Day 3
Shippagew
Longer lake
Burntroot Lake

Approx. 8 miles paddling
1950 meters portaging

We awoke to another fine day. I tend to wake up on the early side more when it turns light out side. So I was normally up around 5:30. Matt always slept till the coffee was ready. There was a slight mist on the lake and the lake was calm. While making the coffee I spotted a moose grazing just across the water and also what looked like a deer on the waters edge or a baby moose.

This was a perfect campsite with a nice view of the lake around you. It's hard to believe how quiet things are without all the noises of your normal life. You could here noises from across the water. Frogs croaking on both sides of the shore a mile away from each other.

I could have sat and starred all day but we knew we had a long portage ahead plus much more scenery for us today. So we started packing up camp, loading the canoe and putting out the fire.

We started out for the big portage. The water was calm and the temps where very comfortable. The sky's where clear and the sun was out. Since the last portage was rough on us we decided to double portage this long one. We split up the gear and off we went with the 1st load. This portage is up and down several hills and is long. The easy load of the backpack was not a problem for me. I was not looking forward to hauling the canoe up and down the hills. My shoulders did not like carrying the canoe. It rubbed and made my shoulders sore. We made it back for the second load. Matt decided to go off ahead since his load was a light one this trip. I new I would have to stop a few times to give my shoulders a rest. The mosquito's where worse on the portages so we wore our head nets and long sleeve shirts. Off I went. wasn't long before I started to sweat and huff and puff up the hills. I probably went 500 meters before my shoulders where sore from the canoe. My back was also hurting some from leaning forward while carrying the canoe. I think I was leaning forward to help how the canoe was rubbing on my shoulders. I probably stopped another two times before I finally made the end where I found Matt resting up against a tree at the waters edge.

The wind had picked up some on this side. The wind tended to scare away the bugs. We rested and cooled down a bit before setting off again. Longer lake was somewhat narrow and the wind was slowing us down some. It seemed that in this lake we spotted more submerged logs or logs that sunk years ago when they where logging. Since the logs all seemed like they where cut on both ends and looked to be the same length.






We rowed farther till the lake narrowed up even more. Matt liked this part of the lake. He said it looked like we where paddling though a flooded field. The depth got really shallow and current got stronger also along with the wind. We spotted a mother duck with her full entourage of baby ducks. They would get on her back then slip off then get back on. It was pretty funny to watch

We slowly made our way to the 1st set of portages around the rapids. These
where all short portages today. We did stop and try our luck fishing after the rapids with no real luck.

After our next portage we spotted a moose on the bank pretty close. We slowly paddled forward to view the moose. This moose didn't seem to worried about us. If they did get scared they would just move away slowly.

We kept paddling some into the wind. We stopped at another campsite for some lunch. After lunch we kept on paddling up burntroot to find a campsite.

We got to the larger section of Burntroot and the wind was blowing at our faces. The Waves had increased a bit I was getting worried about paddling across the big lake to find a campsite. We had previously looked at the map to spot campsites. We had chosen a couple but once we got close they didn't seem that great. The lake was still rough and slow going. The map showed a Island site with two campsites so we headed for that site. Once we where close the island shielded us from the wind and the waves calmed down. We spotted a site with a sandy beach.


After a quick inspection of the island we figured this would be a nice campsite. The sun was hot today and I was starting to stink. The sandy beach was a whole new and exciting perspective. We quickly set up camp. We decided now was a good time for a swim. The water was cool. after a little adjusting to the temps we where swimming and enjoying the peaceful setting of this campsite.

The sun was hot plus a slight breeze so the bugs seemed to go into hiding. We where really getting relaxed on this island with nobody else in sight. In fact we have not seen anybody since Hambone on day 1. We adjusted very well to island living. After our swim and cool down period we explored the island.

We had picked up many books on edible plants for the area plus other plant books. So we headed out to explore the island. We where looking for plants to make some tea with or eat. We could not find the plant we wanted for tea but we found many really neat and colorful plants. We did strike out on our plants for tea so we resorted to making some tea with Hemlock. I have never done this before but my son was really wanting to do this. So we chose the perfect hemlock to make some tea later. While searching we found many flowering plants on the island. We looked all of them up in our plant books.

We made some dinner and just sat back and enjoyed the sights and sounds of nature. For the last couple days I have been hearing a sound in the background. It almost sounded like the distant sound of a motorcycle race. It was high pitched hum in background almost all the time. We figured out that the hum was bugs. Not the sound of a bug going in your ear but a faint constant hum in the background. I would hear this even when the bugs where not biting but it had to be quiet to really hear it.

We sat around the campfire made some fresh Bannock and stayed up to watch the stars. It takes for ever for it to get dark. Even after the sun set there was light on the horizon for hours. At 11:00PM there was still some light.