1999/11 Family and BWCA trip - Perent Lake |
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Perent Lake |
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Morning was surprisingly warm and sunny, but the wind was a howling nor’wester, with big waves coming in 
to our shore. Launching the kayak was a struggle. We were headed for a day trip to the Perent River, on the northwest corner of the lake. It was only a five mile trip, but we were barely making headway into shoulder-high waves, with the occasional one breaking over the bow. We had our spray skirt covering our laps, which stopped us from taking on too much water.
We found a tiny island for lunch out of the wind, and rejoiced in the sunshine and warmth, but then we were back on the lake battling the waves until we got to the river. This also has rapids, but not as dangerous. We’d hoped to travel down the river a ways and then come back up, but after we’d looked at the speed of the current, we settled for a hike along the portage. Our trip back to our island was pure pleasure with the wind carrying us along with just an occasional paddle stroke to keep us straight. We had to struggle to get a fire going in the wind, but 
enjoyed our bratwurst eventually.
Monday was calmer and sunny. We’d intended staying until Tuesday, but I was worried about how long it would take us to get back up Hog Creek against the current, especially as we had some downed trees to negotiate. So, we took it easy that morning and planned to head back in the afternoon. Our tent was in the shade, which was cold, and in the wind, but there was a spot on the south side of a big rock that was in the sun and out of the wind, so that’s where we had brunch and a bath and a sunbathe. The water was amazingly cold!
We’d run out of drinking water, so I had to take some from the lake and filter it to get rid of the giardia and other nasty stuff. This worked OK but the lake water was a deep yellow colour from the tannin in the water, rather like Auntie Vera’s tea. It looked awful and tasted OK, but I had the sense to serve it up to Sandie in tea before I let her see the container!
Eventually, we had to leave, repacked the kayak, and headed back across the lake towards Hog Creek. It turned out that the current wasn’t too bad, but steering the kayak through all those tight bends took a long time. We portaged around the rapid in a more orderly fashion this time.
I’d built this yoke for the kayak that allowed me to hoist it onto my shoulders and carry it upside down, but when I tried to use it here I couldn’t get it off the ground! The portage was knee deep in running water and when I turned the kayak upside down, the bow had filled with water. Sandie rescued me and lifted it so the water would drain: then all was OK.
We repacked everything at the top of the rapid and paddled back to where the truck was waiting. We’d carried everything back up to the truck and started the packing process before we realized that the truck’s battery was dead and we weren’t going anywhere. We didn’t expect much help as we hadn’t seen a soul since Saturday. I have an emergency strobe light so I set that out on the road in case somebody came by, but this is a dead-end road in a wilderness, and no one came by in 12 hours. We set up camp where we were, cooked dinner, and went to bed.
I set off hiking before dawn, hoping to find somebody camping at the end of the road at Kawishiwi Lake. The alternative was a 30 mile walk into Isabella, which would have taken most of the day. Luckily, I found a fisherman at Kawishiwi and persuaded him to drive me back to Hog Creek and jump-start the truck.
We were almost out of stove fuel, so we drove to a restaurant at Silver Bay on the shores of Lake Superior for an enormous breakfast. Then we stopped off at the Agate Shop at Beaver River, coming away with a big slice of red Binghamite, and a beautiful piece of pink Thomsonite, one of the rarest rocks in Minnesota, just shows up occasionally on a single beach near Little Marais.
Gooseberry Falls turned out to be a mass of golden colour from the birches and maples, set against a dark blue-green backdrop of pines and spruces. The state’s recently done a good job of rebuilding most of the park’s roads and trails, keeping the stone walls from the 1930s, but moving the visitors centre from the wrong side of the road, and building a couple of unobtrusive bridges over the river. This is certainly an improvement over fording the river thigh deep in icy water.
There was enough water for all three layers of waterfalls to be roaring, almost as good as in the spring. We were home in time for dinner, pleased with four glorious days of weather, precious commodities at this time of year. We’d been really lucky. If I hadn’t been running the Marathon the previous weekend, we’d have been in the BWCAW then instead and hit snow, frost, and sleet.