DAY 26 June 26, 2005
Winnipeg
by Chris McLeod

What an exciting day! Today we got up and on the water by 8am dressed in our traditional voyageur gear for a short 15km paddle into the Forks of Winnipeg. We were making really good time so we took our time paddling since we didn’t have to be at the Forks until noon. At 1200 we paddled under the last bridge at the Forks to the sound of some guy singing French songs from the bridge and the sight of dozens of people and media who were gathered to greet us. We were overwhelmed by the media and people who grabbed us as soon as we got out of the boat and had to be saved by Katelin in time to hear the speeches given by Tony and the other dignitaries who were gathered. We didn’t stay long at the Forks, but after portaging our canoe we were taken to the MMF building where we had a luncheon with live fiddle music. By about 3pm we were taken to our hotel rooms.. yaya. We spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning ourselves and cleaning our gear before meeting up for a good dinner and then a comfortable night of rest!

DAY 25 June 25, 2005
Royal Manitoba Yacht Club
by Chris McLeod

We left Fort Garry around 10am today after picking up some things from the gift shop and paddled 15km up the river to the Manitoba Yacht Club. We must be getting stronger because we didn’t have as much trouble paddling up the Red River, even through the stronger current in some narrow areas. We managed to make it to the Yacht Club much earlier than expected so we even got to have lunch after we reached the campsite. We were treated well at the Yacht Club especially by a homely man named Norm who let us into his trailer to hang out and nap for a while. We didn’t really have much to do today other than paddle so we just hung around and rested up for our arrival in Winnipeg tomorrow.

DAY 24 June 24, 2005
Lower Fort Garry
by Chris McLeod

Well today was originally supposed to be short (only about 25km) but ended up taking us quite a while to make it to Fort Gerry. We were on the water by 5am and paddled up a medium current all the way to Selkirk (about 15km) for lunch. We had a quick lunch at the Catfish Tavern where we were greeted by the staff who were very excited to see us! We were trying to make it to Fort Gerry by 330pm so we could paddle in while a school group was still at the Fort, but we didn’t make it there until about 530. We had to battle a fast current and strong headwind almost the whole way from Selkirk. There were several times when we were paddling our very hardest and didn’t move anywhere, so we found it easier to pull ourselves along the shore using the bushes. Our arrival was exciting and unique because the staff were dressed in the same traditional clothing that we were. We ended up staying in a teepee at Fort Gerry which was really neat.

DAY 23 June 23, 2005
Willow Campground, Red River
by Chris McLeod

We got up early to see a bear right outside of our motel room that the MMF had provided for us. I went out to say hi to him but he ran into the bush when I got within 20 feet, so I didn’t make the new friend I wanted to. We put our boat in at the Grand Marais Marina around 730 and began our 35km paddle to the Red River. We finished our first 25km on the lake before noon and stopped for some lunch and a nap because it was 44 degrees out on a hot, cloudless, windless day. We started up the Red River with not much trouble and even had some time to notice how gross the river actually was. I don’t think we paddled more than 100m at a time without seeing a dead catfish. Were managed to get almost all the way to our campsite while we watched super dark storms approach from everyside. We were about 1km from the campsite when the wind suddenly picked up and we were forced to get off the river. We turned sharply and paddled as hard as we could into the bulrushes and then jumped out and ran through waist deep water out to the road. We collected thousands of mosquitoes and managed to get into the trucks just before the storm was on us. We had to eventually get out and paddle the rest of the way (about 5km… Glen told us it was 1km, but he doesn’t know distance apparently) in strong winds and made it in about 10 minutes. We set up camp in the rain and got to bed by 8pm, and will meet our new paddler Pierce tomorrow morning, seeing as none of us are going to be able to stay up until 10 to see him when he arrives in camp.

DAY 22 June 22, 2005
Grand Marais
by Chris McLeod

The Winnipeg River has delivered yet another challenge. This time it’s powerdams! We shuttled around several waterfalls and powerdams this morning because they’re simply not safe to paddle around. Most of the powerdams have concrete reservoirs with steep sides and no where to portage or take a boat out. The water coming out some of these dams is also a high class 5 or class 6 rapid and we don’t want to be anywhere near them so decided to keep fit and have fun and put our boat in on the other side of the dams. We made it into Lake Winnipeg and began paddling toward the Red River when a huge thunderstorm started up and we had to pull onto the shore to get out of the lightning. Ginny and I walked down the shore to the nearest house where we found our exact location on the shoreline and met Mr. Morris. He showed us around his property which was over 100 years old and had an old cabin on it where he grew up. We talked with him for over an hour before the storm passed and we got back onto the water. The water was getting bigger by the time we left the shore on our way to Grand Beach. After paddling a few kilometers we decided to stop just short of Grand Beach because the waves were very big and we didn’t think we would be able to make it across the next big bay in time. We had a lot of fun swimming and laughing in the water while we waited about an hour for Glen to arrive at the park we had stopped at. To our delight the Manitoba Metis Federation in Grand Marais had heard we were coming and decided to treat us to dinner and some showers. We arrived at Grand Marais around 7pm and had a great meal and then enjoyed music played by Doc and Miriam. The first 4 songs ended up being the ones that Jeremy sings all the time, except now we know how the real tune goes. We were up a little later than we were used to, but it felt good to meet friendly Manitobans who were eager to hear about our journey.

DAY 21 June 21, 2005
Pointe Du Bois
by Chris McLeod

Today we got up bright and early. Everyone seemed to be feeling better after a good night of rest, and we prepared ourselves for a long, hard day of paddling. Someone got the bright idea to have us paddle two days worth of paddling in one day to make some ground, so we were up around 5am an on the water around 630. We had a lot of fun, and definitely enjoyed paddling down the fast current of the Winnipeg River. We saw our first bears of the trip, 3 cubs running down the river! I’ve been watching for them every single day! Today we crossed over the border into Manitoba and have already noticed the difference in mosquitoes. They’re bigger and meaner and like to swarm. We’ve also been a little concerned about tornadoes seeing as several have touched down in Manitoba and we’d like to try and avoid paddling into one, although I’m sure we could probably paddle at the same speed as the tornado and thus safely stay inside its eye. We made it to our campsite in fairly good time and managed to even have a bit of a campfire before bed. We made about 80ish km today so we’re a little tired, but we feel good about the distance we made up.

DAY 20 June 20, 2005
Whitedog Dam
by Jeremy Brown

Up at 5:30am. Grumpy morning for everyone! Ginny and Alison said there was no point of me attaching my foam butt-pad to my bag because it wasn’t going to float anyway. I said save it as I tossed my bag into the lake – it floated. Little did we know this would be a rather ironic moment for the day ahead. We set out at 7am to meet Glen and Chris at the Whitedog Dam just a 1 hour paddle down the river. Shortly after departure Angela lost her paddle and jumped in to get it just to cool off. The day before, a pilot at a Minaki Marina told us about 2 sets of rapids that were not on the map. The first he told us to watch for and how to go through them and the second set he said for us not to worry about. The first set we shot through easily. As we came to the second set “the easy ones” we could see a lot of white frothing up so we decided to go to shore on river right. Angela and I scouted the rapid after crashing through the bush. There was no portage around it. The rapids were by far the largest we have seen and will see on the whole trip. They were over 100m wide and 200+m long with several bus sized holes and 10+ft standing waves – Huge water! We later found out these rapids were created by the large water fluctuation of opening the power dam just 3km down stream. We decided to line along the side of the rapids because there was no portage and the shooting the rapids was out of the question. As we lined the boat full of our gear, the current caught a little too much of our heavy 30’ canoe and then the river had control. As all of us stood on shore, all we could do was watch as the rapids swallowed our canoe and gear. There were several large eddies along the shore where we collected our gear as Angela and Alison hiked and swam along the river out to the road to tell Glen and Chris and to get the other canoe. We started collecting our gear as it floated by. The rest of the day was collecting gear, we even retrieved our axe. Glen and Chris had already noticed our gear floating down the river without us. Thanks to Chris, he saved our ass. As we dried out the gear at the dam, an employee came and informed us that only about 2 canoes a year paddled this route and that several people had died in those rapids. We decided to camp at a campsite (a.k.a. a party pit) at the dam and James, a Whitedog resident stopped by with some fresh walleye. After this day, Rubecka decided she would be better suited to ground support.

DAY 19 June 19, 2005
Roughrock Lake
by Jeremy Brown

Up at 5am to pack up from the hotel. Although we had a day off its still hard to get up. Breakfast from Timmy Ho’s then off to the landing for 7am. Put in below the dam in Kenora near Old Fort Island. Chris had been feeling sick. We would have to be stopping at shore every 5 minutes if Chris came along, so he decided to stay and meet up with us at Whitedog Dam. Headed out on the water by 7:10am. Paddled for 1.5 hours when all of a sudden the sky turned black and thunder rocked the air. We paddled hard to the east shore for shelter. We found an abandoned cabin for shelter. We hung for 2 hours until the sky cleared and then off again. The Dalls Reservoir – Breaked at the sweat lodge to check it out. Had lunch at Silver Point. I constructed a makeshift sail because the wind was at our back, but of course by the time I was finished the wind had died. Stopped at the marina under the bridge for a break. The owner/pilot mentioned that there were two sets of rapids – the first he spent 10 minutes explaining to me, but he only said the second rapid was ok and not to worry about it too much. Canoed onto rock island on Roughrock Lake. The sunset was great. Rube went fishing for a bit. I heard her laughing so I went to see what she caught. There she was in one tree trying to get a hook out, and she showed me where the other 2 hooks were stuck.

DAY 18 June 18, 2005
Kenora
by Chris McLeod

Rest, Resupply and Laundry day… nothing to report… so…… um….. you get to imagine what we would be doing. ;)

DAY 17 June 17, 2005
Kenora
by Chris McLeod

Well at least we got the opportunity to sleep in today. It seems that no matter how hard we try, 6am is the latest any of us can sleep in anymore. We dressed ourselves in our Voyageur attire and headed down to the park to get into our canoe. We paddled to the main marina with difficulty, thanks to the wonderful boaters who try their best to speed up and create as much wake a possible. We arrived at 12pm and were greeted by a crowed of people including Gary Lipinski and the mayor of Kenora. We once again had many questions and picture requests (Are you guys in a band? We got our picture taken with famous people!). After about 30 minutes we had lunch still dressed as Voyageurs, and then later that afternoon we were invited by Katelin's uncle John (she's our media specialist!) to visit his home which was used to find Fort St. Charles. It's a very old place full of all kinds of interesting history that he's done well to preserve. We traveled there by sailboat and felt like rock stars with the wind blowing through our hair and the sun bronzing our skin. After our visit we've basically had the rest of the evening to ourselves to eat and pick up some odds and ends that we've run out of along the way. Egad! The trips nearly over!

DAY 16 June 16, 2005
Lake of the Woods (Rope Island) and Kenora
by Chris McLeod

Didja miss me? Its been quite a couple of days. I'll try to quickly recap what we've been up to. It all started yesterday on Day 15 when we got up at 4am only to see that the Lake was rougher than when we went to bed, so we decided to sleep until 6 just to see if the waves would take notice of our stranded situation. When we woke up it was clear that the lake wasn't going to cooperate so we made the executive decision to cross the Big Traverse anyway, after all, we didn't get the big boat so we could wuss out all the time. It took us nearly 2 hours to cross 7km in really really big swells. Water sometimes came pouring in and since I was the lucky one in the front, I was soaked by the time we made it across. Once we got to Bigsby Island we made ourselves some breakfast and then paddled through calm waters for the rest of the day. The wonderful thing was that it was a beautiful bright and sunny day so we definitely took time to enjoy ourselves. We paddled about 60km by 8pm and decided to have a quick pizza dinner on someone's dock (Thanks!) and then continue paddling through the night to make up time. We arranged the canoe so there was room for 3 to sleep in the bottom of it and headed out at 10pm with the intention of taking paddling shifts all night long (Note* All Night Long is a great song written by Lionel Richie). Angela and Ginny slept first and Jeremy and I took control of the boat and we all paddled into a beautiful sunset. Soon we were navigating the 14,000 islands of Lake of the Woods only by moonlight. By the end of the night we managed to bring our total mileage to 88km in one day, on flat water. Jeremy, Alison and I ended up staying up the entire night and only slept when we decided to stop at 5am. We were extremely exhausted, but had successfully made up our distance and then some, AND had seen the sun rise twice in the same day. We woke up around 8am that same morning to a very hot day. We did as much cleaning and equipment prep at our campsite so we'd have less to do once we arrived in Kenora for our re-supply. We soon headed for Kenora which was about 30km away. It was a painful paddle to say the least, mostly because of the heat and our exhausted state, but we managed to make it to Kenora by 430pm just like we said we would. We re-supplied our food and gear within an hour or two at the dock to get that out of the way and then checked into our hotel…. Yes more hotels, but trust me, we definitely deserved it. We had dinner out on the town and then came back for an early rest. Tomorrow we have to get up and make our official arrival in Kenora, so that means its time for the corduroy pants again! YAY!

DAY 14 June 14, 2005
Lake of the Woods (Sable Island Area)
by Chris McLeod

Well we got up super early at 4am so we could try to beat the wind and waves on Lake of the Woods. We were on the water by 5am and paddled about 15km by 9am and then were winded in on a beach just north of Sable Island on the south east part of Lake of the Woods where we still are this evening. We've definitely benefited from the rest today. A little bit of sleep throughout the day and some good food should re-energize us for the paddle across the Big Traverse tomorrow. Hopefully the waves calm down enough overnight so that we're able to catch up on the time that we lost today. It looks like tomorrow will be another 4am wakeup (yes its still dark then) so we're going to brave the bugs and sleep under the tarps we have up keeping rain off us. Jeremy hasn't stopped looking for Voyageur artifacts this whole trip. One of them may be genuine, but apparently everything we see was used by the voyageurs he says. And now that I've read the Fort Francis newspaper I'm not so sure I believe him because he seems to make stuff up.. or maybe it really happened to him and we just weren't around. Its hard to tell, but keeps us quite entertained. I'm trying not to open up or use too much of my stuff because once again we're on a sandy beach and I believe I've already mentioned how I feel about sand getting into my gear. It would seem that we're becoming more desensitized to ticks these days (although slugs are slowly moving up to first place in Rubecka's bug book). Most of us just brush the ticks off without a fuss, but then there's Ginny. She had one on the back of her neck the other day in the canoe that Alison brushed off, and you might have thought that Ginny just broke her leg by the way she carried on about it. Now she does tick checks at least 10 times a day. HA!

DAY 13 June 13, 2005
Rainy River (Ron O'Connor's)
by Chris McLeod

Did I mention that yesterday we paddled just over 65km in about 7 hours? No? Well we did. And today we impressed ourselves by paddling over 60km again! That's the entire Rainy River in 2 days so I'd say we're making great time. We left the Manitou Mounds by 730 this morning and made it to Rainy River, 45km down river, by about 1230. We stopped there for a few hours to eat lunch and pick up a fishing license noticing once again that there were only 2 people in the town under 60 years of age. We soon left and paddled the remaining 18ish km to Ron O'Connors home at the very mouth of the Rainy River. Here we switched to our new, 500lb canoe that would help us take on Lake of The Woods which we could now see. Ron and his family cooked us a delicious meal and let us stay in their guest cabin, complete with a shower, an ideal place for us to camp out so that we could be ready for an early start on Lake of the Woods.

DAY 12 June 12, 2005
Rainy River (Manitou Mounds)
by Chris McLeod

An early morning at the Super 8. We beat the early rush for the continental breakfast by being up at 5am, our new usual wakeup time. We were on the water before 8am and paddled into a headwind down the Rainy River all the way to Emo where we stopped for lunch. The water on the river was sometimes bigger than what we had experienced so far out on Rainy Lake, but we managed to make good time by using the calmer Eddy's along the edges of the river where we were moving up to 13km/h with the help of the river current. In flat water we have no trouble keeping a speed of about 8km/h which is good considering that we planned to be moving an average of 6km/h. After leaving Emo we ran several rapids on our way to the Manitou Mounds, an interpretive centre about the First Nations burial mounds along the Rainy River. Unfortunately the centre is running low on funds and may close down, so stop by and check it out! We got to see our first Pelicans of the trip today; a big surprise for those who thought pelicans only lived in Florida. But the truth is that Pelicans live wherever people retire, and that is true for both Florida and Rainy River seeing as the average age is about 60!So we arrived at the mounds just after 6pm, they even stayed later to wait for us which was great, and we were given a personal 2 ½ hour orientation and tour. Definitely a great place to check out, very culturally and spiritually interesting. The Manitou First Nations even let us use their Elders Lodge for the night (on account of there being aggressive bears in the area - Jeremy claims that someone told him an 800lb bear took down a 1,200lb cow this week). We were able to use their cooking facilities and were allowed to stay in the round house, the ceremonial area of the lodge where celebrations and feasts take place. I'm hoping to see a bear tonight!

DAY 11 June 11, 2005
Fort Frances
by Chris McLeod

Well today was supposed to be a day off, but we ended up spending most of the day re-supplying and drying out our gear. We did some laundry in the evening and went to check out a 30 foot Voyageur canoe owned by our new friend Ray. He and his friend Terry spend a lot of time in and out of Fort Francis taking people on outdoor adventures and were very interested in our expedition. We were looking at Ray's canoe to take with us and use on the bigger water that we would encounter. We loved the boat, much wider, longer and flatter than our boat, and we could move around comfortably without falling out (an important feature). Luckily Ray was happy to let us use it, so once we get to Lake of the Woods we'll switch canoes and tackle some big water. So check out Terry's website www.mysticadventures.com if you have the urge to try something outdoorsy. Afterwards, Jeremy and I, having already done our laundry before the girls, got to go to the Super 8 Motel early. That's right, I said Super 8… c'mon we've been living in tents! There girls were a little bitter when they arrived some time later to see us waving to them from the hot tub where we had been for over an hour (Note * You should not stay in a hot tub for more than 5 minutes at a time, especially if you suffer from high blood pressure). After another quick steam bath we repacked our gear and are now getting to bed ready for an early start on the Rainy River.

DAY 10 June 10, 2005
Fort Frances
by Chris McLeod

Its convenient how the date is the same number as the day of the trip. It makes it easy to remember the date, bus as for the actual day of the week; I don't think any of us could tell you what it is. Today we paddled into Fort Francis dressed in our traditional Voyageur garb. Voyageurs must have invented shorts or something because I lost as least 20 pounds in sweat this afternoon paddling in thick corduroy pants. We were greeted by a good-size crowd who cheered us onto the beach. We were once again bombarded by questions a photographs; its exciting to see how interested so many people are in what we're doing and how we're doing it. After formal greetings from Lute Calder, President of the Sunset Metis, we had a quick shower and met at the Ukranian Hall where a feast had been prepared for us. There were lots of people there, and we even received a standing ovation. Several people took turn talking about the expedition including Tony Belcourt, Gary Lipinski, Glen Lipinski and our very own Jeremy Brown. After hanging out with all kinds of people and making some new friends we changed into some lean clothes and treated ourselves to some fun out on the town. Gary Lipinski was a great host for Jeremy and myself and the girls were treated equally well by Brent and Mary Calder.

DAY 9 June 9, 2005
Rainy Lake
by Chris McLeod

Guess who got stranded again today? Us! We made it about 3km from our campsite before we had to stop at another island which became our home for about 5 hours. Now the clever thing is that we stopped on the side of the island that was just a large rock covered in sharp lichen. (Don't know what lichen is? Take a trip to your local library, and while you're there flip through a Harry Potter novel.) The other side of our island, we discovered later, had a beautiful campsite with picnic tables, lots of room and his and hers outhouses. We decided to stay on our rock, so apparently that makes us suckers. Eventually, the wind died and we made a mad dash across South Rainy Lake where we soon arrived at Sand Point Island that evening. This was the groups first experience with sand. Having paddled a similar route before, I'm very familiar with sand and its troublesome nature. Now sand is a beautiful campsite, but I fear that my companions may not be heeding my warnings about sand. You see, as soon as one backpack gets put into the sand, we'll all have that same sand in our clothing, our sleeping bags, our hair and our food all the way to BATOCHE! It may seem funny, but just imagine getting that gritty sandy crunch in every bite, and waking up with your face in a thin layer of sand that gets breathed in with every breath. Now, imagine doing that for 43 more days. I think I just got goose bumps.
So that's it, early to bed tonight because we'll be getting to Fort Francis tomorrow evening, which actually means we can sleep in because we're already so close. Oh and before I forget I just want to give a shout out to all the motor boats who tried to flip us today. We'll be thinking of you.

DAY 8 June 8, 2005
Rainy Lake
by Chris McLeod

The Lac La Croix First Nations have helped us once again! They looked at our maps and after seeing the route we intended to take, shook their heads and gave us a brief tutorial on how to get somewhere quickly. Originally our route would have taken us over a day and a half, but the natives showed us a quicker route down the Namakan River that would only take us 3 hours. Who was reading these maps?! My guess is Jeremy, he must have gotten distracted by the pretty red line that marked the boundary waters and chosen that route instead. So we managed to paddle out into Namakan Lake only to get winded in on a small island with a little cabin on it. Did I mention it was raining again this morning? L We didn't intend to stay long, but ended up napping and hanging out there for several hours before the waves died down enough for us to jump back into the canoe. It's clear that the group has benefited from our stop in Lac La Croix. We needed the energy boost and had become quite disgruntled after all our portaging, it's amazing that nobody had their parents flown in by helicopter to EVAC them out. HA! I'm just kidding, but we did shake our fists at several of the portages even though we did pretend that some of them were quite fun. (Note * Portages with a giant canoe are NOT fun). So anyway, we made it out into Rainy Lake just in time for the wind to pick back up, so we ended up staying in an American National Park (Voyageur National Park?). On an American campsite everything is labeled so the Americans don't get confused and all the facilities (i.e. Industrial grill, Industrial bear box) are provided so that the Americans don't have to work to hard either. On our way here we traveled down a small creek where we came across a beaver dam. Now, we had to get out to pull the canoe over it, and I have to admit that I've never seen anyone so scared of beavers. Needless to say, we had to basically carry Amanda on our shoulders so her legs wouldn't get gnawed off by the beaver. And yes, the image you're picturing in your head is exactly what it looked like.

DAY 7 June 7, 2005
Lac la Croix First Nations Reserve
by Chris McLeod

Ok, listen up because I have a good story to tell today. We finally arrived in Lac La Croix, a little bit late, but we'll just blame that on the portages. We landed our canoe at the Lac La Croix First Nations Reserve and to our delight were greeted by nearly the entire community! Apparently 45 minutes before we arrived, Glen had been standing on the dock all by his lonesome. He was soon joined by the Chief of Lac La Croix Larry Jordain who gathered his community when he heard we would be arriving. The school was let out and the kids were shuttled down to the dock to meet us. We answered lots of questions and took a few pictures before we and our equipment were rushed to the new MNR building on the reserve where we were given a large room to stay in, showers to rid ourselves of body odor and a good meal to fill our bellies. It was wonderful how they welcomed us into their community and the way that they accommodated us in everyway possible, especially since they had no prior knowledge that we were planning on meeting Glen there. We did take advantage of the opportunity to dry out and clean up some of our gear using their facilities. We resupplied our food and equipment and the first nations even helped us to repair our canoe. They said that it was only natural since 200 years ago they had been the ones who showed us how to use a canoe, so it was only fitting that they be the ones to fix it for us now. Haha. We cleaned the bugs out of our clothes and only found two attached ticks, one for me and one for Alison. I bet you'll also be interested to know that this is only our seventh day of rain, and we've only been on the water for seven days so feel sorry for us because I bet its not raining in your computer room. ;)

DAY 6 June 6, 2005
Location unknown
by Amanda Strong

A 1 mile portage - We made it to the 1 mile, 1500m trek with our gear and then the canoe. 3 hours it took to complete the trek. We gathered all the gear in 1 go. We met many Americans who helped us with a few of the later portages. Many people like taking pictures of us from the lakes or when we meet them. They like to say interesting things suchas "You can pull a water skier behind that thing." Paul was a nice American, who helped us. Many of them are from Minnesota. These portages are killing our energy and time. We all have to stick together though in the bush. It is very will testing. Seeing the water @ the end is the best part. After the final portage of the day, we paddled 30 km in 3 hours / 4 hours it was pretty amazing but once again a long day. We had an awesome oatmeal with dried apples. We had Kuskus for lunch and the nice American offered me some sausage. I rejected out of respect to the group. This was a 13 hour day on the boat. We camped on AMERICAN SOIL tonight (illegal). Right by a huge waterfall. It was not a nice site but we were desperate. Jeremy made an awesome pizza dinner. Personal with bannock!! Really yummy! Tired; Sleepy; Must go to bed. I, and we, can't wait till we see communities and somewhere to CLEAN! And MORE FOOD!

DAY 5 June 5, 2005
Some Lake east of Lac Lacroix
by Alison Croft

The activity after dinner tonight was tick checking accompanied /w a lovely but hilarious conversation about tapeworms. We've quickly become comfortable /w each other. The way I can tell is several people can fart during dinner and it is completely acceptable. I personally still giggle. I can't help it.. farting will always be funny. That was a recap from dinner tonight. I've never been really worried about bugs until I met Jeremy. He keeps talking about ticks. I'd say 70% of conversations have the word "tick" in there somewhere. The conversation usually entails where you'll find them, how you'll find them and where you hope not to get them. The bugs are pretty intense @ night but we haven't seen nothing. By the time we get to Lake of the Woods we will be in the height of mosquito season accompanied by ticks, wood and deer. I know the deer ticks cause lyme disease which sounds awful, hence the tick checking after dinner. Todays paddling wasn't so bad, a little monotonous but that is only because I like to portage. We saw a storm off in the distance and got off the lake a little earlier (compared to last night). We as a group are getting stronger /w less and less lillydipping everyday. We are also getting more organized @ portage launches. Our group is very dynamic and strong. We have strengths in different areas. By the end we will all have learned something about ourselves from each other. I must stop writing as the bus are biting me and I can't hit them because I am writing. Well tonight I will fall asleep to the buzz of the mosquitos and the calling of the loons on an inlet on By Lake in Quetico Park. I can't believe they are paying me to do this. Following in the footsteps of my ancestors - Alison.

DAY 4 June 4, 2005
Cashay Bay Ranger Station
by Amanda Strong

Today was a very dreary day, no sun in sight. We arrived in Cashay Bay for lunch to check in. Janice was the lady @ the station. She talked a lot and has been in the bush for too long. She said that our boat was a mix of racing and the original voyageur canoe which is why it is so unstable. It's a hybrid. She took pictures of us. We paddled hard and drained through a few more portages. We bumped into many amercans who have no idea where Saskatchewan is and when we say 1600 Miles they get it. Chris, Jeremy and Angela lined a few rapids and lost control of the boat and it spun 180 degrees. Jeremy fell in the water off the canoe. We made really good time. Our canoe hit a huge hidden rock at 6km/hr. It punctured the bottom. The bottom has many scratches now. We will repair it in the Fort. Later in the aft. we were all getting tired and cranky. Jeremy thought he knew where campsites were. Needless to say, for at least an hour all we heard was theres a campsite around the next point. After being up @ 5 it didn't sit too well with some of us. To make things better it started to RAIN! We found the closest site, set up as soon as we could. Everything was soaked. @ Dinner, we tried to make KD and Chris spilled all the noodles when trying to strain them. We had to use our spaghetti for the next day and made really goopy gross mac and cheese. Too much cheese. Its dark, rainy and been a LONG DAY! Time for BED!

DAY 3 June 3, 2005
Bull Fort something or other (aka middle of no where)
by Ginny Gonneau

Well I know were on the boundary waters anyway. Well today we started off at Gunflint Lake. Amanda and I were on chef duty. Lets just say our breakfast didn't' go as speedy as planned. We made pancakes. Making pancakes on trail over a camp stove is an art we've yet to master but Ang thankfully knows what she's doing. Anyway enough about pancakes. Today we did portage after portage. Man was it tough. We tromped through swamp, lined rapids, carried the canoe across 500 meter long rocky stretches and got eaten alive! We met a few of Americans along the was as well . All in all today was a pretty eventful day. I'm really happy with how well we're doing for our 3rd day! On a side note as I'm writing I'm staring down at my poison ivy rashy covered hands - poor sight to look at. I sure do hope it clears up. We lucked out big time tonight. We got an awesome camping spot on this island. Best of all its bug free. Not to mention it has a thunder box (that's a Johnny on the spot for you city folks) with a pristine view of the lake. We had a lovely stir fry around the fire tonight. Right now I'm lying in my tent about ready to hit the sack before I collapse. Things are pretty quiet because everyone's nestled into their sleeping bags. Tomorrows another adventure. Gnite.

DAY 2 June 2, 2005
Gunflint Lake
by Chris McLeod

Our first day on some not so "great" Lakes! We moved slower than we would have liked to, but managed to easily reach our goal here on Gunflint Lake. There's no shortage of bugs out here. I myself have begun to keep track of the number of mosquitoes I kill by marking then down on the side of the canoe for all the other bugs to see. So far it hasn't worked, except maybe to provoke the rest of the bugs to attack us. We saw our first tick today and Ginny hasn't stopped talking about it. She's just really looking forward to getting a few. HA! We did a few portages today, it seems they were designed for tandem canoes so we had to walk knee deep in mud to get our giant canoe over the height of land. We also took some time to photograph ourselves standing illegally on U.S. territory, just don't tell them you knew about it, I swear we had to walk on it anyway. So now we're just about to sleep, but some of us may have to get up throughout the night now that we've had some of Rubecka's "Shepphards Mix". I'll tell you about it sometime.