2001/10 Namakan trip - Voyageurs National Park |
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Voyageurs National Park |
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Sandie and I had one last fling before winter. We took off for a four day trip to Voyageurs National Park, (nothing to do with Voyager Village) up on the Minnesota border with Ontario. We camped at Jay Cooke park on the first evening, and set off next morning northwest from Duluth across the Iron Range and past the mining towns of Virginia, Eveleth, and Biwabik. Most of the leaves were gone around Jay Cooke but as we went north we saw more and more tamaracks. These are primitive conifers that turn gold in the fall and lose their leaves for winter, just gorgeous when they are mixed in with dark green spruce.
Voyageurs is a very informal park, no fees or permits needed, but we went to the ranger station at Ash River to check in anyway, and found that the whole park had closed for winter. So we just went down to the riverbank, assembled the kayak, and started to load it. Our main problem was that we had too much stuff! The weather forecast was showers turning to snow, so we needed lots of clothes, and there was always a chance of getting stuck for an extra day or two, so we needed lots of food.
Somehow we got it all in or on top and set off downriver. We were headed for Lake Namakan and had a choice of kayaking into Lake Kabetogama and around a headland or of portaging everything across the neck of 
the headland and into Namakan. We had little light left so we opted for the portage, which meant unloading everything, carrying it all plus the kayak for about 90 rods, and repacking it. Some of you may be old enough to remember that a rod, pole, or perch is 16 feet, about the length of the average canoe. 90 rods is just over a quarter mile, far enough on a warm October afternoon. The spot we picked for relaunching the kayak turned out to have thigh-deep mud so it was a smelly start for me.
The kayak behaved like a barge with its load so we were making slow progress. Namakan is about 20 miles long and I’d hoped to get partway along the lake but it looked like we were going to have to grab the first available campsite. Luckily, the first one we reached, on Williams Island, was free – actually I think we were the only people camping in the whole park but we didn’t know that at the time. This gave us enough time to unload all the gear and set up the tent and tarp.
The site was on a headland with a beach on both sides, a fire ring high up on the point, a picnic table, and a bear-proof 
food locker. This was luxury compared with the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, where you have to find a flat rock to cook on and carry enough ropes to hoist all the food out of bear reach. There was also a latrine back in the woods, with the usual 360 degree view. Surprisingly there were still some flies and butterflies and snakes around. A week earlier it had been 15°F south of here, cold enough to kill most things off, but I guess the lake water keeps the island temperature up for a while.
There was no moon so the rest of the packing away and cooking was done in the dark, a situation the local field mouse took full advantage of. No sooner had we got something safely out of reach when we’d hear something else being chewed at. He ran up my legs to get onto the picnic table and he made numerous sorties during the night chewing at the tent’s corners and skating over the roof.
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