Day 2 – Hudson Lake to Kawishiwi River (14.5 miles)

At 6AM we rose to tear down camp and eat homemade raisin bread. By 7:30 we had reached our first portage – a 0.25 mile hike between Hudson Lake and Lake Insula. After a slow single portage, Nathan started acting strange. Soon, he summounded the audacity to walk on water. To my complete surprise he didn’t sink!

Nathan standing on water

As the day progressed, so did the winds, quickly ending our fun and games. We found ourselves paddling into the first strong headwind. Nathan kept us positioned straight into the waves to minimize the lateral movement of the canoe. Both time and the canoe seemed to stand still. Eventually we reached Williamson Island (on Lake Insula) and took a much needed lunch break.

Re-energized we pushed back out to sea and within a couple miles found shelter from the winds on Kawishiwi River. No sooner had we forgot about all the difficulties of the morning, when the wind picked up again as we spotted Alice.

Before we began the trip, we had two options – a short and a long.  At Alice we knew we had to decide.  Little did we know the wind would decide for us.  Faced with the choice of paddling 3 miles into a headwind (shorter) or continue along the quiet Kawishiwi (longer), we opted for the latter not know what difficulties might come.

Oh, the Wonderful Cross on the Kawishiwi after Lake Alice

The river remained calm and we only had a few portages before we started looking for campsites.  The first potential site had more flies than we were willing to tolerate so we kept looking.  Eventually, we stumbled upon a nice 3-room island-mansion.  It was a long day, but the rest of the trip was much easier as a result.

Related posts:

1. The King and I
2. Hiking the North Shore
3. Northern Adventures, Week 3
4. Gila Wilderness
5. Guadalupe Mountains

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