Across the Gunflint- Poplar Lake to Cross River
by Davkumi
So we started the trip in the sunshine with a pleasant tail wind down Poplar to the portage at the 47 Lizz Lake entry. This 51 rod portage was easy, not at all a taste of the things to come in days ahead. Lizz is a beautiful boreal forest lake, we are in the North Woods!
From there we continued on the easy and not too muddy portages to Caribou, 73 rods, and Horseshoe,20 rods. Its on Horseshoe that things get a bit tougher. We make the horseshoe bend, and for the first time we are heading straight west and into the wind. Seeing as we have also done three portages, we are beginning to realize that this is not day tripping with an empty canoe! So we make the 102 rod portage to Gaskin, which in length and mud was certainly the most difficult of the day. Little did we know that we would look back upon this as one of the easier portages of the trip!
Gaskin lake is our destination for the night, and with a strong west wind and white caps, we strike out toward a camp site. We make it about half way down the lake to an open site, a somewhat difficult landing, but at least we are off the water. We set up camp, catch a walleye on the second cast from the site, and have a beautiful sundown with a clear night, the only one of the trip!'