Ever since I was a kid growing up in northern Wisconsin, I wanted to go on an overnight canoe trip, and it has been my dream to canoe the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota. When we moved to Alaska, one of my friends and I laughingly said I'd have to fly down and we'd canoe the Boundary Waters together. While Alaska is a long ways from Minnesota, I am pretty sure my recent canoe trip with my son's Boy Scout troop had some things in common with that trip I've dreamed of all my life. And now that I've experienced carrying 4 canoes, 1 kayak and 3 days of supplies over 7 portages, I no longer dream of doing it again! But I get ahead of myself. Here's our adventure:
We met at 8:30 on a Friday morning, loaded up a couple pickup trucks and headed out. No trip from Homer is complete without a stop at Fred Meyers in Soldotna for a potty break and to pick up last minute supplies or food, so we battled summer crowds and then we were back on the road.
In Sterling just past the elementary school there is a turnoff marked by a brown recreation sign. We turned down that road and drove the gravel for 45 minutes to the Swan Lakes trailhead. Once there, the fun began. We unloaded all the gear, canoes and kayak and carried everything 150 or so yards down to the first lake. Supplies were divvied up between the canoes, with the one 17-footer getting the heaviest load. Supplies were bungied and tied in, life preservers secured and we shoved off.
The scoutmaster had been on this route a couple times before and he said there was a narrow stream that led to the next lake, but we might have to get out and drag the canoe through some places if it was too shallow. He didn't think his 17-foot canoe would make it through. Denver and I opted to portage with our canoe and his while the rest of the group paddled through. Just as we pulled out, a group with 4 canoes was heading down the trail towards us, so it was a mess jockeying around each other. Denver and I had our backpacking packs on full of gear and were trying to carry the canoe too. It was a recipe for failure. A kind man in the other group offered to finish carrying Denver's end of the canoe the rest of the way, and Denver carried his gear to the end they were putting in at. By that point I was hot, sweaty, exhausted and dreading the rest of the portages. The rest of the paddlers were waiting for us, having made it through the stream with no problems.
We got our gear loaded up again and set off. Less than 5 minutes later it seemed we spotted the
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Soon we got into our routine of put in, paddle, take-out, unload and haul, load up and put in again. This was interspersed with conversation, snacks, potty breaks and just a tiny bit of complaining. Mostly, we just put down o
After 4 portages (3 for some of them), we had a river portage. This one was fun as the river twisted and turned through the grass, and if we pushed off the banks we could go really fast. Once we got through this river we were in Spruce Lake, our destination. There were 4 'developed' campsites on this lake (you know from my prior blog posts that 'developed' doesn't mean much!), one on the right side of the lake when we came in and three on a nice level grassy bench with poplar trees on our left. We opted for the middle one of these as it had a nice launch area and had the largest grassy area for pitching tents. As you can see from the picture, it looks like previous groups of Boy Sc
Within 10 minutes of landing the kids had their tents set up and were back in the canoe paddling around the lake and exploring the camp area. It had taken us 4 hours to paddle across 5 lakes, make 4 land portages and 1 water portage. It was 6:00 p.m. What a process!
The camp was beautiful and comfortable, with even an outdoor bathroom (which no one used since it was in full sight of the camp!). There were virtually no bugs. I put bug spray on the first evening to deter a few mosquitoes, but after that never even thought about bugs though I was prepared with headnets. Loons were calling back and forth, we saw a momma swan with 4 lit
I had more fun on that canoe camping trip than I've had in a long time. The kids were great, the conversations good, the weather excellent and I had a good book. Because I wasn't in charge and I did not want to take over and 'mommy' the kids, I held back and let them cook and clean, giving me a lot more leisure time than I am used to when it comes to meals. We stayed until Sunday morning so had a full day to loll around, chat, explore, read and play. I don't normally plan on days of 'doing nothing' into our camping trips, and I discovered how delightful it was! Best of all, I got to see the inner workings of a Boy Scout trip. The quantity of sharp objects was amazing, the amount of industrious building and creating was fascinating, and the level of 'niceness' of the boys was just cool. I can't say every outing is like this, but I sure enjoyed this one, and it was worth every sore muscle!
that had to be a exciting canoe trip, Here in arizona I have just taken my canoe on the lakes. I would love to go on a over night river trip.
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