We have both been into the BWCAW several times before but never where we had to lead the group so this presented us with an opportunity to take charge, perhaps I should say responsibility, and act like the adults we claim to be.
We chose South Hegman as this is a lake we have gone to before and this is a reasonably easy lake to get into. To take away that advantage we decided to bring Baylen with us. Neither one of us had ever been to the Boundary Waters with a dog and of course Baylen had never been camping before either.
We planned the trip for about a month, this included reserving a permit, figuring out menu, and what items that we needed to pack.
We got everything packed up the night before and then headed up to Hermantown on the night of July 30th. We stayed at Heather's parents house that night.
Thursday morning we left early and got to Ely around 9 am to pick up our permit. The DNR now has a beautiful new permit center across the street from the previous location. After picking up our permit we drove North on the Echo trail to the parking lot for South Hegman. Of course before we had even finished unloading the car Baylen had already plopped himself down in a nice mud hole. We ran into a group coming out who had stayed on the campsite we were hoping to get, always a good sign!
For those of you who have not stayed in the BWCAW you only reserve entry points on certain days, you can't reserve a specific campsite and therefore you sometimes have to look around a bit and you might not get the best location.
As a result of that news we hurried up and got through the 90 rod portage to the lake. Nothing eventful through that exchange and we were able to launch the boat with any issues.
So to help you picture this we were in a 17 ft aluminum canoe with three large packs, one small pack, fishing poles, dog, paddles, and life jackets. This first canoe ride was test number one for Baylen because you can quickly ruin a trip by rolling the canoe over with all of your gear loaded.
We debated a bit on whether or not to stay with our original plans of staying on South Hegman or moving farther into to Little Bass Lake. I made an executive decision that the original plan was sound so we continued to the campsite that had just been abandoned. We were not disappointed as this is truly the best campsite on the lake.
We setup camp and had our firewood gathered by about 1 pm. We then spent the rest of the afternoon doing odds and ends like splitting firewood, putting up clothes lines, filtering drinking water, reading, and napping. Baylen of course spent the afternoon swimming and shaking water all over us. He was particularly pleased to be camping where he could live in the outdoors! We think he did at least 500 laps of the campsite in the first few hours.
Thursday night we had boyscout stew over the campfire, always a favorite. Later on that night we had some smores and turned in early as the sky clouded over making it tough to see the stars. Test number two for Baylen was sleeping in a tent. I laid out a towel in the corner and he was so happy to be in the tent that he promptly went over and curled into a ball on his towel trying to show us that he would be a perfect little angel. He was snoring before Heather and I even started to read!
Friday morning awoke to a clear blue sky. I made Heather coffee and we had oatmeal for breakfast. After cleaning dishes we decided to try test number three, taking a day trip to another lake for fishing, in my opinion the hardest test of all. We loaded up the fishing equipment, a day pack, and Baylen into the canoe and off we went!
We did a short 5 rod portage into North Hegman and a longer 150 rod portage into Little Bass Lake. Once to Little Bass we decided to fish, now this is why I consider this the hardest test of all. Picture Heather fishing in the front of the boat, Baylen and I fishing in the back of the boat. There is a lot going on, I'm controlling and propelling the canoe, keeping Baylen in check, taking off fish for Heather (to her credit she tried and was successful at taking off some of her own fish, good skill to have) and taking off my own fish. We were amazed that Baylen stayed calm through all of this! We had little luck before lunch and eventually found an empty campsite and ate some lunch before taking a nap in the sun. After lunch I changed our lures to an old standby of a jig with a grub tail. This helped us meet with much more success. By the end of a few hours more we had caught and released several large mouth bass.
We realized it was getting a bit late so we decided to head home and unfortunately had to bypass our favorite blueberry picking grounds. We got back to our campsite around 6 pm and made campfire pizzas, learned from Ron and Jerome a few years back, over the grill. As expected they were delicious.
That night we turned in at dusk due to tiredness and the howls of a pack of wolves, especially because we weren't sure about the dynamics of wolves regarding people and dogs. The night turned out to be uneventful and again Baylen was snoring before Heather and I finished our game of cribbage. Of course this time Baylen was curled up between us instead of on his blanket! We didn't sleep that well that night due to keeping an ear open to all outside noises.
Saturday morning broke to a beautiful lake with fog hanging on the water. Again I made coffee for Heather and we had oatmeal for breakfast. The days plans consisted of heading out fishing on South Hegman so that we could have a fish dinner that night. We got out reasonably early and caught several small mouth bass. The most exciting moment came after Heather took a fish off her hook and it fell into the bottom of the canoe and flopped around. Baylen wanted so badly to run up to the front of the canoe to help her! We caught a few keepers but in the end didn't keep them because we decided to cut our trip one night short since wolves tend to be territorial and we wanted to get a little more sleep.
We packed up around 4 pm and got out to the car around 5 pm without any incidents. Of course right before we left the parking lot Baylen again laid down in the same mud puddle.
We had a great time and will not hesitate to go into the BWCAW again and we will definitely not hesitate to take Baylen with us again as he passed all tests with flying colors!
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