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I'm up by six-thirty this Wednesday morning.  Rain fell in the night and shallow potholes on the rocky shore are filled with water. The sun shines from the eastern horizon, but the weather is still undecided, and dark broken clouds fill the sky.  There's a little wind and I'm worried that it may get stronger, so I get moving.  I have to cross Eagle Lake to get to the next portage, and I don't want to be wind bound or half packed when the next rain comes.  There's a rocky point  just before the main body of the lake and I stop for a moment to look at the land.  

The change from narrow channels to open sky and wide horizons makes this a great morning.  There's a large, high peninsula on the eastern shore of Eagle Lake.  I point the canoe toward a steep rock face and paddle through, straight across the lake.  The steep shores will lead me into a narrowing channel, east toward the next portage.  The wind slowly dies and by the time I reach the rock face dull gray clouds are covering the sky.  I follow the shore until I'm in the channel. It slowly narrows, and only the occasional songs of birds break the silence.  I'm alone again, and I'll be passing into the large burn area around Irregular Lake.  I don't expect to see anyone for a few days, and the thought sobers me. 

The portage out of Eagle Lake begins with a steep climb.  The wet rocks are slippery so I have to drag the canoe as I scramble to the top.  It takes a few trips to get my gear up the hill. It's becoming a wet and sweaty morning. 

The portages in the southwestern lakes of Woodland Caribou are not often traveled. Blaze marks on trees and rock piles are important markers, and occasionally the path ahead isn't obvious.  This first portage is 825 meters long, a 25 minute walk each way.  Sometimes, when I'm confident, I'll walk through a half hour portage without stopping.  The steep climb, the wet rocks and knowing that I might not see any people for a few days makes me a little more cautious, and I cache my pack in the middle.  If I take a fall, I'll only be 400 meters from my gear. 

Canoe travel is a humbling experience.  Plans and goals are subject to approval by the weather.  The traveler that forgets this will soon come to grief and unhappy times.  On the long portages, the canoe traveler is overloaded and confined to his narrow path.  He's wise to be cautious, and make noise as he walks for he's not the largest or most fearsome animal in the forest.  Roots and rocks or even a small branch could easily trip him, turning his pleasant walk into a painful ordeal.  Fearing this, he develops habits, or obsessions. 

"I can't raise my eyes from the path unless I stop walking." 

"I have to deliberately touch the top of each fallen tree with my trailing foot as I step over. Then I won't catch my foot on a knot and go down." 

The canoe traveler understands some of the superstitions and "unusual" beliefs of people that lived long ago. He knows that it would only take a year or two of living in this land to turn his fears or experiences into an unusual belief system of his own. All of his knowledge, all of his learning, all of the mythos of his western civilization - all seem far away as he walks alone deep in the boreal forest.

At the end of his day, he's tired and worn.  His strength is used up. Yet always there's something that must be done, some chore that will lessen the possibility of bad times. Evenings are somber for the solo traveler. Weariness and loneliness take him early to his tent. For a few minutes, before he sleeps, the sounds of the forest drift into his tent and he "sees" one more time the endless lakes, the broken primitive trees and rocky shores. He sees the wind and the rising moon and the clouds that drift past the stars.

The 325 meter portage has a surprise ending with a steep drop to the lake below.  I have to use a rope to lower my canoe and pack, following a crack in the rock and sliding on my backside.

The lake below is stark and bare, burned clean by the fire that swept through the area around Irregular Lake.  Thousands of small pine  trees cover the shores, a thick wall of green that would be hard to walk through.  Every square meter may contain twenty trees, each as thin as an arrow, yet rising two meters or more.  I count seventeen sets of branches on each of the trees, an indication of when the fire swept through. The old burned trunks of larger trees stick up like whiskers here and there.  Eagles can be seen easily when they perch on these dead poles.  Now the afternoon sun is breaking up the clouds and the wind is starting up again. 

The 225 meter portage is marked on the south end with a rock pile.  It begins on a steeply rising rock landing and ends in a bog.  I have to cross a small pond to begin the 500 meter portage into Irregular Lake.  The wind is really blowing now, and I'm wondering if I'll be able to go anywhere on Irregular.  First I have to find the landing for the next portage, and it takes me half an hour.  The wind gets stronger as I paddle back and forth on the small pond.  There's a rocky shore to the north, but no sign of a path, even when I land and scout it out.  The western shore is muskeg, leading to thin, stunted trees.  To the east is a small creek, but blown down trees and thick brush cover any possible path. 

Finally, on my third pass, I spot a tiny flash of color on the northern part of the western shore as the wind blows a branch aside.  I land the canoe and walk the spongy ground to a tiny tree.  Sure enough, a bit of red ribbon is tied around it.  The rest of the ribbon is lying on the ground, evidently not as tasty as it looked.  I poke two trees into the muskeg to mark the portage for the next traveler.  This portage has a winter landing, but the break in the trail is obvious enough.  I take the path to the left that leads to high rocky ground.  The rocks are loose here and I carefully pick my way up the hill.  There's no worn path, only a swatch of cleared ground through the spindly new trees.  The path rises to a dome shaped hilltop.  Up here the wind buffets the canoe and I have to hold on tight.  I'm as high as the highest trees in this dwarf forest.  Below, to the north, Irregular Lake appears, bare, stark and primitive.  I follow the path down into thick brush as the wind blows above me.  The ribbon at the north end of the portage is chewed off so I make a small blaze on a tree. 

Rain starts to fall now, and the wind blows stronger.  There's no decent place to camp on the fire burned shore, but not far away are two islands that the fire missed.  I launch the canoe and hug the shoreline, then make a run for the first island.  As the wind blows me past the windward shore, I look for a flat spot, but there's nothing.  I quickly paddle behind the island, out of the wind.  There's a hundred meters of waves and whitecaps between the two islands.  The shore ahead has a small flat spot, maybe big enough for my tent.  I wait for a good moment, then dash across.  The wind tries to blow me out into the lake, and I have to paddle hard, but I make it to the shore.  After tying up the canoe and unloading, I push through the thick brush, curious to see what might be on this island.  To my surprise, there's a clearing with a fire ring that hasn't seen fire in a long time.  My small rain fly goes up and I cook some stew, then get my tent up.  It's not very late, but I'm tired and worn out.  It feels good to get into my sleeping bag today. 

In the middle of the night the wind gets stronger still and wakes me up.  I know that I tied my canoe securely, but I didn't shorten up the line.  I can't stop worrying that the wind might blow the canoe into the water.  It's tied to a bush, but what if the bush isn't strong enough?  Not believing  that I'm doing it, I climb out of my bag and stumble through the thick brush in the pitch black darkness of a moonless, cloudy night.  Quickly I re-tie the canoe, then stumble back as the wind howls and the trees knock together overhead.  It's been quite a day.

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