When we woke up in the morning, it was not the 70 degrees and sunny Rosie had hoped for as we fell asleep the night before, but it also wasn’t raining (as it had off-and-on during the night) and we were content just to be able to make and eat our breakfast on a fine natural rock bench the site offered instead of huddled under the tarp like we had for dinner the previous night. Rosie’s homemade granola (with powdered milk) and a cup of coffee was just what I needed to shake off the aches and stiffness of the night. As I finished my coffee, I wandered around the site, enjoying the views from the top of our hill, the absence of precipitation and a beautiful, quiet morning in the midst of vast solitude.
The skies were still gray but our campsite, on the west end of Robbins Island and sheltered from the easterly winds by the length of the island and other immediate geography, also gave us the (mistaken) idea that maybe the wind had died down.
After breakfast and dishes, we broke camp, loaded the canoe and then headed a little out of our way to circumnavigate Isle of Pines, the former home of Dorothy Molter, “The Root Beer Lady.” We mostly just wanted to see this island where she had lived alone in the wilderness for so long, though the woods have reportedly reclaimed almost all signs of her residency there. I also wanted to try to find the large, unique neapolitan-colored rock that was apparently placed on the shores of the island as a birthday gift to her. We didn’t find the rock (I wish I would have done a bit more research about its location before leaving home) but it was fun to paddle along the rocky shoreline and take a close look at everything. It was also then that I noticed the clarity of Knife Lake’s waters: I could see logs and other detritus on the lake bottom some 15-20 feet down.
Slipping out from behind Isle of Pines and into the main part of Knife Lake, which gradually widens to the northeast from where we entered it at its southwestern extremity, we felt the wind again. It was barreling down the lake, directly opposing our travel. We kept close to the south shore of the lake and paddled into it. About a mile-and-a-half down, we stopped at a campsite for a bathroom break and to stretch and drink water. The site was quite nice, especially because it was surrounded by a lot of aspen, the leaves of which were golden.
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