around the rapids at Hog Creek, we were back at the car by 2:00 PM and loaded up the car. We returned the rental gear to Sawbill Outfitters, ate a quick lunch on their grounds and drove home, arriving around 8:00 PM. As Chris dropped me off, we immediately agreed that we would do this again. 

Bonus Question Answer: Angstrom (0.1 nanometers), hand (4 inches), rod (16.5 feet), cable (0.1 nautical mile = 200 yds), furlong (1/8 statute mile = 220 yds), parsec (3.26 light years).