Day 4

Day 4
Shawn needed to mail some extra gear home so Joe and I hung out at camp for a bit organizing gear and talking about the battle plan for the 3 mile crossing of Lake Benidji. After Shawn finished with his chore we paddled around to the park and welcome center to meet Joe. We went into the welcome center as Joe started the long lake crossing. An older couple greeted us at the welcome center and chatted us up asking all kinds of questions and took our blog information so they could follow our journey. I was very nervous about the lake crossing we had to make but Shawn and Joe showed nothing but excitement and took off straight across. I paddled up to a point that was part of the narrowest section of lake and turned to cross, waves, wind and all. I was soon being pushed around by the wind and waves, I slid to the center of the canoe and sat on my pack giving me better control. The crossing was not bad and we all made quick work of it. We then entered another small lake and then a wide river channel leading to hydro power plant. We reached the dam and had to unload our boats and carry them around the dam to the river below a process called portaging. Joe and Shawn both have portage wheels so they were able to roll their kayaks along the portage trail. I did not bring wheels, I had built and installed a portage yoke on my canoe. With the canoe empty I rolled it onto the side and then lifted it onto my knee and up onto my shoulders to carry it up the trail and back to the river below. Soon enough we were all loaded and floating in the nice current towards Island Point campsite a mile down stream. After setting up camp we each had a bird bath in the river and called it a day.