Shawn (that’s me)
Steve (my dad)
Doug sr. (Steve’s brother/my uncle)
Doug jr. (Doug sr.’s son/my cousin)
Quincy (my nephew)
Tristan (Doug sr.’s nephew)
Prologue
Left Maryland on July 15. Dad (Steve) and I were in the GMC Jimmy with mom and my three girls in the Prius. It wouldn’t have been a drive even worth mentioning, but the heat was stuck in the “On” position and it was well over 90 degrees outside. I brought with me some flexible aluminum dryer duct piping, which I used as an air scoop. We put it out the rear window, rolled the window up on it so the opening would be held facing forward, and aimed the other end down by our feet. Keeping the windows rolled down helped a lot, but made conversing at a normal level impossible. Things went well until we ran into a heavy down pour, and the Jimmy turned into a sauna. We made it to my grandparent’s home on Lincoln Lake (central MI) and spent that week in there with my three and my sister’s three kids.
The Hot Jimmy
July 22nd
My dad and I left Lincoln Lake at 10:00 est. Dad drove 200 mi down around the bottom of Lake Michigan and through Chicago. There was a strong thunderstorm passing through Chicago and the wind gusts were very strong and was pushing us all over the road. When dad got tired I took over the wheel and drove until we got to the Wisconsin line where we stopped at the welcome center rest stop. I tried to sleep but it was too hot and I couldn’t get comfortable in the reclined drivers seat. I opened the sunroof and finally slept. After an hour and a half… my alarm went off but I had to get a bit more sleep. An hour later we were back on the road…. About half way through WI Tristan called to say he had landed then Doug sr. called and said that they would be going right past MSP airport on their way from Salt Lake City UT. When we were about an hour from the airport Doug and I decided that it would save time and gas if they picked up Tristan and Quincy from the airport and we would meet on the north side of town. Quincy then texted us to tell us he had landed. Things were going quite well…. then just as we entered St Paul a guy in a truck pulled up beside us and told us our shock on the right side of our trailer was hanging down and almost dragging. We pulled over and sure enough, the shock had broken off (metal was sheared through) from the axel and was just hanging. The spring was operational and we had put only one canoe on that side, so we just bungeed the shock up so it wouldn’t rub. Doug sr. who had converted the old boat trailer into a canoe trailer would have to look at it.
We met up just north of MSP to rearranged riders and Doug looked at the broken shock. It needed to be fixed. Steve and Doug saw a place that did auto repairs and went to check if he could weld it, and the rest of the party found a salad bar & pizza buffet (thanks Doug Jr. for picking up the tab).
About 30 minutes later, Steve and Doug joined the rest of us and had some food. The mechanic was able to weld it back together, but Doug was not sure it was a great weld job. Back on the road north. Just south of Duluth MN Doug called over the walkie talkie that the shock had broken again and was hanging down; the unreinforced weld had broken. Back to using the bungee cord. ☹
The trailer bounced and rattled the remaining hours north.
Beautiful drive up Rt. 61
Around 7:30 until we reached the Grand Portage Casino Marina & RV Park. We drove down to the marina office and paid $15 for first tent $10 for 2nd and $10 for the third. Doug & Doug also got their MI fishing licenses for 3 days (Steve & I had gotten ours earlier in MI, Quincy declined, and Tristan didn’t require one). The lady in the office also gave us the name and number of an auto mechanic in town that might be able to fix the trailer, but that will have to wait for the return trip.
We set up our tents overlooking the marina and started going through all of the gear exchanging and sharing things as needed.
http://www.grandportage.com/marina.php 218-475-2476
The nearly full moon rising above the marina.
Doug sr. and I stayed in camp while the rest of the party went back to get their last taste of “civilized food” and to make a few calls. There is NO PHONE RECEPTION at the campsite so they had to drive back to Grand Marque (off the Indian land and far enough from Canada as to not get “international charges”) to get US reception.
Wednesday, July 24
Up at 5:15 to break camp
Sun rise
Is that IR peeking through?
We were at the dock by 6:45.
I was parking and getting the last few things from the vehicle when Doug jr. came running up. “They don’t have Tristan on the boat roster, and the captain is saying things like: I wish people could get their stuff together!” So I hoofed it down to the dock with my laptop to show the captain his reservation. When I asked him what the problem was, he informed me that Tristan was NOT on his roster. I then reminded him (and any other employee that might be listening) about how after I had made Tristan’s reservation a captain had CALLED ME to clear up a mistake in the rest of the groups’ reservation. At this point an older man stepped up (who I believe to be the “other captain” and rattled off the details of Tristan’s reservation, and told him to look on the 2nd page. The captain turned to the 2nd page and said “Oh there it is…” When I went to pay him the $36 ($4/day NPS fee), he said that I owed him $72. Doug jr. told me that he had already paid the fee for himself, his dad, and Quincy, and that I needed to pay $108 for my self, my dad, and Tristan (once the “no Tristan on the roster got worked out”). So I reminded him that Doug jr. had paid $108 and we still owed him $108 for the rest of our crew. He said OK and took my money. I just wanted them to have the correct amount when they gave it to the NPS.
Before long we were loaded up and heading across the lake. It was a beautiful day and the ride was smooth. We brought two bags of freshly picked blueberries (we had picked 85 pounds three days before in MI). We ate one and gave the other to the captain and his mate to share.
At Windigo we unloaded for the required ranger talk on the dock, took a quick group picture…
Tristan - Quincy - Doug jr. - Doug sr. - Steve - Shawn
…and I hurried up to the ranger station on the hill to submit our planned itinerary. I was waiting for a couple when the ship’s horn blew. Ranger: “Well that’s not going to happen.” He was trying to help a couple who couldn’t figure out how long they were going to stay on the island or when they were going to get picked up. Finally he got to me, he typed in several mistakes, but had our route correct so for in the sake of time I just let it go. On the way back down to the boat I had to run in and take a pee. When I made it to the dock the two rangers and the captain along with several others were “waiting” for me. Thanks to Doug jr. for not letting them leave when the ranger came down and told the captain that he had finished checking everyone in. The ride to McCargoe Cove was beautiful, but uneventful so Doug jr. and I went down into the less noisy sitting area of the boat and had a nap. I think the Dramamine we took had something to do with it…
I woke a few minutes before we arrived at the opening to the Cove, but only had my I-phone to take a few quick pics as we entered.
Looking back out from McCargoe into Superior
As soon as the boat was tied up, I hurried up the hill to find an empty shelter (#6). In the following minutes, no less then 6 people asked me if I was leaving or if they could share it with me. I told them that the other 5 members of my group were on their way up from the dock. McCargo was very busy with most of our boat getting off, and just as many hikers arriving shortly after.
We settled into the shelter. I set up a tent inside to make sure no sneaky mosquitoes made a meal of me that night. It ended up being over-kill; the bugs just were not that bad.
Pic of inside shelter
We went down by the dock to get some water to filter. I was surprised at how many people were there dangling their filter tubes off the dock pumping away for minutes. There were also people wading out off the point to the left of the dock doing the same. I just filled up our two “dirty” gallon jugs, took them back to our shelter. We used two Sawyer Squeeze filters hung from the shelter that filtered the water into the two “clean” gallon jugs we had. After everyone had enough water, we refilled the filters so we would have some water waiting for us when we returned. We walked behind our shelter and onto the Minong trail. We hiked up to Minong Mine and had fun exploring. We found quite a few “green rocks” that were made of the corroded copper. And a few of the rounded, harder pounding stones used by the natives to smash the copper bearing rocks.
How do we get to Minong Mine Doug?
Copper carbonate in the mine
Flooded end of mine
Small bits of copper
Mine filled with water...
...makes a good home for frogs
Steve found some yummy treats on the way back.
He teaches edible wild plants classes back in MD so he had quite the time pointing out the edible plants on our trip and explaining how they could be prepared. There were some plants that he didn’t “know” so he had us take pictures for later identification.
When we got back we decided to use the MI fishing licenses we had bought. Steve and Tristan went to the weeds across from the dock, Doug jr. and I went back up McCargo to the weedy cove we passed on the right on the way in. Steve caught a 24” pike and released it. Doug jr. and I had a few hits and “follow-ups” to the canoe, but didn’t land anything.
After fishing Steve and Quincy carried their canoe 0.3 mi down the trail before it got too dark to continue. They wanted to get a jump on the next day’s portage.
Time for supper.
***While preparing for the trip I had read about “freezer bag” cooking and decided that I would try my own variation on a larger scale. I did this, because for meals, we split our group in two. So each group had its own meals to bring, carry and eat (we did share).
For all of our meals we heated one pot of water (about 4-6 qts at a time). Then we put the ingredients into a Reynolds Slow Cooker Liner, add the needed water to the bag, mixed and place it back into the boiling pot of water. When done you serve it up (I ate my portion from the bag = nothing to wash).
The first night we had chicken flavored rice, mashed potatoes, and teriyaki noodles.
We were all in bed by 10:30, but I stayed up to journal the day’s events.
Steve gets an after supper snack.
We had just missed it. 
