Camping with the guys

Last weekend I (Travis) went camping with three other guys ranging in age from low 20's to 50's. They were all guys that I have known for a long time from Kleefeld. I wanted to get at least one wilderness camping trip in this summer and the chance came to go for one night to mud turtle lake.We left Kleefeld at about 6:30 pm on Friday and 2 hours later arrived at Brereton lake in the Whiteshell. There we quickly unloaded our 2 canoes and our gear and paddled to the portage to Mud Turtle lake. The lake was nice and calm, as it usually is in the evening, and it was great to be back in a canoe again.

The portage was about .75 km long. I carried my canoe by myself while my canoe partner carried some of the bags, then we both went back for the rest of our stuff. We actually had nice canoes (nova's), one weighs 68 lbs and the other only 60 lbs even though it is longer. Much nicer than and aluminum canoe which can weight 80 lbs. These canoes also had yokes built in to make carrying them easier. The portage was a little bit muddy and I was wearing sandals. Bad idea. As soon as the sandals got wet my feet started to slide around in them and them fell apart in short order. I thought they would, after all I had stored them for 3 years to be used on a camping trip because they were in too bad of shape to take to Paraguay. So I finished the first leg of the portage barefoot. On the second leg I wore my rubber boots. Carrying a canoe over rocks and fallen logs while barefoot is not recommended.

By the time we started the second leg of the portage it was dark enough that we needed to use the flashlight. Then we loaded up the canoes and headed off for our campsite. It was so dark that we couldn't see the other canoe but we found the campsite anyways.

After setting up our tents we thought about making an oreo cheesecake on the camp stove but decided it was too late so we looked at the stars instead. Since there was no moon and no clouds, we could see all the starts. I haven't seen that many stars in a long time.

The next morning I got up to fish with one of the other guys - the other two slept in. We didn't catch anything for a while but then canoed to a spot where the fish started to bite. My biggest was a 17 inch small mouth bass, just 1 inch short of a master angler. After taking some pictures we let that one go to repopulate the lake and ate the smaller one.

After playing some cribbage and swimming we ate lunch and headed back. We got back home by 6pm Saturday.

Now I need to take Rosey on camping trip somewhere. We decided we don't want the hassle of two kids in a canoe - anyone want to babysit so we can go?