I awoke to the blissful fact that I wouldn’t need to climb into the canoe at all that day. Thanks to Charlie’s expertise, he had penciled in a day of rest and relaxation—and boy did we need it. Because we had no place to be, we could enjoy a leisurely breakfast. I decided to use up the remaining butter to cook our bagels, which was a remarkable improvement over the dry ones from the previous day. The one disappointment of the trip was the coffee, which came in tea bags. No matter how long we steeped them in boiled water, the only thing they seemed to do was turn the water brown.
That morning, we went out to explore around our campsite, which included a bit of rock climbing for Lionel. On the mini-hike, we found some excellent pieces of dry wood. Lionel, Charlie, and I teamed up to saw the wood into logs. Once Charlie sawed the logs, Lionel would carry them over to the firepit and neatly stack them. Afterward, Lionel wanted to cast the reel a couple of time. While he was fishing, a wayward canoe filled with three elderly men stopped by our campsite to ask for directions. After a few self-deprecating jokes about leaving their map at their former campsite, Charlie was able to guide them to the spot they wanted to reach without having to take the eight-mile loop around Knife Lake. In that moment, I felt a surge of confidence. Not only had we stayed alive and well, but we were now able to guide others through the wilderness.
For lunch, we cooked up some macaroni and cheese with a side of trail mix. It was here that I should mention the bold presence of some aggressive chipmunks that kept trying to get into our food. We put Lionel on stomping detail to scare the critters away, which worked to varying degrees of success.
After lunch, we took a long dip in the lake. The Canadian smoke had cleared, and a gorgeous blue sky stretched above us. We tried to convince Lionel to jump in off the rocks; he vacillated for a long time but ultimately decided he wasn’t ready to take the plunge. After drying out, we lounged in the hammock and whipped out some cards. The breeze wasn’t as strong that day, which meant there were an abundance of flies. For some reason, these flies seemed to be admirers of feet. Lionel and Charlie, who had been making fun of me for wearing wool socks and pants every day, soon understood my reasoning, as I ended up with only a quarter of Lionel’s bug bites and one one-hundredth of Charlie’s.
In the late afternoon, Lionel and Charlie went down to the lake to try to catch some fish for dinner. They managed to snag a few, but nothing substantial enough to eat. I went to work on cooking dinner, burritos, which turned out to be the best freeze-dried meal we’d had. I stayed behind and did the dishes as Charlie brought Lionel down for some evening fishing. With the smoky air finally gone, we were treated to an absolutely gorgeous sunset.
Down by the lakeshore, Lionel and Charlie saw a beaver and a family of loons. The sound of a loon on the lake at night is eerily beautiful, and I found a new appreciation for those “loony” Minnesotans who choose to get a loon tattoo somewhere on their bodies.
That night, we had the best fire of the trip. The wood burned beautifully and created a magnificent bed of coals. Listening to the weather service, we were pleased to hear that we wouldn’t be battling any thunderstorms, though there was a chance of scattered showers.
By the fourth night, Lionel had grown accustomed to sleeping in a tent without his bear, and he fell asleep quickly. Charlie and I polished off the last of the pinot grigio as we stared up at the star-spangled sky. At some point, we decided we’d better head to bed. It took a large amount of water to extinguish the coals we had going. It was an uneventful day... and that was amazing.
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