Maps provided courtesy of Toporama which contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada. I have marked my route in blue and portages in red. 

I awoke to more cloudy skies. The rain had come and gone over the night, however. There was a bit of wind but not too bad when I departed the site around 10:00 AM after eating an oatmeal breakfast inside the bug shelter. I did not invite 2639 of my very best mosquito friends inside; they were hanging out on the mesh of my tent and I was ok with that. 

I snapped a shot of my buggy island home from the water as I began paddling southwest toward Kahshahpiwi Creek. 

I decided I would take it easy on my way back through the Poet Chain and Sturgeon Lake. I vowed to spend more time fishing and have at least one pickerel fish fry before leaving Quetico. I had been catching fish but was so intent on moving through the park that I didn't really take the time to whip up a fish dinner. Since I was covering ground (water) that I had previously experienced, I would try to smell a few more roses along the way. 

Riding down the swifts toward Kahshahpiwi Creek, I caught a few smallmouth bass all about a pound in size. When I reached the double rapids that would get me into the creek, I pulled up on shore and contemplated running the rapids. It was a CII ride that looked easily doable, but I was in my Kevlar Swift Prospector boat. The water levels were still high but had gone down somewhat since my first foray up the rapids 5 days earlier. I knew that there were some rocks at the bottom that I could potentially scrape on, so I decided to take the portage. Had I been in my Esquif Prospecteur, I definitely would have run it. Here is a shot of the area from further down the creek. 

I made the same decision to take the portage at the next set of rapids that dump into Shelley Lake. Again, they were very runnable in a river boat. Perhaps, I was being overly cautious, but I always find that is a good policy when travelling alone. 

I fished a bit below both sets but was not even getting hits. They just did not seem to be biting that day. 

I made my way back through Shelley Lake and out of the burned area. I thoroughly enjoyed the scenery of tree-clad rocky outcrops along the way.

While skirting the shore, I happened upon Mr. Turtle warming himself on a rock. I tried paddling closer to him, you know, Ninja-like, to get a good photo of him, but he slipped into the lake just as I clicked the picture.

I wondered if it was the same turtle that I saw on Day 5. If so, then he is fast! (Iocus. Dicam, sed serio.) He'd beat that ol' hare any day of the week! 

As I approached the top of Have A Smoke Portage, I caught a glimmer of blue sky amongst the dismal grey. It gave me the warm fuzzies; the last time I had seen some blue in the sky was three days earlier. "Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies." If you recognize this quote, then you are probably watch that fantastic film at least once a year like I do. 

I paddled away from Have A Smoke and took one last photo of Cutty Creek dumping into Keats Lake. Nice! 

Arrivng at Snake Falls, I was bound and determined to catch a pickerel (walleye) that I could turn into a shore lunch.

I spent a good 30 minutes there and came out with one dinky little walleye which I let go. I was not having the wonderful fishing action that I had enjoyed the first time at the falls five days earlier. On the bright side, I was on the scoreboard with a pickerel. 

While I was fishing at Snake Falls,three rental canoes, each containing three people, paddled past along the north shore of Keats Lake and made a beeline straight for Have A Smoke Portage. I hadn't seen anyone since talking to Jessie and Teresa 24 hours earlier. 

It made me contemplate what people like to do on a canoe trip. Personally, when I see a gorgeous or unique feature like Snake Falls, my first inclination would be to paddle over and check it out. I mean, how often does one see a location like that in pristine wilderness?! Did the group feel it wasn't worth the effort to do the five-minute paddle out of their way? Did they avoid coming over because I was there? Have they seen it before on a previous trip? Were they in a hurry to make distance (It was only midday)? I'm sure they had their reasons, but it was cause for speculation. À chacun son goût. Either way, I was happy that they paddled past for my own selfish reasons. It meant I had Snake Falls all to myself! 

Keats Lake was devoid of campers on my trip through it this time, as was the portage past Split Rock Falls. There was less push from the water approaching the take-out which was good news as it is fairly close to the top of the drop. 

Since I had no luck on my first time fishing below Split Rock, I didn't bother casting a line there. By that time, I had resigned myself to the fact that the darn things just weren't biting that day. 

Approaching the portage from Chatterton to Russell, it felt like Algonquin for a moment. I had caught up to two canoes ahead of me on the portage and I passed three other canoes full of young dudes on the lake; they were heading in the direction that I had just come from. Even though it was quite buggy, I took a break after taking out at the start of the trail to let the group ahead of me to complete it. Besides, I needed a bit of energy to tackle that short but steep portage. 

Emerging out onto Russell Lake at about 4:45 PM, I once again saw that many of the nice sites on the islands across from Chatterton Falls were occupied. There I was for a second time at Chatterton Falls on Russell Lake at the end of the day and was struggling to find a vacant site. Likewise, just like at the end of Day 2, the wind was up again on Russell Lake. The weather looked to be turning ugly again; it felt like rain. I was concerned that I would not find a vacant site without first crossing windy Russell Lake or getting wet, so I decided I'd better not investigate the trail next to Chatterton Falls like I originally had planned and just get to a campsite. I was happy that I at least paddled close to it on Day 2 to get a good look at it from the bottom. 

I moved between the two large islands in the centre of Russell Lake and saw that, indeed, every site was occupied. Emerging out to the north of the islands, I could see a rocky point that looked to be vacant. My map showed that there was a site at that location, but the problem was that I had a wide bay of whitecaps between me and that destination. I decided to go for it. Sure, there was a nasty wind coming from the west that would hit me broadside, but it wasn't unmanageable. I tacked to the northeast so the waves would hit behind me, and then back to the northwest into them; eventually, I neared my destination. I was happy that I had made that decision because, from the water, the site looked to be a gem! 

It ended up being one of my favourite sites of the trip. There was an amazing rock ledge at the front of the site where I could head-first dive into clear deep water. There was a perfect pairing of trees near the water's edge to hang my hammock. The firepit was up on a ledge high off the water allowing the wind to pass through and blow away the many mosquitos that had been plaguing me for the last few days. It was under a canopy of beautiful red pines. There was no need for my bug shelter.  To top it all off, I had views east, south, and west across gorgeous Russell Lake. 

By 7 PM I was sitting next to a fire and enjoying a nice meal with minimal intrusion from the skeeters. The wind was still blowing but considerably less than it was a couple of hours earlier.