9/29/10 – April Knight was kind enough to send along this note and photos from her recent canoe trip.
The Boundary Waters is famous even down here in the Carolinas. I wanted to make the journey north in celebration of my new freedom from debt (years and years of student loans!) I have never overnighted in a canoe and was looking forward to paddling through all the pristine photographs I had seen of the BWCA. I did not picture starting out in windy cold weather but since my entry point was Homer Lake and the wind was due north on that day off I paddled….I was to swamp the
canoe an hour after this picture was taken. After that humble initiation I paid more attention (and respect) to Mother Nature. My four day three night solo journey took me past Homer, Whack, Vern, Juno, Brule, S and N Temperance, Sitka, Cherokee, Ada and last to Sawbill Lake. I camped the first night with a father/son team, Joe and Bobby Whiting of Two Harbors. I was to learn later that Joe attended college in the same town where I grew up in South Carolina- he and Bobby graciously fed me chocolate, soup, bacon and coffee. The next two nights I camped alone. I never felt alone, meeting others at the portages- a young couple out for six days with their fishing poles, a group of four Minnesotan men celebrating their 25th annual trip to the BWCA and the sounds of wolves and loons to lull me to sleep. Truth be told the wolves’ unfamiliar howling may have been the reason for those dark circles under my eyes the next morning! My last morning I made breakfast perched on a rock outcropping high above Cherokee Lake waiting for a beautiful dense fog to lift. The sight of Sawbill Canoe Outfitters was more than welcoming and I may have been responsible for the low supply of ice cream from their store’s freezer on that day! How appropriate it was to spend the fall equinox under a full moon back home but in a canoe out on a local lake! I will find a new reason to celebrate and return for another pilgrimage to Sawbill Canoe Outfitters again next year!
April Knight
Homer Lake
Cherokee Lake
Cherokee Creek