Friday, September 4, 2009
Just two weeks prior, my son Weston had been born. Auralee’s mom was at our house helping out, and Auralee graciously let me take a canoe trip with my dad. It was a spur of the moment type of thing. A week before Labor Day weekend, I went online and found an open permit. I invited my dad, and he said it sounded like a great idea.
So we found ourselves at the Moose River North entry point the morning of Friday, September 4th.
The "Before" Picture
The river at times was narrow and windy, which made it a little hard to navigate in an 18 1/2 foot canoe, but otherwise it was just a nice morning to be out canoeing. It was sunny and warm, especially considering that it was the beginning of September. We saw a few other parties, most of them heading out. I still wonder why so many were heading out at the start of a long weekend.
It appeared that most, if not all, of the campsites on Nina Moose were taken. That didn’t bother me, though, since our goal was to make Emerald. I had chosen Emerald since it is a dead end lake, and I hoped to find some seclusion on the busy weekend.
The portages between Nina Moose and Agnes weren’t too bad. We were definitely enjoying the nice fall weather. A few of the trees had started turning already. The wind was calm, and it really couldn’t get much better than this.
There were also quite a few people on Agnes. I was hoping to leave the crowds behind with another couple of portages. The portage from Agnes to the Oyster River seemed very long. It was steep in places, and there was also a downed tree at about waist height that I had to climb over. The portage took a lot out of me, but we kept going.
