Losee Boy's Outdoors: Tuesday, August 3, 2010

We got up at 5:30 am and broke camp. We were to be at Piragis Outfitters between 6:15 – 6:30am. Got into town, unloaded our gear, and parked the truck.

A quick fitting of our life jackets and got our paddles. They were 15.5oz carbon / kevlar Wenonah bent shaft paddles. We also rented two Crazy Creek canoe chairs.

Our canoe was a Wenonah Minnesota II Kevlar canoe weighing in at 42 pounds.

We were off. Back out to the Fall Lake boat landing area with gear loaded we were off at 7:15 am. We headed towards our first portage, 80 rods around Newton Falls.

From here we were on Newton Lake, head towards Pipestone Falls. This two was another 80 rod portage.

We made our way through Pipestone Bay and the water was too low to make it through into Jackfish Bay so we had another 87 rod portage. This portage was our first “real” portage as the first two you can use wheels on your watercraft for transport. We decided to have our lunch before we started the portage.

With all this big water, we had the wind at our backs and made good time. Just after we passed the signs that say No Motors Allowed, Ethan spotted a bear cub. I did get a picture, but you have to blow it up so big to see that it gets distorted. All Ethan could say, “I wonder where its mom is?”

Bear Cub-Hard to See

Bear is located just above water line in about 1/3 of picture from right. As I sit here at home with it all zoomed in, I'm not so sure as it may also have the "mom" just above the cub. The cub was close to the water and has some tree branches covering part of him, but it looks like a bigger head above it.

On our way towards Basswood & Horse Portage

With the wind at our back we made great time across the big lakes today. We stopped for the night at Camp Site # 1539 at about 2:30pm. The last campsite before the 340 rod Horse Portage.

I received a little wake up call while out getting firewood, as I got stung on the cheek, and on the left hand on my “”California Howdy Finger”. My cheek did not feel too bad the next day, but my finger it was right on my last knuckle and it was several days before the pain stopped.