For the past two years, my husband and I have taken a late fall trip up to the Boundary Waters. We love heading up north in late October/early November for the quietness of the area. We sometimes see one other person and usually have the lakes to ourselves. Plus, there are no bugs to bother us.
That was the plan last week, but unfortunately my husband had bronchitis. We were packed and ready to go for four days and every morning would get up at 5:30 ready to go…. and then go back to bed. But we did manage to make it out to the woods for one night at the Turtle Flambeau Flowage. We figured since we were already packed, a 3 hour drive was much less commitment than a 6 hour drive. If sleeping with the woods was miserable with a bad cough (which it was) were would just head home. We really wanted to camp and canoe, so the flowage was the once place we have heard of to do that in Wisconsin.
We put in at Murray’s landing and canoeing through the wind to a campsite on an island. Our original plan was to stay at Blair Lake, but since it was Halloween, we thought we should stay away from it. After a meal of tuna fish and noodles, a bottle of wine and a roaring campfire, we retired to our tent with a nearly full moon and yipping coyotes. I was actually excited to sleep outside. I got a Marmot zero degree sleeping bag last year for Christmas and a down sleeping pad for my birthday, so I was ready for the cold.
After a breakfast of eggs, bacon, potatoes, and a lot of coffee, we lolly-gagged around the breakfast fire as we watched the snow fall. After packing up we made the one portage in the area and were going to try for another night. But we were so close to our car, and the snow, which had earlier been romantic, was now just cold and make my legs hurt, so we took out and off for our own beds.
I was glad that we got one more canoe trip in this year. It has been our longest canoe season ever; we tried out the canoe for the first time in early March. Even though we were only out one night, it was still so great to have complete quiet and no computer and be surrounded by the woods and water. I am looking forward to a winter of fun and more time for fun, even if it isn’t canoeing.
