We got to spend a nice quiet night in the Sawbill Lake campground before our shuttle the next morning. We awoke early, with the sun, and started packing up our things into our new rental portage packs. The portage packs were WAY bigger than we had anticipated and so we were able rearrange gear in whatever fashion we wanted. Since most of our time is spent in the canoe, the packs are designed to just be big rectangular bags for whatever we can stuff in there.

We started our day by watching the required rules video and then got a quick lesson in how to mount a canoe on our shoulders for portaging. There was a lot of stern talk about avoiding damaging the ultra-lightweight kevlar canoes, and before we knew it we were packed into a van and on our way to Entry Point 37 at Kawishiwi Lake.

We chatted up our driver, Isabella, and got to hear her story and experience working at an outfitters over the summer while attending college. It reminded me of friends that did similar types of summer jobs when we were younger, and how I both envied their experiences, yet never felt like it was a good fit for me.

Soon enough we reached our launch point and after some quick pics on the beach we were all on our own, watching the van head back to a destination we wouldn’t see again until Sunday. Our only path forward was to start using our bodies and our equipment to get us safely home. A self-inflicted challenge, using our experience and our gear to survive through remote solitude of the north woods.

The weather on day 1 started pleasant, but within a half an hour we came across a rain storm that gave us a quick soaking. Because we saw clearer skies in the distance we didn’t bother to put on our rain gear and just dry out as the day went on. However, as the day went on I did find myself reaching for my hard shell to keep some warmth in and stop some shivering in the wind.

I also got a bit more moisture than everyone else because I made a critical mistake when trying to cross the start of a beaver dam that was forming. We came across a log that was just barely breaking the surface and as we tried to get over it we beached and had to get unstuck. My wife climbed out and on to the top of the dam and started pulling us through. Without thinking much about it I decided I should get out and help, however, I never checked to see how deep the water was and ended up falling into water that went almost up to my chest. Thankfully I thought quickly and managed to save the canoe from tipping by throwing myself into the water instead of trying to keep hanging on to the canoe, but it meant that I was rightly soaked.

I climbed back into the canoe a bit embarrassed for making a stupid move, but if nothing else it was illustrative to Mike and Beth about how NOT to approach this obstacle. They managed a different approach to get over and soon enough we were back on our way. We encountered a couple other of these obstacles on the Kawishiwi River, but in most cases we managed to find good spots up on land to get around, or lower areas that we could push over. No one else had to get wet like I did.

After a quick pass through Square Lake we make our way to Kawasachong Lake where we found a small piece of land to float next to and eat some lunch. Soon we’d be at our first, and longest, portage of day 1, a half-mile trek to get to a small lake that I’m not sure even has a name (edit: found out later it’s Townline Lake). This was our first actual portage of the trip and it was time to see what I could do. The whole portaging activity was new to us, and given my wife’s very short stature we wen’t exactly sure if it would work for her to do any of the canoe carrying. Therefore, I mounted up with my pack and the canoe on my shoulder and started the trek. Overall it went really well and despite being a bit tired towards the end I managed the carry both the back and canoe without issue to the other side.

We took a short rest on the small unnamed lakeshore before doing an all-to-quick paddle across to our second portage on the other side. This one was only 0.3 of a mile and my wife offered to give it a try and see how it went. To both our surprise her lower center of gravity actually ended up being a huge benefit and mounting the canoe on her shoulders wasn’t an issue at all. The only issue we found was in portages with steeper hills as her vertical pivot wasn’t able to be as large as mine since I am much taller. We were both overjoyed though that we could share some of these duties on the rest of the trip.

The end of this second portage, Lake Polly, was also where we’d be spending the night. From my research ahead of time I saw that there was a campsite that was located on an island. It was also towards the northern end of the lake which is the direction we needed to head the next morning. Thankfully, when we pulled up the island it was vacant and we were able to claim our first campsite of the trip.

We immediately went about setting up camp and getting into dry clothes for the night. At this point we were in pretty familiar territory. We’ve all backpacked together and setting up camp has become a pretty straightforward process. After a full day I promptly laid down and took an afternoon nap before we started dinner prep. Unless we’re in a cabin we do our meals independently (as couples) and so we pulled out our various cook kits and went about enjoying a nice evening meal in what ended up being a beautiful evening.

This is the part of the trip where I need to get “over the hump” mentally and emotionally. It’s often hard for me to disconnect right away, and with how busy/mentally taxing work has been lately I was struggling a bit on this first night. There is almost no cell coverage in the BWCA and so there’s no reason to pull out the phone and scroll. I just had to sit with my discomfort and work through it. Thankfully, by the next morning I was feeling like a new person in this regard.

One task was left for the evening… hanging the bear bag. Mike and I went off into the woods to strategize and find the perfect spot for our bear hang. Since we had three ropes with us we decided to do a straight line up top with a carabiner, and then run lines through that to hoist up our bags. We felt like we could experiment a bit at this site since we were on an island and the chance of bear encounter would be lessened by that fact. It’s never zero though, and getting our stuff ransacked on night 1 was not something we were interested in. Even though we were trying a hang that we hadn’t done much in the past, we made sure it still met the basic needs. Overall, we were pretty pleased with this one.

Even though we were approaching the solstice, and the sun was going to be shining well into the evening, we were all pooped from the day. Bedtime started around 8pm and then we all wound down with reading in our tents until the sun woke us up bright and early the next morning.