BWCA Day 5: Exit

We woke up at 6:00 and started packing in a light rain. I made quick oatmeal and coffee and we were off by 7:30 or so. We were half a mile from the big portage from Vera to Ensign. We went straight in and made quick work of it. Something about Ensign Lake was different. I cast a line in, MFS said maybe let it get deep and just trawl it behind the boat, and pretty much instantly I had a Walleye in the boat. It was surely the biggest fish I ever caught, though maybe I caught a big rainbow trout on the Madison in Montana when I spent a day at a friend's cabin outside Yellowstone. To Joe's dismay, I threw the fish back and it eagerly swam away. We had plenty of food left and were only a few miles from our exit pickup. A few minutes later I cast again, or rather, tried to cast and accidentally plopped the line in the water a foot from the canoe. Oh well, let it play out. Then a few seconds later a northern pike was in the boat. I squeezed it to keep it still and it barfed up its lunch, it bit me, and I put it back in the water. It took some swishing to revive it, but I think it made it home OK. 

An hour or two more paddling, two infinitesimal portages, and we met our tow guy, who was there early but clearly happy to hang out and read his book while we cooked lunch at a nearby campsite. Eventually we swung by, and we motorboated back to the launch.

Back to the outfitters to scrub the black off the griddle and return the gear, back to A's uncle's for lovely meals, jumps in the cold lake and sits in the sauna, and a couple short jogs on country roads. Then the scenic drive along Lake Superior shoreline back to Duluth, and we flew our separate ways.

Overall a great trip. It's not a mountain adventure, but for a trip with friends of different ages and experience, it was great. Lends credence to my notion that someday Amy and I could paddle the Yukon and both have fun. I'm just disappointed we didn't name our boats: Fannie  and Freddie? Or to keep all the boat names female, Fannie and Ginnie. (We all could be said to work in the fair housing realm.) 

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