We were up at dawn. The morning light was metallic on the water and it was very quiet. The day had been planned as one of our biggest days in terms of miles to travel and, as a result of the previous day’s wind, we had even further to go than originally intended. We would leave the Canadian border today and head east down the South Arm of Knife Lake. Near the eastern extremity of that lake we would make the big turn of the trip, no longer heading east and away from civilization, but south and then west, symbolically heading home, though we knew there was still much ahead of us, in terms of days, lakes, portages, wind and experience.

We broke camp fairly quickly, already starting to feel the pattern of the various morning chores. While one of us worked on breakfast (instant oatmeal this morning) and coffee, the other stayed in the tent, deflating pads, stuffing sleeping bags into stuff sacks. Once breakfast was ready, we took a few moments to slow down and eat. After a night during which it had dipped to near the freezing mark, the hot breakfast hit the spot and it was good to watch the almost windless lake and the sunrise.

Although we were both eager to start putting some miles behind us, especially with the lake as calm as it was and no assurance that it would stay that way, we had to first stop by one of Knife Lake’s biggest draws: Thunder Point. High hills and long views are a rare thing in canoe country, where the land is generally glacially-flattened, and views from the summits of the rare hills are usually obstructed by the thick forest. We were drawn to Thunder Point, which separated Knife Lake and the South Arm, for a long view, which we had never really enjoyed before.

The quarter-mile hike was steep, but well worth it. From the top of the cliff, we could see down to the far end of Knife Lake where we had entered it two days before. It was hard to believe everything we had already seen and experienced in just a few miles of paddling.

It occurred to me then that it was Sunday morning. We were both pretty quiet, feeling a degree of introspectiveness and wonder that I think many people only feel in a brick and mortar church. As I stood looking out over the wilderness, I wondered about the grand meaning of such beauty, and who or what could have created something with that meaning.

I could have considered such questions all day, but the miles ahead called to us and we soon headed back down to the canoe.

Back out on the lake, we headed down the South Arm. We were very, very happy to find the wind finally at our backs, coming lightly out of the west as a good wind should. The skies were also mostly blue and I finally felt free to let my guard down a little and enjoy the feeling of being surrounded by miles and miles of land and water almost empty of humans. Though we kept paddling and moving, we maintained a leisurely pace.

On the south shore of the lake, the forest had been burned in a prescribed burn in 2005 and it was interesting to study the barren landscape with small bits of green scattered around, in some places where the fire had mysteriously spared a stand of trees, in others where new life was already emerging.

Not far down the South Arm we came across a flock of loons. I don’t usually think of loons as very sociable birds, their lonely cry that echoes across these vast distances of canoe country as if searching out some companionship had made me reflect upon ideas of companionship and solitude many times. But, every fall, loons do briefly flock up before heading south for the winter; this was the first time we witnessed it. They were also in their drab fall plumage, another new sight. Rather than a sharp contrast of black and white, they were almost entirely black and gray as they prepared for their long trips to the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. I wondered what people in those places think of loons, Minnesota’s state bird. If they keep their drab colors and aren’t as vocal because they aren’t seeking mates or breeding territory, do they pass the winters in those places unnoticed or unappreciated?

After passing through the narrows of the South Arm, we stopped at a campsite to use its facilities. We saw a man in a solo canoe slowing working his way up the other shore, dipping in and out of small bays, obviously taking his time and getting a close look at the forest there. He didn’t respond to my wave and I assumed he was enjoying some intense and wonderful solitude out there all by himself.

As we entered the larger open area on the east end of the South Arm, we saw two canoes along the far north shore. They were a mile or so off and heading in the opposite direction from us. It’s interesting how easily we recognize humans or their craft in a wilderness setting, even though they were tiny compared to the hills and forest surrounding the lake.

The wind was picking up, but it still wasn’t at our heads. It was now coming a bit more out of the north, so the waves were coming at us a little sideways. The waves were big enough to ride, so we kept paddling directly along toward the portage to Eddy Lake. The portage landing was not ideal, made up of big rocks with a quick drop-off and no great place to land and unload. We ended up wedging the canoe into the rocks and then scrambling back and forth to get the packs out.

The day had become mostly overcast, though the clouds were higher than they had been the previous two days and it didn’t seem like there was much threat of rain. The wind still blew into the bay from the north and it was a relief to know we were off the big water for a little while as we headed through Eddy Lake and the Kekekabic Ponds to Kekekabic Lake.

After a quick Clif Bar and some beef jerky (making sure there was plenty of room for another party to load or unload), I shouldered the canoe and headed up the trail. And up. And up. I hadn’t closely studied the topographic map before setting out and I had failed to notice just how close together the contour lines were on this short 25-rod portage. It was very steep, rising more than 100 feet. It took us both a little off guard and we arrived at Eddy Lake winded.

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.

As soon as we came out from behind the point where we had stopped, we were out in the wind again. There were a few whitecaps visible, but mostly it was just big rollers coming right at us. When I was a kid, my friend Andy and I used to take his dad’s aluminum canoe with the 1 1/2 horsepower trolling motor attached and cruise around the lake, aiming for the big wakes of the powerboats. We would cross their wakes as close behind the boats as we could, diving up and down through the three or four foot swells. Sitting in the bow, not even a paddle in my hands, I would get soaked by the spray and I would love every minute of it.

Now, in the midst of the wilderness, every minute or so a set of three or four big waves would hit us and the bow of the canoe would slap against the water coming down. My view from the stern, where I was wrestling my paddle to keep us going straight into the waves, of Rosie rising and falling with the canoe on the big swells, was probably much like what Andy saw as we tempted fate (and swamping) on Square Lake all those years before. It was another sight that became all too familiar later in the trip.

We were crossing a fairly large bay with a small island in the mouth of it. Whenever a piece of relatively calm water came along between the swells, we would quarter a little to keep as close to the island as we could, and then to aim directly for the other side of the bay. Switching often, finding that our muscles needed just short breaks to offer short bursts of power before fading again, we progressed up the lake and into the wind. When we finally reached the other side of the bay, we hugged the shoreline until we arrived at a campsite. There is nothing quite like the relief of setting foot on canoe country granite after being made to feel so damnably insignificant on its waters.

The sound of the boat motor quickly faded into nothing and Rosie and I were finally surrounded by the silence of canoe country. A silence of wind rushing through pines, of water lapping against rock. Of little else.

We were standing at the end of Indian Portage, a five rod carry from Sucker Lake, in a small bay on the west end of Birch Lake. It was about 8 a.m. The boat that had already been enveloped by the silence had given us a tow from LaTourell’s Resort & Outfitter, a historic outfitter and fishing camp on the shores of Moose Lake some six-and-a-half miles to the southwest. We had spent the previous night in a bunkhouse there after a long, dark, rainy drive up from the Twin Cities after work on Thursday.

Our Duluth packs, fishing poles, paddles were loaded into the canoe; all that remained was to get ourselves in and push off. A light and steady rain that would become very familiar over the next seven days was falling from the sky. I was excited and anxious to begin, having been anticipating this very moment for the past two months. We snapped a quick photo of ourselves standing in front of the canoe, our smiles seeming to reveal much about the complex web of emotions we were feeling at the moment, as well as our own impatience to see what would come to us in the hours and days ahead.

As we emerged from the bay and into Birch Lake proper we could look north and see Canada. It didn’t look much different from the United States on our starboard side. A gentle breeze came at us out of the northeast. At the time, it felt good to have a little extra resistance as we warmed up the paddling muscles in our shoulders. It wouldn’t be long though before the wind demonstrated its infamous ability to be coming from whatever direction we wished to go, and before it increased its power to dangerous, exhausting force.

Not long after departing the portage we met another canoe. We waved and said hello, neither of us slackening our paddling, the more verbose guy in the stern wished us luck with a strange, bemused, blissed-out smile. Soon they too were out of sight behind us. We continued paddling northeast toward two big hills on the Canadian side that rose dramatically from the lake. The wind in our faces gradually increased, but we still made good headway against it. When we were almost to the hills, we turned east and slipped through a narrow channel with a small Canadian island on our left side and an American point on our right.

Don’t tell the Border Patrol or the Mounties, but shortly after that, we let our canoe bump up against some Canadian rocks as we drank some water and took a short break before making the last stretch of water before our first portage.

Though we hadn’t seen any other paddlers since that canoe on the first part of Birch, as we paddled toward the portage a pair of canoes launched from a campsite on the south shore and headed in the same direction. We arrived at the portage just before they did and somehow, by the time we had completed out first trip over, another pair of canoes had arrived as well. Suddenly, the solitude we had been expecting on a late September trip was looking questionable. We needn’t have worried, it turned out to be the most intensive contact we’d have with anyone until we left the wilderness.

Besides the congestion, the 20 rod portage was not difficult. The biggest difficulty presented on all five of the portages we would encounter on this stretch was the footing. The trails are very rocky and on this damp day we had to take each step carefully to avoid a twisted ankle or a fall.

The first couple portages were also especially challenging for reasons all our own as we worked out the kinks of efficiently portaging. We felt distinctly confused as we tried to hammer out our process of unloading, carrying gear and craft, and loading and launching the canoe again on the far end. Our disorganization here would stand in direct contrast to the second half of the trip when we both knew the exact order of landing, which bags to take out in which order, who carried what on which of our two trips, and in what order the packs went back in.

We purposefully dawdled on the first carry to let the other four canoes get ahead of us; we had no interest in racing them from portage to portage and weren’t in such a rush that we couldn’t give them a chance to get ahead of us a ways. When we did head out onto Carp Lake, the rain had let up, though the skies remained cloudy.

The next couple miles slipped by as we paddled small lakes and carried around the trickle of water that connects them that is collectively known as the Knife River. The portages were in the 20 rod range, except for the last one that took us to the western extremity of Knife Lake, which came in around 75 rods, just enough to remind me of what a canoe on your shoulders really feels like. The rain came and went and if we weren’t wet from the precipitation we were wet from our own sweat as we traversed the trails in the cool humidity.

The water on Knife Lake seemed particularly low and the landing at the terminus of the portage was tricky because of it. Shallow water extended far out, but we found a narrow trough where the lake became the river and we managed to float out.

As the lake widened, the wind strengthened. We hadn’t gone far before we were suddenly forced to dig in to the water and our own power reserves. Suddenly, Robbins Island, well within sight and where we hoped to camp, looked a lot further away. We paddled hard for 15 minutes, the muscles in my neck, shoulders and arms starting to burn. It’s a strange feeling when you don’t feel like you have the power necessary to get where you need to get. It was a feeling I became more familiar with in the days to come than I would have liked. Luckily, I also discovered that digging deep in my spirit and in my muscles, I could always muster what was needed.

We eventually made it across that open expanse of water and pulled up to the campsite on the west end of Robbins Island. Just south of us was Isle of Pines, the former home of Dorothy Molter, “The Root Beer Lady,” who served her homemade root beer to as many as 6,000 to 7,000 travelers a year and was one of the Boundary Waters’ last residents when she passed away in 1986.

The site was a good one, with a nice view from the fire pit at the top of a steep climb from the water and lots of good rock and open area. It turned out we didn’t use much of the site though. We quickly set up our tent and our tarp and put some water on to boil. Instant soup for a late lunch hit the spot, though I think it was the warmth and the steam on our faces that did as much for us as the food.

The rain pattered on the tarp for most of the evening and we huddled under it or in the tent, where we rested and napped for a while. Later, we cooked our inaugural steak dinner under the tarp. The pan-fried steaks with a great Cache Lake Italian pan bread really hit the spot.

We got the dishes washed just as darkness descended, probably about 7:30, and were soon in the tent for the night. We read and talked some, and eventually fell into welcome sleep at what must have been a very early hour.

One of the last things Rosie said to me before we kissed good night and retreated to the seperate sleep worlds of our mummy bags was, “maybe tomorrow it will be 70 degrees and sunny.”

It began with the dates, the recognition of a week-long window in a busy fall schedule. It would be later in the season than Rosie and I had gone before, opening up possibilities of seeing normally busy areas in a quieter time and a beautiful piece of woods near the height of fall colors, but also of short days and long nights, unpredictable, possibly cold weather, who knew what else. Probably not swimming. Then we came to the decision of what area of wilderness we wanted to see. Then an entry point to select. Maps spread out on the dining room table, plotting a route. We researched what campsites were better than others, what sights we shouldn’t miss, what portages to fear.

Of course, what we couldn’t research was the blustering wind that would blow in our faces and toss our canoe on three foot swells.

We were on the road from St. Paul about 6:15 on Thursday evening. The familiar sinking feeling of “what did I forget?” Canoe strapped to the roof, the trunk loaded up with Duluth packs, backseat full of paddles and fishing poles. Darkness already approaching. Rain falling. I dozed part of the way to Cloquet, where we left the Interstate and headed due north into the Iron Range.

Concerned about some flakiness on the part of our digital camera recently, we stopped for film and batteries for a backup film camera in Cloquet. A little runaround. Gas. Paying in cash, for some reason enjoying the feeling of leaving no paper trail at these stops. Snacks and soda. I took the wheel and pointed us north.

Dark now and still raining. Lonely highways. Trying to stay relaxed, not strain my eyes against the darkness. Still hours to go and I wondered how I’d do it, how I’d see a moose in the road, how I’d follow every curve of the highway. The rain let up, disappeared, a welcome relief. When we left Highway 53 and headed east on 169 toward Ely, the rain was falling again, the wipers on against it and the headlights against the deep darkness of the northwoods with this strip of asphalt snaking through it.

Ely was all but abandoned when we drove through at about 11 p.m. We didn’t need anything and there was nowhere to get it if we did. We drove right through and out the east side of town on the Fernberg Road. The rain was still falling lightly but we were almost there now.

There was a piece of paper with a handwritten note on it taped to a bunkhouse at LaTourell’s Resort & Outfitter, it welcomed us, pointed us in the direction of the bathrooms, and told us “we’ll see you in the morning.” Inside, a space heater was running and it was warm and dry and a very welcome place to finally arrive. We did a few last minute packing things, but quickly got into our sleeping bags and drifted off, wondering what the next morning and the next days would bring.

I was sleeping in the top bunk (there’s no option of snuggling in such little bunks) and awoke to the sound of rain on the tin roof at 6 a.m. It sounded pretty light and there was nothing to be done about it anyway. We packed the last of our gear into the packs and drove the car, canoe and gear to the water’s edge. A quick orientation and we got our permits from the friendly folks in the office.

Rosie parked the car while I affix our CVCA portage pads to the middle thwart, then our packs and canoe were loaded in the waiting boat and we were soon headed up the lake. We faced backwards to hide from the wind, rain and water coming over the bow. I largely stared at the shores of Moose Lake, which seemed somehow especially peaceful in comparison to the noise and wake of the 25 horsepower boat motor. We had a few shouted snippets of conversation with John, our boat pilot. He owned a resort somewhere in northern Ontario, but was down for a month or two working at LaTourell’s (he was “seeing one of Bob’s sisters”). He told us wolves have lately been a problem on Ensign Lake (where we’d visit shortly before finishing the trip), including a story about an 11-year-old girl who was approached by a wolf while sitting on the biffy. For the next week, we debate whether or not this was a bunch of B.S. he fed us to kill time, or if it was true. You sure don’t hear about people having problems with wolves very much. He slyly slipped in an opinion that it’s a result of overpopulation because of lack of hunting of the wolves.

The boat ride took about 20 minutes and then we slid up onto the rocks at the portage into Birch Lake, unloaded our gear, and I grabbed the canoe off the rack and walked it over the 5 rod portage to the other side. By the time I was back to the other side, John was already idling away from shore and soon speeding off back toward the dock. We were alone, with six days and nights ahead before coming back to civilization.