Things had gone well on this trip. I was due for a coming down and I'm about to get it this morning at the 125 meter portage out of the lake. The landing looks pretty steep, so I think to myself "why not land at that beaver dam?"

Now when a beaver makes his dam, he packs sticks and mud together to form a tough, stable mound. You can walk on a beaver dam or lodge without too much trouble. This is an old dam, however – it hasn’t been repaired for quite a few years. Sometimes it's hard to tell. Ok, I'll admit it, sometimes I don't notice things that I should. Most of the mud must have washed out of this dam and the sticks are weak and rotted. I step onto the dam and immediately sink down to my hip. As I struggle and stagger back into the canoe, I start thinking that the steep landing doesn't look so bad after all.

Bob holds the canoe next to the slick, sloping shore while I scramble out and crawl up to level ground. I tie our rope to a tree and use it to steady myself as we unload the canoe. My rope hanging maneuver is going well until my knot slips and I end up completely in the water, almost upsetting the canoe in the process. Bob’s only comment comes later, as we finish unloading. He tries to loosen the knot I tied – my "second try" knot.

"I think you’ll have to use your knife on this one – I can’t seem to get it untied!"

We make a lunch on a small rock we call "Zorro Island". There’s an odd pink vein of granite on the surface in the shape of a "Z" (UTM 953901 Map 52M/7)

As we walk the portages along the Sabourin River, we find sign of critters bigger than the beavers. Trees are scratched and stripped by bear and moose. It gets a little spooky to know that you're walking a path used by an animal that can rip the bark off of a tree just by nodding his head a few times. I'm impressed and Bob is too. Tomorrow we're going to find out that the moose has alot more to worry about than we do. We don't know that yet, so we make lots of noise as we carry our gear over the rough trail.

We surprise two beaver on the "portage" around a boulder field. The sharp slap of their tails quickly announces our presence in their territory. I’ve run into these boulder fields several times in Woodland Caribou Park. If your park map shows one, it means that your way will be blocked by large rocks. Usually there’s no clear path through these obstacles. If your canoe is empty, you might paddle ‘til you’re stuck, then hop out and drag your boat to the next patch of clear water. This "hop out and drag" maneuver doesn’t work with a loaded canoe. I prefer to walk on very rough ground as long as I can see where my feet are going. Struggling with a heavy pack while walking on boulders is not my idea of a safe way to travel. There's a distinct but rough portage on the left shore and we use it to bypass the boulders.

After our third portage we find big patches of wild rice. The rice plants are lighter colored than the surrounding grass. The new plants have the characteristic bend on the leaves and small immature grain heads.

Just before Thicketwood Lake, the Sabourin flattens out and straightens. The island shown on the lake just east of Thicketwood is really just a wet grassy area that’s a little bit higher than the surrounding channel.

Four men are fishing in the eastern channel that leads to Thicketwood. Evidently the pickerel are biting. I quietly note the places where the men are anchored as we go by. We'll try our luck later in the day, after we make camp. The men are from Iowa, and as often happens, they’re surprised to see a canoe appear out of nowhere.

We’ve had quite a day traveling the Sabourin River. This section has a steady current, loads of wild rice, many falls and tons of ducks. We had to weave between fallen logs at times, but we never had to pull the canoe over any obstacles. There are high shores in many places, bringing the forest close to the water. We really enjoyed this part of the river, but now we’re getting tired and an island campsite on the eastern end of Thicketwood looks inviting.

We pitch our tent near an old ski-doo and trailer sled. A quick trip back into the channel nets us a few pickerel and we eat well. Late that night the northern lights form a curtain on the horizon and a few flashes in the sky above.

Monday morning brings a little rain, but it's gone by the time we wake up. We forego our coffee and head for a cabin we saw the evening before. Evidently this is a place used by native people when they hunt and trap in the winter. Antlers lie on the ground and there’s a rack with a tripod for smoking moose meat. Maybe the moose that scratched the trees on the portage ended up here late last year. Motorboats and a square backed canoe are apparently used for the hunt. With the river and the large, swampy "lake" just to the east, it must be a good place for hunting and trapping. There’s no one home now, of course.

Thicketwood is burned on its southern shore. We pass the cabins of Canadian Fly-In fishing (UTM 875889 Map 52M/7) but no one is out on the water and we see no activity. The wind is starting to pick up and Bob keeps our canoe close to the southern shore.

Our portage into Larus is marked "wet" on our park map. It starts out that way but there are dry areas that follow a small stream. After following the stream for a while, I suddenly notice that it seems to have dissappeared. I stop and look around - it's gone all right. Funny though, I still hear the stream! Bob and I stop and backtrack for half a minute and there it is again. It takes a minute before we figure it out. The ground we're walking on is a big boulder field. There must be many large rocks under our feet, rocks covered now with smaller debris and moss. The stream moves through the rocks, and sometimes dips underground.

Our map shows the portage leading to a good sized pond. The trail starts to get rough and soon the trees peter out and we're slogging through high swamp grass. It takes some scouting to find remnants of the portage marker ribbons. We walk through the rough, clumpy ground, dragging the canoe as our feet sink into the wet ground. We find that a beaver lodge marks the north end of the portage. We travel quietly, hopeful that we might see a moose in this low, wet area.

The portage trail at the south end of the pond also takes some looking to find. There's another beaver lodge here, and we discover the portage about one hundred meters west of the lodge. This southern leg of the portage into Larus is very wet with bad footing and a clump of trees down right in the middle of a mucky spot. There's moose sign here - stripped bark and cuts in the trees from antlers. Bob stops me and points out a moose "bed" - an area of pressed down plants where a moose was resting. Next Bob finds fresh moose tracks, very fresh moose tracks. Some of the tracks are pressed deeply into the mud, and mud is splashed behind the tracks.

"This moose is running" says Bob. "We probably startled it and it took off down the trail."

We find tracks all the way to the shore of Larus Lake. Just before the shore, the moose turned and headed west into the woods again. There's a sandy beach here, and bear tracks. There's something else. The wind is blowing a strong breeze from the east. Bob and I think that it can only get stronger, so we load up and get going. We're staying close to the shore, but we have to keep the canoe pointed at an angle to the waves to stay upright.

There's a small, pointed fire-burned bay on the northeast side of Larus, and Bob and I just make it around the headland on the west shore. The wind is really howling now, but we're in a good place to wait it out. With little else to do, we decide to troll for awhile within the bay. Bob catches a nice size pickerel (walleye pike). We find a little flat spot on the west side of the bay and have a pickerel and stew lunch. With travel out of the question, it seems a good time to take a nap.

At five-thirty, the wind goes down. This happened occasionally before but it usually picked up again. We wait. Five minutes - ten - fifteen. We decide that we can go now. Of course, as soon as we're committed, the wind comes up again. As our little canoe rocks up and down we watch curtains of rain moving majestically across the troubled sky.

There's a bay on the eastern shore and as soon as we're in sheltered waters we throw out the lines and pull in two jack. That's it for this day. There's a campsite on an island in the northeastern bay (UTM 848844 Map 52M/7) and we pull in tired and sore. Our jackfish supper leaves us stuffed. It's still windy, gusting and blowing hard as I hang our food pack. To do this I have to push through thick tag alder, then use an old stump to pull myself up to the main part of the island. I have a hard time finding a decent tree and make a lousy job of it. Much later, the skies clear but the wind never stops. We watch the waves crash against the rocky eastern shore as the sun dips down and turns the horizon red. As I lie in the tent, half asleep, I again feel the waves, lifting, twisting, rolling beneath me as I lie on the perfectly still ground.