Andy spends all summer hearing of other folks’ adventures—-Fall’s biggest allure is to create his own. Andy and his friend Dave had to take one more Quetico trip in late October.

He spends weeks rearranging the colored Post It arrows on his office map—this time they hit Northeast Quetico—French Lake, Baptism Lake, Cache Lake, Cache River into north Kawnipi, Poet Chain, Pickerel etc. They can’t quite get enough—even paddling through much rain and wind once again. They started the trip in the rain, against the current up the Baptism River—moving logs out of the way.

Late fall canoe trips mean constant movement—to stay warm, to get to all the places you want to see while you have light. They portaged over multiple waterfalls up there—a continuation of the falls chain beyond Kawnipi. (below—the Cache river flows into North Kawnipi.)

Kawnipi rocks.

The Baptism River
Morning on Pickerel (below)

They apparently will remember this Sauvage Portage—Dave went first, in mud to his hips. If I had to choose ONE photo to define Andy, this might be it. When I first met him, one of his jobs was to drive the pontoon to Fishook Island on Seagull Lake where he schlepped loads of gear and food and tools and materials and campers’ gear and….EVERYTHING up the hill at Wilderness Canoe Base. (He says this is a before shot in an advertisement for Hairclub For Men. I’ll admit that he’s showing a little more skin on the forehead than he did 20 years ago)

One byproduct of fall canoe trips—we didn’t take the dock out until November this year-it was actually very pleasant in the snowy calmness of Round Lake.