Typically, those sunrises casting reddish hues meant some interesting weather for the day. Indeed, the weather feature on my ZOLEO device was telling me I'd be getting wet later in the day. It was also predicting the possibility of storms. 

As I paddled south on McEwen Lake away from the site, I turned to snap a final departing shot of my island home.  What a gorgeous little island! 

I paddled past the large island in the middle of the southern bay on McEwen, trolling along the way. I got a hold of something tiny and as I was reeling it in and getting it closer to the boat, I felt a formidable jerk on the line. I kept reeling and saw that I had a massive pike wrapped around the tiny smallmouth bass that had taken my bait. With a mighty head thrust, the pike ripped off the bass from my lure and dived into the depths of the water. Always happy to serve breakfast to a pike.

The southern tip of McEwen got shallow and weedy. I made a couple of casts and got into some bass on the smallish size. The weeds made it troublesome, so I didn't stay long. Oddly, without any clouds in sight, I could hear distant rumblings of thunder. It was storming somewhere. 

The paddle up McEwen Creek was much prettier than I had expected. It was wide with lofty ridges along its banks, very scenic. 

By 10:00 AM I saw that I was nearing my first portage on my map. It showed a 348-meter carry on my left (river-right). I could hear the gurgles of a rapid ahead just past a large mound of rock. There looked to be an obvious take-out to a trail just before the rock.

Here is a more direct look at it. Tell me that isn't a trail?!?

I mean, it looked like a trail and it was EXACTLY where the portage was marked on my map...and remember, there are no portage signs in Quetico. 

So, I tied my boat to a tree because it was too steep to pull it ashore and unloaded everything. I threw on my heavy canoe pack, grabbed my paddle, water bottle, fishing rod, etc., and started humping it up the trail. After 30 meters, the trail got narrower and had a bunch of blowdowns on it. Hmmm. Well, this was the first portage south of McEwen; perhaps, the route from McEwen into Louisa was much less traveled than I thought. 

I bushwhacked through and saw that the faint trail led down the back of that rock mound into a swamp. I followed. For the next hundred meters or so, I was knee-deep in loon $#!t. It was very tough going, yet I could still see a trail. I could even see boot marks! Someone had been through here this year. The trail finally made its way back toward the woods and up the slope and then just disappeared into crazy thick forest on the steep bank of that rock mound. What the &^$%? Were all nine portages to Fauquier Lake going to be like this?! 

This couldn't be right! I took off my pack and dropped my gear and humped it back through the forest above the swamp to see if I missed something. I bushwhacked through the thick trees all the way back to my boat. Nothing. I went back through the forest and the loon $#!t (again!) to my pack to double-check I hadn't missed anything. Nothing, again! 

My map case was attached to the back of my pack. I took it out and pulled out the Chrismar map to see if there was anything different from my marked-up topos. Lo and behold, the Chrismar map showed that there was a 100-meter portage on the opposite side of the creek. There was nothing about a 348-meter carry on the side I was on! Grrrrrrr! I guessed that I marked up my topos of this part of my route based on the Paddle Planner website information. 

I humped my heavy pack and gear back through the 100 meters of knee-deep loon $#!t, cursing the entire way. I sounded like Joe Pesci's character in Home Alone. I must have been on an old trail from days of yore, or just a bloody game trail. Grrrrr! Lesson learned? Check all route sources and mark any discrepancies on the map rather than just relying on one source alone. Grrrrr! I was getting tired already and going nowhere! 

Once back, I reloaded my boat, got in, and paddled up the creek. I saw the obvious portage on my right, MUCH closer to the rapids. 45 minutes of blood, sweat, tears! Grrrrrr., again! And as if the canoe-tripping gods couldn't add more insult to injury, I saw that the rapids were a narrow and shallow drop in the creek that I could easily wade up! No portage was even necessary, after all. Hah! All I could do was laugh at my foolishness by that point. 

I waded up the rapids. 

From there, it was a short paddle through a pond and then I had to take out again to portage past a much larger drop on my left. My map showed that the trail was only 50 meters but it was at least 100. It was a marginally steep climb to the right of a log-chocked, rocky drop in McEwen Creek. 

There were some chest-high logs across the trail that I had to negotiate; however, the trickiest part of the carry was the put-in off of a steep sloping rock that also had some dead trees that had fallen across it. 

The view paddling out into Glacier Lake was beautiful. 

What a gorgeous lake! And I only caught the northernmost section of it as I paddled across the north shore en route to my next portage. I would have liked to stay there but it was way too early to call it a day at 11:15 AM. 

At the portage landing, I filtered some more water and had a snack before soldiering on. The portage was short but very wet and mucky. Parts of the creek were washing across the trail. 

The view from the put-in was drastically different. Above Glacier Lake, McEwen Creek was a marshy wetlands. 

I quite enjoy paddling through wetlands as long as there is enough water. I had plenty. 

The enjoyment was short-lived, however; I was taking out again ten minutes later to take another very short portage that got me into Turn Lake. 

It was a quick paddle to the west end of Turn Lake where I saw the creek dumping into Turn Lake from the south. The landing area for the portage was on a bed of rocks where the stream was gurgling through it. 

I was not alone at the take-out. A snapping turtle was exposed on the rocks there. It was just sitting there on the open rocks and not moving at all. Snapping turtles are listed as a Species of Special Concern in Quetico. I looked at this fellow for a moment or two and by the way it was sitting on the rocks, I was afraid that it might be dead. I then thought it might be laying eggs for a second, but the location didn't seem right, and as far as I knew, they lay eggs earlier in the season. I thought that if it were, indeed, dead, I should report it to the park in case they were monitoring such things. So, I gingerly walked over to it and gently nudged a rock next to it. Its tail moved ever so slightly! Oh, good! It was alive. I immediately moved away so as not to stress it out further and let it do its turtle thing. I guessed it was just chilling and sunning itself on the rocks. Thank you, Captain Turtle, for sharing your presence and I am so sorry to have bothered you. I was just a little worried about you.

The 70-meter portage had a steep incline at the outset but was finished before I knew it. 

I put in on a small unnamed lake and was across it on its southwestern side in a matter of minutes. To get to Edge Lake from there, I needed to negotiate a small creek and a beaver dam. There was a portage on my right which was 40 meters in length, but I just waded up the creek and dragged my canoe over the dam. Much easier. Here is a shot looking back at the creek from the top of the dam.  

As I was lifting over the dam, I heard a thunderclap behind me. It was just after 1:00 PM and just as my satellite device had earlier predicted, afternoon thunderstorms were coming in. The thunder was in the distance and I felt that I could get across Edge Lake before anything nasty blew in, so I soldiered on. My goal for the day was Fauquier Lake, and I would do my best, but Mother Nature might have had other plans for my destination. 

Paddling through a narrows and emerging into the main part of Edge Lake, I was very pleased with my surroundings. What a pretty lake! Again, at this point, I have to mention that I was the only one around. I had not seen a soul since trying to find the pictographs on Kawnipi Lake two days earlier, and that was another canoe in the distance. I was probably the only human between Agnes and Kawnipi Lakes at that moment in time. This part of the park seemed relatively less travelled. This may have had to do with the 15 portages between the two lakes. For me, however, this was exactly what I was looking for -- incredibly gorgeous scenery all to myself. I was loving it! 

Toward the far side of Edge Lake, I realized I was making pretty good progress for the day, and felt I should smell a few roses, depsite the distant rumblings of thunder. I cast out a line and began trolling using a medium-depth crankbait. Two paddle strokes. Bam! 2 lb smallmouth bass. Cool! Let him go. Couple of paddle strokes. Bam! 3 lb smallie! Wow! Rinse. Repeat. Lather. This went on about 8 times in a row. 

I wasn't sure if I happened to be just in the right part of the lake where a school was hanging out or if the entire lake was teeming with good-sized smallmouth bass, but it was amazing. And fighters they were! Bass aren't my favourite fish to eat, but they certainly are fun to catch. Each fish was in the 2-3 lb range. Good times! Quetico rocks! 

As I was fishing, there were two loons on the lake that were a little loonie. They were half-flying, half-swimming and racing each other up and down the lake. After the third run past my canoe, I tried filming them. I think one got a little tired on the run and gave up the race.

A couple of claps seemed a little louder. Hmmm. It was moving my way, so I put away my rod and moved toward the portage into Rod Lake at the south end of Edge Lake. 

The trail was on my right and went up over a bluff past a shallow, rocky drop in the creek between the two lakes. 

It was an easy enough carry, but the end of the trail was covered in poison ivy. In fact, I had noticed quite a bit of it throughout the day and was getting a little paranoid about it. Perhaps, this was another reason this route was less travelled; there seemed to be a poop-ton of the nasty plant in the area. Despite the itch to blast through the portage, I gingerly carried my gear, carefully placing my steps to avoid any contact. It's always better not to make any rash decisions. I REALLY didn't want to have poison ivy issues halfway through a 10 to 12-day trip! (Don't worry in the end, I was vine.)

I made it through Rod Lake without the storm catching up to me, but by the time I reached the creek at the south end of Rod Lake, it began raining and the thunder was getting louder. I pulled over to the side on some rocks for a bit, expecting the storm to blow in, but after 5 minutes or so it stopped raining. It was weird. I could hear the thunder but didn't see any lightning and it looked like it might clear up. I assumed the storm missed me, so I continued up the creek toward Dumas Lake. 

When I reached the short portage that would get me to Dumas Lake, it was getting dark again. Jeesh! Come on skies, make up your mind! I carried my gear and canoe across the 40-meter portage (more poison ivy) and waited at the put-in for the storm to finally arrive. Again, I was prepared to hunker down, but it spit a little and appeared to miss me again to the northeast. 

I made a couple of quick lunch wraps while waiting to see what the heck the weather was going to do. 

After another 10-minutes, it seemed to be clearing up again, so I got in the boat and continued up the creek into Dumas Lake. 

When I got to the main part of the lake, fickle Mother Nature was at it again. More dark clouds came in. I skirted the northern shore ready to pop off of the water if some lightning came. 

Then, finally, BOOM! I saw the flash and heard the clap less than two seconds later. That was close! I immediately pulled up on some rocks, tied my boat to a tree, and scampered up a slope about forty feet from the shore. It began hammering rain. 

It was inevitable. It had been incredibly humid over the last two days and something had to give. I was hoping it would be a quick one, but it seemed more and more that it was a larger system with a series of storm cells. It was 3:30 PM at that point, and I thought I'd just better find a site and set up before anything even nastier that might come later.  

I was up on the shore for about twenty minutes when it looked like the brunt of the storm cell had passed. The island in the middle of the bay that you see in the photo above was supposed to have a campsite. So, I got back to my boat, bailed out the rainwater, and paddled over to the island. It looked like it once might have been a site, but from the water, it looked like it hadn't been used in a long time. There was quite a bit of deadfall on it. I moved on; I thought it would be too much work to clean it up and not the best choice to be on an exposed island in the middle of a nasty storm.  

I got to the portage and saw another thunderhead moving in. It was good that I was off the water. It would be the longest and trickiest portage of the day. I took out to the right of a narrow and steep creek flowing from Fauquier Lake into Dumas Lake. The trail went up over a ridge. There were a couple of large steps and a bit of tenuous footing on the wet trail in the rain. Again, more poison ivy. The creek was pretty, however. 

By the time I was walking back for my second load, the rain clouds had once again passed and the sun came out momentarily. The weather was certainly dynamic that day. 

The put-in at the Fauquier end was not a fun one. I had to get through about 20 meters of loon$#!t to access the water which was too shallow to paddle and required some knee-deep wading for another 20 meters.

It was after 5:00 PM by the time I paddled out onto Fauquier Lake. I was tired and ready to make camp. There were a couple of sites marked on my map. The first was close to the put-in on the western shore of the northeastern bay of the lake, but it looked a little dark and depressing, so I moved on. I felt that I had worked too hard that day to settle for a crappy campsite. 

Emerging from that northeastern bay, I paddled the northern shore to inspect the next site marked on my map at a point on that shore. My hopes were high, but again, I was disappointed. It looked to be a bushy, bug-ridden area. 

The next one was across the central bay of the lake on a point on the southern shore. I could see a couple of rocks that once looked like a firepit, but it was on a narrow strip of rock with no clearing behind it. The dense matchstick trees there left no room for even one tent. It looked like a spot for shore lunches only. 

There was one last option at the far northwestern bay of the lake, but it was out of the way and another storm cell was moving in. I could hear more thunder. I was getting worried about finding a viable place to camp on this lake. Just around the corner from where I was, I could see a nice sloping rock face and a tiny island in the southeastern bay of the lake near the next portage out of the lake. I paddled over and investigated the area and saw that there were no campsites anywhere. The island was littered with deadfall and the sloping rockface on the eastern shore was way too steep for a tent pad. The good news was that I was hammocking and there were a couple of tree that I could make that sloping rock work. It was nearly 6 PM and storm clouds were moving in. I would make that sloping rock my home for the night.  It was a bit exposed and I just hoped I wouldn't get the brunt of the storm.

In the end, it all worked out.. I hung my hammock on the slope but had to be careful that anything under it wouldn't roll down the slope and into the lake.  The storm cell blew by me just to the south and I got away with only a couple of drops of rain. I hung up a line to air out and dry some wet clothes. I cobbled a tiny firepit together on a part of the rock face that was relatively flat and made dinner. It turned out to be quite a nice and pleasant evening.