This little person already knows the drill. “Get in the canoe?”

We launched from our beach site into some rollers. We were at the far end of the lake, so had the worst of the waves.

Almost immediately, Severn and I took on some water over the bow.

We didn’t have far to paddle to our portage into Quetico Lake, but there was a point where we had to paddle parallel with the waves to put our backs to them and get a tail wind.

We totally almost flipped the canoe. Me?

“Holy. Fuck.”

Severn?

“Holy FUCK!” with a big smile and laughing.

She couldn’t sense that something was wrong, but I knew immediately that we had a real close call. I hated the paddle to our portage. We took on more water as the rollers were higher than the bow of our canoe! We should have just stayed at our site and waited out the wind.

We made it to the portage and I was more than happy to hop out of the canoe! Land, phew! I knew that the lake on the other other side of the portage wouldn’t be so bad because we had land to block the wind.

Just chilling at the portage into Quetico Lake.

Well, there was an amazing beach site to the right as soon as we paddled into the lake. But it was so close to the portage and it was only like 9 or 10am, so we decided to push on. Plus, Severn was doing amazing in the canoe, so we thought we should just keep paddling.

We made our way up to the Cirrus Lake portage.

Well, we paddled by several different sites on Cirrus Lake and reality set in when we reached the final site at the end of the lake. None of them were toddler-friendly.

That meant that they all had rock cliffs or drop-offs in the water. We had to watch her every.single.moment.

Let me tell you, it’s exhausting AF to stare at your kid for hours on end.

We rolled into camp early afternoon.

She spotted them and instantly knew what they were. It was hard for me, because I’ve been trying to teach her to ask before she eats anything outside… but the campsite was FULL of blueberries.

We had fun though. We did go swimming but they were just kind of dips, because there was a drop off on either side of our site.

This was definitely a no nap day, so Severn was delirious right after dinner. This meant an early bedtime and time for my husband and I to finally relax!

I was SUPER excited to catch this walleye (pickerel for my dad!).

Eager to catch one himself, my husband cast another few lines and and changed his lure over and over.

No luck.

So, I cast a few lines again…

Despite it being a very long day, it was an incredibly day. Any time spent in Quetico is magical. We both needed to come back here. We both needed to bring our daughter here.

—————-

Up early the next morning, we climbed some rocks, packed up camp and did another portage back into Beaverhouse Lake.

The take-out on Cirrus Lake. What a beautiful lake!!!

The put-in on Beaverhouse Lake. Waiting for Daddy-Bear to finish bringing all of our gear across the portage.

We didn’t want to leave. We wanted to spend another night in Quetico. So we paddled around on Beaverhouse Lake close to the portage back to the access point.

We just couldn’t find anything suitable. We didn’t want another rugged campsite, we were exhausted.

So after paddling around and taking every last bit of Quetico and stashing it away down deep into our soul, we landed the bow on the shore of the take-out/access point.

A canoe trip tradition. A daddy-daughter photograph at the conclusion of our adventure.

Carrying our gear back to the car hurt. It was heartache. But we were so thankful for the short adventure that we did have in the backcountry of our favourite wilderness park.

To treat ourselves, we booked in another night at Branch’s Seine River Lodge. Showers, running water, Bubble Guppies (cartoon) and cold beer sounded too good to be true.

We also hadn’t really celebrated Severn’s birthday. We told her it was her birthday the day we left for our canoe trip, but we didn’t have a party for her.

So when she woke up on at the lodge the next day, she found a surprise. Decorations and gifts!

Happy birthday, Severn. You are an incredible being.

For dinner, we had a fish fry from some fish me and a fishing guide caught earlier in the day. A guided fishing trip was a gift Bryce gave to me, so I went out for a few hours trying to jig for walleye.

We were a day ahead of schedule. We didn’t have to be at our next reserved campsite for another day and since we were both dragging our feet, we booked in at Dawson Trail campground at Quetico Provincial Park.

We just couldn’t bring ourselves to leave. I could see the hurt in my husband’s heart. He was heartbroken. So, we car-camped for our last night in Quetico.

We also realized that we were now halfway done our 16-day vacation. That was hard too. The feeling of turning back, traveling the way we came. A hard pill to swallow when you’re having the most incredible vacation.

Oftentimes, you’d hear me say that it was the best vacation I’ve ever had. It was. It truly was. Northern Ontario, Lake Superior and Quetico in my soul. Ugh. With my daughter, with my husband.

We spent the day hanging around camp and swimming in French Lake.