Chapter 2

The lake was about two miles wide, and once we'd crossed we would have to navigate six or seven miles through a bunch of islands to find the little bay closest to the notch in the low hills that led to the Nissipinissi headwaters

For all our research, we could not get a good picture of the conditions at the upper end of the lake. From the satellite/aerial photos, it looked to be pretty shallow, with only meandering channels near the bay we wanted.

Fortunately, we didn't encounter any significant wind. On a lake the size of Long Lake, even a fairly mild wind could raise some pretty big waves.

We took a direct shot across the lake and made a landfall several hours later to stretch our legs. The south side of the lake was much boggier than the north shore we'd just left, with swampy edges broken by granite outcroppings. We had landed on one of those and clambered to the top to get our bearings. The sun was westering on the long northern summer afternoon as we surveyed the nearly featureless horizon.

"Jeff- I think we ought to get out the topos and mark our location on them and lay out a compass bearing. I really don't want to have the GPS out all the time to keep our bearing. It would be too easy to drop it overboard, or get it soaked if a squall comes up."

"I think you're right, Matt. I think this might be a good place to grab some lunch before we try to find the portage, too."

"Sounds like a plan to me. I'll dig out the lunch bag and you can get the maps and GPS's out to mark this waypoint and and work out our bearing. Do you want peach tea or lemonade with lunch?"

"Hmm- I guess lemonade. What are we going to have?"

"How about some of the survival crackers, peanut butter, and hard cheese?"

"Works for me."

We both bent to our tasks and in a few minutes we were sitting on the rock eating. I established our position with the GPS and marked the waypoint, which I also laid out on the map. A little fumbling with the GPS gave us a compass bearing to the first island we needed to find. I scaled that location off the map and punched the numbers into the unit.

"Humph. Says the first island is three point four miles on a bearing of 200 degrees magnetic. That's a course of 260 degrees true, because of the declination up here. We'll be headed pretty well into the sun. Luckily its high enough that it won't be in our eyes for a while."

"How far from there to the bay?"

"Looks to be almost three more miles in a direct line, but there are two more islands we need to use as waypoints."

"Matt- I don't know if we can find our way through all those islands and get to the bay before it's getting dark. I think we ought to call a halt before six o'clock at the first decent campsite we come to around then. That'll give us all day tomorrow to find the portage and get our stuff across", Jeff said thoughtfully.

I pondered this. " I believe you're right. We don't want to get hung up close to sundown and end up sleeping in a swamp. The bugs will be ferocious, for one thing! Let's do it that way. Are you about done with lunch?"

"Yep- let me finish this lemonade. Why don't we go ahead and mix up some more for the water bottles to drink while we're paddling, and refill the big bladder and get it disinfecting?"

"Ok- give me your bottle when you're done and I'll get it going while I'm putting stuff up. You can stow the maps.

We refilled our water bottles from the bladder and refilled it with lake water we ran through a coffee filter to get out any loose crud. After dropping in the correct amount of iodine tablets, I stowed the bladder back in the canoe. Jeff had stowed the maps and the rest of the lunch stuff.

We pushed off the rocks and resumed paddling. As I was in the bow, I was the navigator. Checking my compass, I took a bearing on a likely hump on the horizon and set our course there.

We pushed along into a mild but steady breeze. The day was pleasant but the sun was hot. It took us another hour to reach the first waypoint island, but after that the going got much tougher.

The lake was quite shallow and the islands we needed to find were not much more than hummocks separated by twisting channels. Our progress was quite slow, as we had to keep checking the GPS to get our bearings as we zig-zagged about.

We finally made our second waypoint. After we passed it, the lake opened up a bit, and we could steer a more direct course. The wind was freshening and becoming gusty and still right on our faces. I steered us into the lee of a brushy island and turned to Jeff.

"Well, looks like you were right. According to the map, we have about a mile to cross here. With the wind getting stronger, I'm a bit leery of getting out on that open water. It would be a long cold swim to shore pushing to dragging this canoe."

"You and me both, brother! Is there anything on the map that looks like a decent place to camp? I'd like to find something a little higher above water than these canebrakes."

I took a closer look at the map. The south shore drew closer as we headed on our westerly course, but from what we'd already seen, it was still a swampy mess. About a half-mile to the north, there was an island tall enough to actually have a contour line on it. A quick glance at the scale showed it to be an irregular triangle about an eighth of a mile on it's longest side.