Wilderness canoeing

Ian, Colin, Doug, and Dave spent a week in northern Minnesota in the Boundary Waters Wilderness. This is the third year for the trip and has become a summer tradition for Ian. With gear and enough food for 7 days, they headed off for a week of fishing, canoeing, portaging, and sleeping on hard surfaces. For the most part, the weather was perfect with the exception of one day when it monsooned.

Dave casts a line from the rock on Cherokee lake as the sun goes down.

This is one of many good-sized Northern Pike that they pulled out of the lakes...catch and release, of course.

Colin gets the prize for the biggest northern. Look how terrifying that thing is!

Some of the portages were pretty rough, but D-fresh makes it look easy. Check out those gastrocnemii!
Colin also gets the prize for the only lake trout. This is one of three that he caught on CHerokee lake.
A storm rolls in on Brule. Fortunately most of them happened at night and they blew through quickly.
Some of the lakes are connected by short rivers where the boats can be floated through rather than carrying over trails.

Doug doing a little solo fishing

Nellie was a great canoe dog, though she didn't really like fish in the boat.

Tons of bald eagles, loons, and even a moose and her calf (couldn't squeeze off a picture of them).

photogenicity

This is a pretty neat tree that we found just out of town on one of the old horse farms that was once part of the Mayo estate. It's nearly a perfect tree...branches so inviting that Ian had to resist the urge to climb up. Love it!

Hunter was jealous of the tree getting so much attention and started posing for the camera. This didn't last too long as we were swarmed by mosquitoes. For some reason they were disinterested in Hunter and feasted on our flesh instead.