A group of college buddies went out to take pictures and potentially fish Museum Lake north of Insula.
Using three compasses and our printed topo maps we made our way north off Insula hoping to find Museum Lake and catch fish who haven't seen a fishing lure in their lives. The additional intrigue was to see something that human eyes haven't seen from the ground in decades or more.
About an hour into our treck up and up and up the hill (a strange feeling when looking for a lake) we began to question if we were on track. We had three compasses, but they all weren't in perfect agreement all the time, finding our heading was disputed on occasion.
1.5 hours into the uphill climb through the dense woods I spotted a 12 foot boulder and managed to scramble up hoping I'd see Museum, didn't happen. Instead behind us I saw a distant Insula, progess, encouraged we pressed on.
15 minutes before our two hour mark we all agreed, if we didn't find the lake by hour two we'd have to turn back and accept our defeat in this venture. One in the group was struggling with the unseasonably warm 75 degree end of May in the BWCA, we had to turn back soon or risk bigger problems.
5 minutes before our turn around time we were facing a difficult section to traverse and took a rest to plan our path. Just before we were about to continue, one of us noticed a blue glint through the woods. I climbed a nearby downed tree to get a better view, sure enough I could see trees reflecting off of water, we were close. Heading in the direction of the water the woods began to dicipate and be replaced with low swampland until...water! We found it!!! High fives and shouting all around!
Unfortunately something seemed off about what we were seeing, it was small and the shape wasn't quite right...we fished it anyway, no fish were in that shallow water. It wasn't until the drive back home, that we looked at aerial photos and what we found was an unnamed body of water, formerly unnamed, we dubbed it "Bushwhacker Pond". It turned out we were 400 feet as the crow flies from Museum Lake...oh well we had an adventure.
Photos can be found on the northwest corner of Insula.
