Thursday September 6

Our first day on Jigsaw Lake began at 6:15 a.m. with temperature of 65 degrees F. and wind from the north at 15 m.p.h.

Upon looking around our campsite, we realized it was a dandy. There were spaces to pitch five or six tents on mostly level ground. The canoe landing was dry. Being on a point with three sides surrounded by water, we could usually have a fire in spite of the wind direction. As with every campsite we had seen in Woodland Caribou, firewood was plentiful.

Our next portage was not far from camp; so after breakfast, we paddled and fished to the portage to check it out. Upon seeing the portage, we wish we had not. The landing was very wet and had about 50 meters of riprap logs that were floating on muck. The logs would slowly sink if you stood on them even without having a backpack on. Oh well, we didn’t have to face this portage for a few days.

We fished our way to the northern most part of Jigsaw Lake. The fishing was poor. We were within 600 meters of the northernmost part of the lake and had allowed the 15 m.p.h southwest wind to blow us along for several hundred meters, when we spotted two moose along the shoreline. Although one was a calf, the other had a small rack of antlers. Walt commented that he had not been aware that a bull moose would take on the role of babysitter, but we both had seen the same thing. This was an adult bull with a calf at his side. We were sure that mother moose was nearby, but we never saw her. Both moose ambled back into the bush when we had drifted to within 100 meters of them.

After checking out the nearby stream that enters Jigsaw at the north end of the lake, we started paddling against the wind back to camp. We made a turn to the west through a tight narrows and a few minutes later, realized that we were not where we thought we should be.

After about 20 minutes of saying: "lets look at the map" and "lets paddle to that point and look at the map again", we spotted one of our tents about 500 meters away at the other end of a narrows. Camp was in a place we had not expect it to be.

We had not been overly concerned about finding our way back to camp as Jigsaw was not a very large lake. Nevertheless, it was easy to see why someone had named this lake "Jigsaw".

After arriving back at camp we made lunch and were about to take a nap when we heard voices. Two couples in canoes were passing by. We hailed them and asked some questions about the portage from Wrist Lake. They answered us but were not inclined to visit. So, as a light rain had started to fall, we waved goodbye to the two couples and headed to our tents to take our nap.

We had wanted to make fish chowder for dinner, but the broccoli with cheese soup and freeze-dried dessert were pretty good. The temperature was 55 degrees F. at 5:00 p.m. We turned in early not quite recovered from the exertions of yesterday.

Friday September 7

I awoke at 6:30 a.m. to the sound of a crackling fire and slow drizzle making little pattering sounds on the top of my tent. I was no more than fully awake when Walt said, "the water is boiling." I hurriedly dressed and crawled out of my tent to a 55-degree morning under a gray sky.

The rain quickly passed. Two cups of coffee and a bowl of granola with blueberries fortified me to the upcoming task. Today we were going to make walleye chowder. Two nice fat walleye on the stringer would be all

that we needed. One of the larger islands in Jigsaw Lake is shaped like a buffalo. Walt and I paddled up along the belly of the buffalo stopping to fish a couple of likely looking walleye holes. Walt caught a small walleye on a Beetle Spin and pronounced it too small for the stringer. A short while later, I hooked a walleye on a crank bait about the same size as the one Walt had released earlier. So, not wanting to be any less of a sportsman than Walt, I released my fish, also.

Working our way along the northern part of the lake, we fished many of the rock faces we came to, but we had no fish on the stringer to show for our efforts. As we rounded a point we were rewarded with yet another moose sighting, our fifth at Jigsaw. We were able to quietly drift to within 40 meters of the cow before she made a few muttering comments about our presence in her domain and majestically trotted back into the bush.

We continued on around the lake to investigate a stream. As with the other streams entering Jigsaw, there was no visible current. Streams just entered into marshy bays. Working out way back to camp against a stiff northeast wind, Walt hooked two walleyes but lost them at the canoe. Having walleye chowder for dinner was becoming much less likely.

Nearing camp I caught a small pike on a Johnson Silver Minnow, but somehow having "pike chowder" didn’t sound as appetizing as having walleye chowder. I released the pike, and we returned to camp. We had fishless soup again.

We sat around our campfire discussing the slow fishing at Jigsaw Lake. We decided to cut short our stay by two days and leave for Mexican Hat.

Saturday September 8

We awoke to rain hitting the tents. The sky was gray again, and the temperature was 44 degrees F. at 7:00 a.m. We ate breakfast and leisurely packed our gear. At 11:30 a.m., we set off for our longest portage of the trip, an 850 meter hike into Wrist Lake. The first 30 meters consisted of the same corduroy and mush as we had encountered earlier when leaving Haven Lake, but after that challenge was overcome, the portage was long but rather easy.

The wind wasn’t against us in Wrist Lake. A easy paddle through Wrist and two short portages lead us into Amber Lake. As we were making the 600 meter portage into Nurtria, we decided to look for a campsite. We discovered that if no campsite was available on Amber Lake, the portage had room for one tent.

It was nearly 5:00 p.m., and we did not want to get into Nutria Lake in the evening. We were told the Nutria might be difficult to pass through due to the beaver activity. We spotted a fire pit on a rocky bluff on the eastern side of Amber Lake and pulled in. The site allowed for our two tents.

It wasn’t long before our tents were pitched, and a freeze-dried dinner was eaten. After a bit of small talk about Walt’s experiences as a bee keeper, we called it a day at 8:00 p.m.