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Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness
June 2003
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| Troop 697 and Troop 14 joined together for an incredible adventure in the Boundary Waters Canoe area. Five leaders and eight Scouts flew to Minnesota for a six-day canoe trip. |
| Voyageur North Outfitters in Ely, John and Lynn are the greatest! |
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| We spend one day in Ely exploring and preparing for our trip. Andy helps us all find the perfect bait! |
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| And some of us can't wait to get started on our fishing....
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| Senior Patrol Leader Austin Gaylord reads the trip rules, even to the boys asleep in the next room. |
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| And we're off! Andy loads up the canoes and all our gear and drives us to our starting point on the Little Indian Sioux River. |
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| We begin with a portage down to the river and Austin immediately earns his well deserved nickname of King Portage. Today we travel 6-7 miles by canoe and make four portages, the longest is 216 rods and a hard one! |
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| Our first camp site is on Little Shell Lake, we call it Thunder Island because it rained all day into camp. Austin makes a canoe-minium next to the fire to sleep under, but unfortunately forgets that sleeping bags are flammable! The next morning Austin and Keith make a visit to Ghost Rock and dare to touch the sacred rock. |
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The "special room" in our camp site.
The next morning is a beautiful day and we take off on our hardest and longest day of the trip. |
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| A loon sitting on her nest. Today we paddle another 6-7 miles plus five portages, including one that is 280 rods and another one that is 240 rods. And they are not flat! |
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| These are the hardest portages of our trip, but Keith found some good firewood at the first campsite and he's afraid there won't be any more wood for the rest of the trip so he brings it along! |
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| A lunch break while we wait for the other group to get ahead of us. One more hard portage and we'll be there! |
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We set up camp for two nights on Oyster Lake, which we call Loon Camp because there are so many loons on this lake. The fishing is great here and we have the lake to ourselves. A big fish fry for dinner!
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| Chef Steve makes lunch for the hungry fishermen! |
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| After two days on Oyster Lake we take off for Lake Agnes, an easy canoeing and portaging day for us, and we make it to Agnes before lunch and grab some excellent camping spots on two nearby islands. We paddle about five miles and only two portages today. |
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| Austin and Keith paddle out to a rock in the middle of the lake and Austin jumps out to go swimming, forgetting that his canoeing partner isn't very good at maneuvering the canoe by himself... |
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| Turtle hunters Brian and Dillon - Crikeys, they got one! |
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| Mike, Deb, Keith and Bradley set off for a day trip to Canada while the rest of the group fishes all day. We see lots of wildlife, including a moose, beavers, and bald eagles. |
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| Warrior Hill. A true warrior will take a mouth full of water from Lac La Croix, run up to the top of the hill, run back down, and spit out the same water. We are warriors!!! |
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| Back at camp the fisherman are catching some whoppers! Looks like another fish dinner tonight! |
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| Our last night in camp -- and a perfect sunset to enjoy it |
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| As we are packing up to leave we notice there is one canoe missing! Dillon and Brent rescue it from the end of the lake where it has drifted off. |
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Our last day in the Boundary Water.. we paddle about eight miles and five portages, plus lots of beaver dams (not to mention the Brent and Dillon dams). Our very last portage is a 160-rod uphill climb but Andy is waiting there for us with sodas and help!
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| This is the day Austin has been waiting for! We see moose all along the river, which just happens to be called the Nina Moose River. I think that's Nina there! |
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| Dillon and Brent working their way through a beaver dam and Mike is happy that we're almost to our last portage! |
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Our group picture after the trip, we all made it and we didn't kill each other!
Mark, Tom, Keith, Brent, Dillon, Austin, Brian, Mike, Fred, Mike, Bradley, Debi, Steve, and Forrest. |
| After long, hot showers we all celebrate by going out for a steak dinner. And some of us haven't gotten enough fish and we order walleye! |
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Who wants to come back next year???
I DO! |
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