11/18/24 – The season of shortening daylight hours is upon us, and the snow buntings on the road are our signal to start up the snowmobile and set shovels by doors on the porches. While we’ve continued to have a warmer than usual fall, the nights are reliably dipping below freezing and there’s skim ice along the bays in Sawbill most mornings now. We are in the quietest month for Sawbill, with very few phone calls and no visitors. We use this time to reflect on the whirlwind of the past paddling season, take a little time off, and keep making progress on some of our longer term projects. Some of our best thinking happens on long walks with Sawbill dogs Huckleberry and Chile. We prioritize getting out into the woods onto trails that become impassable once the snow is deep. Dry conditions with a rapidly freezing ground and no leaves (and no bugs!) makes for great forest exploration.
Glassy lake conditions have us hopeful for some wild ice skating yet this year.
Chile checks in during a frosty morning stroll in the woods.
The sun stays pretty low in the horizon this time of year, the way it shines through this black spruce swamp evokes all the November nostalgia.
If you’re in the market for a refurbished used canoe, Dan has been plugging away at them in the workshop slowly but shirley 😉 We have a few available currently with more coming in the next couple of weeks. Keep checking the used canoe page for updates and feel free to reach out with any questions. Our canoe sale always takes a little longer since Dan goes over each one individually, getting it professionally refurbished and prepped for a lifetime of use.
11/8/24 – Quiet in the Northwoods as of late, so figured I’d share some pictures of lichen I took a couple days ago while out on a sunny midday walk.
Lichen are actually two organisms, fungus and algae, working together. The fungi provide the shelter, while the algae provide the sustenance. For more information I highly recommend checking out this article from the Minnesota Conservation Volunteer. -Jessica
10/19/24 – We are big fans of a good theme party here at Sawbill. As per tradition, October calls for a spooky dinner followed by pumpkin carving. The fall crew has been hard at work putting away canoes, shoveling out fire grates, and counting inventory in the store. After a few nights of good old fashioned cold temps, the weather has returned to be unseasonable warm. There’s a little rain in the forecast which we could sure use! Despite the ongoing gorgeous fall, we’re still closing up shop tomorrow. We’ll of course be around all winter, available by phone or email to help you plan for the 2025 paddling season 🙂
Dressing on theme helps with the creativity.
Sig is maybe the biggest Halloween enthusiast at Sawbill this year.
Three takes on a classic design from: Luna, Lauren, and Jesse
Creativity abounds from: Clare, Sig, and Evan
From original to abstract by: Jessica, Jr, and Kit
10/15/24 – Wrap up mode is upon us. The parking lot has one lonely car, the campground is mostly empty, yesterday we had two customers walk through the door, we’ve begun winterizing the store, and the Forest Service is currently moving the canoe landing dock to it’s ice up home away from home.
Due to freezing temps overnight all of the outside water has now been turned off. This includes throughout the campgrounds, in front of the store, inside the shower house, and the dump station. There will be limited services available (cleaning/stocking of outhouses and garbage pick up) at the campgrounds through October 20th, but if staying at Sawbill, Temperance, or Crescent Lake be sure to bring your own water or have a plan for water gathering. Standard campground fees apply.
In the next couple days we’ll also start putting the canoes away for the winter, so if you’re trying to get in one last paddle we’ll be sending out aluminum or plastic canoes depending on what is accessible through the 20th. We’ll be available from 9am-ish to 4pm-ish up until that point, but after that see you in the spring! -Jessica
10/6/24- Sawbill has been staying busy into the fall season! We recently got the chance to outfit three different groups of students (from Eden Prairie High School, UMD, and Lake Superior College) ranging from 18 to 120 individuals. It’s always very energetic around Sawbill when we have these groups in the campground and getting outfitted.
We love getting to be a part of students’ outdoor education and appreciate how so many local schools bring their students up to the BWCA Wilderness. Some of our staff (past and present) first came to Sawbill and to the BWCA on trips like these so they are truly near and dear to our hearts.
Fall Colors from the Crew’s Backyard (Image taken by Jesse)
Huckleberry on a Fall Stroll (Image taken by Jesse)
These students came at the perfect time as they got to enjoy both the gorgeous fall colors happening in the North right now as well as some of the last warm days of fall. We still have some nice days in our forecast, but are definitely starting to settle into a perfectly brisk October.
Fall Colors around Sawbill (Image taken by Jesse)
Views from nearby Britton Peak (Image taken by Sawyer)
Unbe-leaf-ably Gorgeous (image taken by Jesse)
If you’re coming up to see us in the next couple of weeks make sure to pack layers and warm drinks to accompany a lovely, colorful north country fall. -Luna
10/5/24 – Due to continued dry conditions and high winds, the USFS has expanded the fire ban. The fire ban now encompasses the entire Superior National Forest. This includes the Sawbill Lake Campground, Crescent Lake Campground, and Temperance River Campground as well as the BWCA Wilderness Area. If you’re on National Forest land up here right now, you should not be having any open flames. Gas stoves with an on/off switch are still allowed.
Calm mornings give way to high wind afternoons this time of year.
10/1/24 – The Forest Service has issued a fire ban for the BWCA Wilderness, effective today. As usual, this means no campfires, twig stoves, or other wood burning devices are allowed until further notice. A gas burning stove, with an on/off switch, is allowed. Areas outside of the Wilderness, like the Sawbill Campground, are not included in the ban – so you are still welcome to have a carefully tended fire elsewhere. The ban comes as a result of very dry fall conditions, low relative humidity, and many days of predicted high winds. There have also been a number of small but out of control fires both in and out of the Wilderness. Leaving your campfire smoldering, or even just warm coals left behind, can have devastating consequences. We appreciate everyone’s diligence!
Aside from the dry conditions, things are still lovely up here in the Northwoods as we inch closer to winter. Sawbill crew have been taking full advantage of the late summer weather and taking many last minute canoe trips. As of today, the permit quota season is over. This means that you still need a permit to stay overnight in the BWCA, but you no longer need to reserve it in advance. Between October 1 – May 1, you simply fill out a self-issued permit to enter the Wilderness. These self issued permits are free, there’s no quota limit to them, and they are available in little boxes at the entry points. All the same BWCAW rules apply though, so feel free to call or drop in if you have any questions about those.
Evan had a once in a lifetime encounter with this bull moose on an interior Wilderness lake last week.
We’ll be open our regular fall hours of 8am-7pm through October 9th. From October 10th-20th we’ll be here and open from 9ish-4ish, often times with a sign on the door to call for assistance. We’re here and the campground is open, we’re likely just out back working on fall winddown projects! Everything shuts down for the season October 20th.
Day one started at 9 am when my dad arrived. Four months had passed since the last time I saw him. It felt great to give him a hug. We spent the next couple hours figuring out what we wanted to eat and packing all of our gear into the car. We hit the water around noon with the wind in our face. About a half mile into the paddle, the lake suddenly gets fairly shallow. Both our paddles kept hitting rocks under the surface, but the canoe didn’t slide across any. The first two campsites on Homer are outside the wilderness. It was interesting to see the amenities that National Forest campsites get. Picnic tables! After about an hour and a half on Homer, we portaged quickly into Whack Lake. It had been a bit since I had paddled a new area so figuring out the scale on the map to the 3-D image that was around us took some time getting used to it. I may or may not have steered us into the wrong cove at first. The portage out of Whack starts off a bit steep but is short.
Vern Lake has two sites, one by the portage and one on the other shore about ⅓ of a mile north. The one by the portage was taken so we went to the other. It’s a nice site. There are about 4 tent pads that vary in quality. We followed a path into the trees that led to one that could fit our 3 person tent. We had camp set up by 3 pm. I took a quick swim before hanging up my hammock to read while my dad headed to the rocks along the shore with his book. Dinner was a pouch of freeze-dried Indian Korma from Good-to-Go. I really enjoyed it! It took a bit longer for the chickpeas to rehydrate than the directions on the back of the pack claimed. No problem, we just chatted for another few minutes, still updating each other on the going-ons of our lives. We cleaned up our dinner and wandered off to find a place to tie up our bear vault. Evening entertainment that night was a small sparrow or warbler flying around catching bugs out of the air and on the branches of a near-by birch. From where we were sitting we could see the other campsite and remarked how the folks over there didn’t seem to be utilizing the west facing site to its full advantage. We barely saw them out on the rock slope that made up the majority of the shoreline and from what we at our east facing campsite could tell, it seemed to be a nice sunset. I’m sure they had their reasons. Our day ended around 9 pm after a little more book reading by headlamp light.
An old corduroy road somewhere in New England. PC: Ben Hudson
Day two started somewhere between 7 and 7:30 am. The call for nourishment became too strong to ignore so we braved the slight chill to make breakfast. Nothing like a hot warm bowl of oatmeal to start the day! Dad and I decided to day trip down to Pipe Lake and check out the campsites. We hit the water around 8:30 heading south. Vern is a rather long, narrow lake. I was too busy looking around and almost steered us right past our first portage! We pulled up to the landing and after letting my dad get out of the canoe, I found myself a relatively solid mass of land to try to exit the canoe. I slipped in the mud and stepped down into the not-so-solid part. I hadn’t had the chance to tighten my sandals at this point and the mud quickly claimed one of them. Fearing it would be lost for good, I plunged my hand down to wrangle it out. I made sure to tighten my sandals before every portage from then on. The next paddling section led us through a narrower, reedy area that due to the time of year, had a noticeably lower water level. As long as one is watching for rocks, there’s still plenty of water though. Over another short portage and we were into East Pipe Lake. The far side of the portage looked like the old corduroy roads, but we assumed it was a beaver dam that washed out. There aren’t any sites on East Pipe so we didn’t linger.
On our McKenzie map, there are two very short portages between East Pipe and Pipe, but we only encountered one that climbed up next to a beaver dam. My dad and I wondered how long the beaver dam had been there. A large number of dead husks of trees lined the bay the portage put us in. Old, tangled roots of cedars stick out of the water along the shore on either side. By now, the wind has picked up. We were aware of the wind before, but until we got to Pipe Lake it hadn’t been an issue. Unfortunately, all the sites were on the far north side and the wind was coming out of the southwest. If I had been smarter and not lazy, I would have steered us along the southern shore then cut across to the first site. I didn’t not.
We paddled pretty hard to the first site and found the landing around a small point. Both the site and the landing were on the smaller side. We found the tent pads and checked out the latrine. The pads are on the smaller side, but I doubt there are many ideal tent pads anywhere in the wilderness. That’s just the nature of the game. There wasn’t much protection from the wind, but it was better than out on the water. After a quick snack, we pushed off towards the next site.
The middle site is small and closed in. There is a large rock in the middle of the campsite, almost right next to the fire grate. It seems like a nice place for winter camping, but during peak bug season? It doesn’t seem like there would be any reprieve. After finding the latrine again, we headed to the third and final site.
This site is located on the farthest shore from the portage. Site number 3 was pretty unique compared to the other two. The tent pad was large enough for a good sized tent, probably 4 or 5 people. It was situated above the main clearing. It was back away from the fire grate and benches approximately 10 feet (look, I’m not very good at estimating distance, but it wasn’t too close to the grate to be a cause for concern). The placement of the tent pad gave the site a sunken living room vibe. The main downside to this site was that it only had the one pad. We discovered the latrine one more time and hit the water back to Vern. To be honest, all three latrines are pretty full, but if the large spider webs going across the opening are an indication of anything, it’s clear they don’t get a lot of use. If anyone heads to Pipe Lake during the summer, I recommend the farthest east or west sites. Both have better tent pad options.
We made record time back now that the wind was to our backs. Once we got to the end of the portage back into Vern, we set off. Very quickly we ran into trouble. There were rocks everywhere just under the surface of the water and mud. We tried to find a way forward, but got stuck on a rock. I ended up getting out, sinking up to my calves in the mud, and pulled my dad and the canoe backwards to some deeper water that was located past the portage the other way. After I was able to get back into the canoe, we tried to figure out where all those rocks had come from. We didn’t have any problem getting to the portage at the start of our day trip, had Vern Lake suddenly become tidal locked while we were gallivanting across Pipe and now the tide had gone out? No. I remembered after a while that on our way out, I had accidentally steered us past the portage and that by doing so, had inadvertently missed all the rocks that had just given us trouble. How silly. We made it back to camp between 12 pm and 1 pm.
We had a lunch of PB&J on tortillas and went our separate ways to read for a while. I took a quick dip to wash off any mud and read in my hammock again. Eventually I finished my book and wandered off to explore the campsite. I followed a spur trail back behind the site up to a small aspen or birch grove. The leaves had already started to turn colors at this point. I found an exposed rock and stood listening to the wind rustle the leaves for a while. Dear reader, please do as I say, not as I do. Wear some sort of footwear in camp, especially if you plan on exploring. As I was working my way back to the camp proper, I stepped down off a rock and onto what I can only assume was a stick (truthfully, I don’t actually know, there was a layer of leaves and plant material covering whatever it was). I immediately knew that I had been wounded. Upon closer inspection, I saw that I had a small hole in the bottom of my foot, between my big toe and the next one. Luckily, it was not very deep. It is fully healed as I type this out now. I carefully made my way back to camp and took care of it. I was glad I didn’t forget to pack a first aid kit this trip!
My dad and I decided to explore the campsite in a different direction this time. We picked our way along a different spur trail that took us north along the shore. There was a large, sloping rock face we were able to walk up, and looked out across the lake. We wandered around the top of the hill for a bit as well theorizing about the geology of the area. Eventually we got hungry and headed back to get cooking. Tonight’s dinner was another package from Good-to-Go. This time it was Thai Curry. We split the pieces of pita we had and used them to soak up all the broth left. Our evening entertainment warbler didn’t show up, so we contented ourselves with watching the dragonflies zip around above the trees for a while. Soon it got dark and we hit the hay.
Day three started the same way day two did, with a breakfast of oatmeal. We took our time packing up and were on the way back to the entry point by 9:30 am. Once again, the sudden shallow rock reef in the middle of the lake took us by surprise. It took about the same amount of time to get back to the start as on the way into the wilderness. We loaded up and headed back to Sawbill.
I’m glad my dad and I got to go on a trip together! Sawbill is roughly 12 to 13 hours away from where my parents live and it’s tough for my dad to get enough time off of work to make a trip up here worth it. Both he and I had a great time!
Sawyer
My dad showing off our campsite on Vern.
My model posing by the fire grate at the eastern site on PIpe Lake.
Our view from the top of the rock face we explored. Our site is around the small point in the picture.
Sunrise on our final day.
Sunrise on the final day, looking north up the lake.
9/17/24 – The unseasonably beautiful fall days are inspiring all sorts of outdoor adventures this week. We’ve also been busy celebrating the littlest outfitter Sig’s birthday. He’s six years old now and reports that he does, in fact, feel much older and bigger than he did when he was five. Dan and Sig played hooky for a few days and snuck in at Kawishiwi Lake for a quick daddy/son trip to soak up all the warm swimming weather while we still have it. Not one to be left out, Kit quickly roped Dan and Sig into some day trips once they were back home.
Dan and the kids hiked to Alton via the stream that runs between Alton and Sawbill.
The dry fall weather has made the water levels drop after a relatively high water season. This makes hiking the creek beds much easier and is one of the Shirley kids’ favorite pastimes. There are a lot of cool places and fun treasures to be found along the creeks.
One such treasure was this egg that we suspect is from a Loon.
No adventure is complete without a quick swim!
We hope you all are enjoying the last of summer wherever you are! Soon enough we’ll be socked in with snow dreaming of the next open water season 🙂
9/11/24 – Every fall I am awoken at 5am to the sound of gunshots. I think to myself, who on earth is out sighting in their guns this early? Grouse season isn’t even open yet? That’s when I remember – that’s no gunshot, it’s the resident red squirrels stocking up for winter. The sound of a green pine cone hitting an aluminum canoe or metal roof after being dropped from the tallest white pines is my annual fall alarm clock. The impact sends sap flying in all directions, often landing on the stacks of canoes waiting to be rented, so we keep bottles of liquid hand sanitizer at the ready for cleaning off our clothes and hands.
Another tell tale sign of fall.
In addition to pine cones, the squirrels start stashing mushrooms in earnest this time of year. One enterprising young squirrel chose the stack of B19’s as a likely cache location this morning. I’m sorry to say that these canoes aren’t going to stay put in that place all winter so squirrely is going to have to move this particular stash. Watching this frenetic gathering has me fondly anticipating winter and reflecting on years past. A few winters ago, we selected a lovely little balsam as a potential Christmas tree. As we inspected it more closely, and just before we cut it down, we noticed a shriveled mushroom tucked into one of its branches. Further investigation revealed a dozen or more mushrooms scattered throughout the tree. Needless to say, we selected a different Christmas tree.
Mushrooms come at no extra charge.
Despite what the squirrels say, with the beautiful fall weather we aren’t quite ready to begin our winter preparations just yet. We’re still in full swing here, and won’t shut down for winter completely until October 20th. The fall colors are looking to be a bit on the early side this year so if you’re hoping to catch some good color along with good weather the next week or two are your best bet.
