Officially, we traveled 70.5 miles on our journey into the wilderness and thanks to Max, the following is a brief diary of each day:

Day 1:

Traveled 10.5 miles.  4 portages totaling 300 rods with 160 rods being the longest.

Lunch at Devils Cascade, hot dogs.  Camped on East Loon Lake.  Dinner:  Ham and baked potatoes.  Saw 3 bald eagles.  Josh and Mr. Brunton fell out of canoe.  Late morning rain for 1.5 hours.  Josh lost shoe in "muck," Max gave his spare shoes to Josh.  First drink of fresh lake water.  Had trouble locating camp sites.  Mr. Maude and Josh paddled in different direction looking for camp sites.  Lost sight of them, rest of group finally found a good camp site and Jim, Max, Neil and Joey went swimming in the lake and across to adjacent island.  Josh and Mr. Maude show up.  Hang first "bear bag" in tree.

Day 2:

Traveled 6 miles.  4 portages totaling 397 rods with 173 being the longest and also a 120 rodder.

Heard first loon in the morning.  Scrambled eggs, hashbrowns and bacon for breakfast.  Thunderstorms start in the morning right after leave camp and start paddling.  "long-ass" portage (172 rods) right away and in the rain.  Wait at the end of the portage for rain to clear-up.  RAIN-RAIN-RAIN on and off thru out the day.  Stop about 3:00 on South Lake for lunch.  Rain, wait, start lunch, rain again, wait, etc. for an hour or so.  Finally able to eat lunch - tortilla, salami and cheese and candy bites.  Decision to be made:  We are facing a 120 rod portage (all uphill) to Steep Lake and there is only one designated campsite on the end of the portage, so do we stay here and camp for the night and do a long uphill portage first thing in the morning or do we take our chances and go for it now.  The boys voted and decided to go for it.  Proved to be a good decision as we got the portage out of the way and the campsite was empty and a fairly good one.  Joey got 2 leeches on his foot. Finally made camp about 6:30.  Had steak and mashed potatoes for dinner.  Campfire and Mad-Libs.  Heard beaver tale thumping the water during the night.

Day 3:

Traveled 18.5 miles.  8 portages totaling 624 rods with 200 and 120 rods being the longest.

Because of the rain the previous 2 days we figured we were about a half a day behind where we wanted to be.  Fresh scrambled eggs and sausage for breakfast.  The boys decided to "go for it" today and get to where we planned to set up a base camp for 2 or 3 nights.  Leave Steep Lake and there is NO rain.  Portaged to Eugene Lake and ran into first beaver dam and beaver house.  Had lunch mid-afternoon on Pocket Lake - Peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches with fruit bars.  Entered Lac La Croix late afternoon.  Got to Fish Stake Narrows around 5:00pm and Mr. Brunton asked if we wanted to make camp in this area as we were still a good 3 miles from our targeted goal.  The boys decided to press on and when we got down to the Tiger Bay area where we wanted to set up a base camp we found all the camp sites taken.  It was now around 7:00pm.  We remembered passing a campsite that was empty just south of Fish Stake Narrows and just across the Lac La Croix from Canada and the pictographs on the bluffs.  We back tracked about 2 miles and fortunately the campsite was empty.  In hindsight this was a blessing in disguise as this was a fabulous campsite and we decided to stay there for the next 3 nights.  NO RAIN all day.  Had chicken and rice for dinner.  Put bear bag up in the dark.  Every one beat and went to bed early

Day 4:

No traveling.  Relaxation day.  Slept late, stayed at camp and goofed off.  Swam, swamped canoes and had canoe wars, played backgammon and cards.  Neil and Joey made homemade fishing rods and went fishing in the afternoon, they paddled about 2.5 miles and portaged to an isolated lake.  They caught a dead fish!  Pancakes and bacon for breakfast.  Tortilla and salami for lunch and Lasagna for dinner.  Had a great campfire, played Mad-Libs, and then went and laid on the rocks and watched the sky.  Great stars, saw satellites, milky way, shooting stars and even an exploding star or something - a super nova?  Great, relaxing day.

Day 5:

Traveled 18 miles.  4 portages totaling 170 rods with the longest being 80 rods.

Slept late (8:00 am), French toast and bacon for breakfast.  Going to take a day trip to Curtain and Rebecca Falls.  Boys goofed around in the morning and got a late morning start, which we would later regret.  Since we were not taking our gear, we decided to take only 3 canoes and have 3 boys in 2 of the canoes.  We traveled down Lac La Croix to Bottle Portage where we took our first footstep into Canada.  Paddled along the US-Canada border to Curtain Falls.  Fantastic falls.  Had lunch there of Beef Jerky.  Paddled back and went to Rebecca Falls in Canada.  Max and Josh did their first canoe portage.  Josh fall out of the canoe after getting in at the end of the portage.  Visit, Rebecca Falls, which is like a Class 10 rapids, totally awesome.  Mr. Brunton tells Andrew, Max and Jim to back paddle into the tail end of the rapids and he'll take their picture as if they were shooting the rapids in a canoe.  Andrew, Max and Jim back paddle in and then get caught in the back water and start to get sucked into the rapids.  Panic sets in -- we thought this was it and we were going to die in a Class 10 rapid -- but Andrew keeps his cool and gets the canoe near a large rock and yells "Jump for the rock" Max and Jim jump for the rock as Andrew paddles the canoe up onto the rock.  Max rips big toenail off but is safely on shore.  Hope Mr. Brunton got good pictures.  Max, Andrew and Jim make fun of fear factor for next hour.  Spent the next few hours paddling the Namakan River and Mc Aree Lake in Canada.  Mr. Brunton tells us all that we are all illegal immigrants in Canada and could be jailed or "executed" if caught.  It's getting later in the afternoon and the wind is picking up and no matter which direction we are paddling it seems we are going into the wind.  Finally do last 2 portages in Canada and heading back to Lac La Croix and the US, at least now we are legal as we are in open Canadian waters that connect to US waters.  Lac La Croix is really rough with white caps and waves breaking over our bows.  Joey and Mr. Brunton get caught cross wind and both leaning the wrong way and tip over.  Josh laughs and feels relieved that he is not the only one falling out.  Now we wish we stated earlier as the winds are really strong.  We fight the wind for 2 hours and finally get to camp.  Had Shepherd's pie for dinner.  Played some Mad-Libs, watched some stars and went to bed early.

Day 6:

Traveled 8.0 miles.  2 portages totaling 89 rods.  Slept late.  Pancakes and bacon for breakfast.  Traveled south down Lac La Croix to Boulder Bay, portaged to Lake Agnes.  Find nice campsite on Lake Agnes in early afternoon just as starts raining.  Set up camp and tents in rain.  Boys take a 2 to 3 hour nap.  Mr. Brunton finds moose bones near latrine area.  Boys take a short hike with Mr. Maude at dusk hoping to maybe see some wildlife come down to lake.  Only see carcass of a large carp dragged up on the rocks.  Speculate moose was probably killed by pack of wolves.  Watch beautiful sunset from camp, fool Josh into thinking we were watching the sun rise.  Chili Mac with beef for dinner.  Sit around campfire.

Day 7:

Traveled 9.5 miles.  5 portages totaling 377 rods with the longest being the last at 160 rods.  Biscuits and sausage gravy and hash browns for breakfast.  Seemed to take forever to break camp and pack up.  Finally started paddling across Lake Agnes just after 12 noon.  Outfitter is to pick us up around 3:30pm.  From Lake Agnes took Nina Moose River to Nina Moose Lake.  Hitting Nina Moose Lake was like running into a wind tunnel.  What should have taken a half hour took well over an hour to paddle across?  Andrew and Max got turned sideways and got stuck in the wind,  took forever to get straightened out.  Andrew and Max go crazy into "mental state of mind," harsh winds forever!!  Some nice campers on the lake waved them over and Max and Andrew take a break at their camp and talk baseball, they were Twins fans!  Andrew and Max rearrange gear to put more weight in front and take off again and follow shore line.  Finally they beat mother nature and enter the home stretch along the Moose River.  Skipped lunch, as we were over an hour late in getting to the take-out point.  The guy from the outfitter that picked us up had a cooler of cold pop, that was like heaven.

Steak dinner that night at the Ely Steak House thanks to Mr. Brunton.

One rod is a length of a canoe, 1 rod = 16 ft.

Some notable quotes during the trip:

BANANA BREAD?!" - Andrew

Next year, Wallies new gear" - Mr. Maude

Y'all" - Joey

Why does everything happen to me?" - Josh

Here comes the sun... " - Max

I can take both of you!" - Jim

We're gonna have a ho-ho eating contest when we get back!" - Neil

Here's a new man law........." - Mr. Brunton (he had many new man-laws for us)

My blisters opened back up!" - Max and Jim

Smoke on the water" - Neil

"Good Morning star shine" - Max

You're such a Northerner!" - Joey

We're from the USA!" - Josh while illegally paddling thru Canada.

Tra-la-la" - Neil

STROKE-STROKE-STOKE!" - Everyone

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