Blueberries were everywhere. At the campsites, at the portages, and especially at the place we called Blueberry Island, in the middle of Sturgeon Lake. We grabbed handfuls for snacks, and we had them in pancakes and in oatmeal, and Bob made a blueberry sauce to serve with the bass.
There were other kinds of berries too. Wild cherries, gooseberries, black currants, even a few raspberries. And we found peppermint growing in several places.
We saw eagles and the aurora borealis. And we had all the fish we could eat.
We saw more people in the park than we expected. Armadas of girl scouts standing off from the portages waiting for a place to land. But once we got past Russell Lake the crowds thinned out and we had solitude.
There was a rainy evening at a campsite just east of Have-a-Smoke Portage. Bruce used his engineering skills to build a shelter with some interesting supports.
Later we needed the tarp again, when a purple cloud appeared on the horizon just we entered Sturgeon Narrows. We picked a big tree on the shore and got under the tarp just in time to avoid a torrential downpour.
After the wind and rain, things cooled off, the mosquitoes disappeared and the weather could not have been better on our last couple of nights there.
All photos by Bill Hopkins.
