Stuart River to Lower Basswood Falls - BWCA 2023

With the goal of seeing Lower Basswood Falls and permits unavailable for our three target entry points, we defaulted to a still available permit for the Stuart River entry point. This entry point starts with a 433 rod portage, plus five more mapped portages, as well as several additional unmapped beaver dams to climb over before arriving at the first campsites from Entry Point 19. Maybe this causes some unpopularity for this entry point, and perhaps it is this unpopularity that allowed us the permit.

Whitefish Lake Canoe Trip 2023

 

Welcome to our warmest ever Labor Day Weekend canoe trip in the Sylvania Wilderness. Typically our Labor Day trips feature cold nights. We gather around the campfire warming ourselves. This time we swam and paddled the standup paddle board around Whitefish Lake not really caring about warm campfires. In fact, at some points we could have used a cold breeze!

Wildflowers and Warm Weather on Memorial Weekend in the Sylvania Wilderness, Spring 2023

We packed up and headed north for our first canoe camping trip of 2023 with new canoeists along for the trip. Typically our May trips to the Sylvania Wildreness are cold, wet and buggy. Because guests new to the sport were traveling along, we hoped for good weather and mangeable bugs. We put in on Crooked Lake, paddled the length of Crooked and took the short portage to Mountan Lake to camp on Lynx 1 Campsite. After the second night, we paddled and portaged from Lynx 1 Campsite on Mountain Lake over to Coyote Campsite on West Bear Lake. This is what happened.

Frost River Loop - BWCA 2022

My husband, our teenage daughter and I set aside 10 days to spend together canoe tripping in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) in August, 2022. We wanted to single-portage along a loop route, and put in some travel time as well as time laying around on a couple of nice campsites and doing, well, a whole lot of nothing. With an entry permit for Entry Point #50 Cross Bay Lake in hand, we studied our maps.

2021 Canoe Trip to the Bittersweet Lakes State Natural Area

The Bittersweet Lakes is located within the Northern Highland-American Legion State Forest, in Vilas County, Wisconsin. On a hot, July morning we loaded our gear and the canoe onto our car and headed off into the morning. We arrived to a sandy parking area, buggy and hot from the morning sun. 

May 2021 Wildflower Canoe Trip in the Sylvania Wilderness

Setting off for four days in the Sylvania Wilderness, my husband looked forward to retesting our gear set, our daughter hoped for a cell signal, and I dreamed of spotting spring wildflowers after a long winter of bare trees and dull coloration. We drove to Michigan's Upper Peninsula and stopped view Burned Dam Falls before entering the wilderness. Burned Dam Falls proved to be home to several wildflower species and I grew excited thinking about what I might see in the wilderness.

2020 July Family Trip to Whitefish Lake in the Sylvania Wilderness

Capturing our precious family canoe tripping memories is one of my favorite things to do. As working parents know, finding the time to do the things we want to do isn't always easy. I feel rather anxious finding myself here in June 2021, recording the events of July 2020. But the memories are precious and few due to my having only a sparse allotment of vacation time. Although I come to the party late, I am glad I made it.

BWCA 2020

 

Those of you who have visited the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) know that summer trips include cold and rainy days. You come to expect inclement weather days with just enough nice days sprinkled in to inspire deep appreciation. With Covid19, the riots, and stories about how crowded the BWCA might be in mind, our family wasn't super focused on the weather when preparing for this trip. By luck we stumbled into atypical, beautiful warm days, with only a little rain. We've never had an August trip this beautiful before. 

Our Family's Last Canoe Trip of 2020

You waste weekends in the summer accomplishing obligatory chores. You think to yourself, "It's summer, I can camp and paddle anytime." Then suddenly, night begins to come earlier. The leaves shine brilliant gold, orange, red, and then poof - they're gone. It sneaks up on you, the last canoe trip of the season. Now you wish you had spent more days on the water, in camp, off the grid.

Teen Finds Joy Paddling in the Sylvania Wilderness, September 2020

Our daughter Ams is a teenager now. Everything is boring. On canoe trips it's always a fight. She wants to sit in the middle seat and fiddle with her phone. Canoes, being a part of "everything", eyeroll, are sooooo booooooring. To offer her a bit of independence, not to mention exercise and fun, my husband decided to pick up a kayak and start bringing it on our canoe trips, at least the ones that require a smaller amount of portaging. Let me tell you how it went.

Watching Goslings on our First Canoe Trip of 2020

With limited dispersed camping areas open in Wisconsin due to the Covid19 pandemic, we set off for a  closer-to-home destination. We went on a rainy spring day thinking the Turtle Flambeau Flowage would not be busy until Memorial Weekend. On the way, we saw other cars carrying canoes. As one sped by, I said to my husband, "Look they're racing you, they're trying to beat you to the campsite." We laughed, in a state with so much water, they could be headed anywhere. Imagine our surprise when we got to the landing and there they were, putting their boats. And yes, they did beat us to the first open campsite, although it wasn't a race and we were looking to go further in.

Watching the Boats Go By on a Canoe Trip for Two in the Turtle-Flambeau Flowage

The Turtle-Flambeau Scenic Waters Area offers remote camping on campsites accessible only by water. Located in Northern Wisconsin near Mercer, the flowage offers fishing, boating, and paddling. On a stormy Friday night in July, we headed north. Traffic pulled to the side of the road from time to time due to poor visibility. Wind churned the dark clouds. We wondered how the weather would be spending this night in our tent.

July 2019 Sylvania Wilderness Canoe Trip

Cold snowy days are great times for reminiscing about summer days gone by. Our 2019 four day canoe trip to celebrate the 4th of July seems so long ago.  It is funny how in hindsight the first things I remember are the warm sunny swim days, little fish jumping to eat mosquitoes, and the excitement of watching a porcupine visiting our campsite and climb trees. It is only after looking through the old videos and photographs that I recall the swarming mosquitoes, or the storm that came out of nowhere and turned out campsite into mud puddles.

2019 10-Day Family Trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness

Seeking solitude and a large dose of vitamin N, our family decided to enter the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) from a relatively unpopular entry point, #4 Crab Lake. There are no pictographs or big waterfalls to see from this entry point. The trip starts with a long paddle across Burntside Lake or the hiring of a tow. Once at the portage, the entry into the Boundary Waters kicks off with a once 370 rod portage, now 408 rod portage to Crab Lake.

How to Plan Food Menus for Back-country Adventures

Preferences being what they are,  it can be a challenge to plan lightweight, nonperishable menus for a group. In our family, I do not eat sweetened foods while my daughter and my husband love candy, granola bars and candy-infused trail mixes. My daughter is very fond of high-carb foods, while my husband likes meats. We've found the prepared freeze-dried backpacking meals that can be purchased to be very salty while containing minimal meat. Now, I purchase mainstream what I can, and dehydrate the rest at home. Presented here is my menu planning strategy and our 2019 3-person 10-day back-country canoe trip.

Our First Canoe Trip of 2019 - 4 Days in the Sylvania Wilderness

There is nothing like a long, cold winter to make us ache for the warmer, carefree days of summer. Finally, the weather had become right for a canoe trip. With a song in our hearts we loaded up the car and headed north for a four day family trip to the Sylvania Wilderness in the Ottawa National Forest of Upper Michigan. As we drove it began to rain. We talked about the weather, the way people headed into the wilderness tend to do. Our goal for the day, to make it to camp without thunderstorms, and without our everything becoming entirely drenched.

Boundary Waters 2018: Moose River Entry Point 16 to Campsites on Nina Moose Lake, Lac La Croix, Iron Lake, and Oyster Lake

Kicking off our 2018 trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA), our family entered the BWCA at Entry Point #16, Moose/Portage River. We spent 9 nights camped on Nina Moose, Lac La Croix, Iron and Oyster Lakes before exiting on day 10. We got rained on, paddled against gusty winds, sunned on slabs of rock and swam. We started awkwardly, careful with each move, then fell into a rhythm with our packing, portaging, paddling and camp-setting that made us feel like part of this place. Just as we began to feel like we truly belonged, our time in this quiet wilderness, like the summer of 2018, began to draw to a close.

Food for a Ten Day / Three Person Backcountry Trip: BWCA 2018

I still love everything about canoe tripping, even the preparations. Finding lightweight foods safe to carry without refrigeration that fit the blue barrel and satisfy the divergent palates of the entire family poses a fun challenge. This year I've planned meals for three people for our family's 10 day canoe trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA). 

A Romantic Weekend for Two in the Turtle Flambeau

Ams went off to Girl Scout Camp. With a weekend to do anything our hearts desired, my husband and I took our first ever canoe trip in the Turtle Flambeau Flowage. As the day drew near, the weather forecast worsened. With two days of thunderstorms in the forecast, we headed up to the Turtle Flambeau Flowage not entirely sure what might happen.

4 Day Canoe Trip: Sylvania Wilderness 2018

As Northerners do, our family dreams of the distant springtime through the icy season. When it finally arrives, we begin our spring rituals. Spring cleaning, garden planning, keeping an eye out for the first robin. My favorite of our family's spring rituals, my husband's lowering of the canoe from it's resting place among the spiders that hang among the garage rafters, marks the true beginning of summer fun for our family.