Burntside Adventures: The Big Lake

We locked through the Canadian side Soo Lock right at noon yesterday, the last portage until fall. The day before we finished crossing the North Channel, the western half was not as rocky and looked more like Lake Vermillion rather than the BWCA like terrain on the eastern half. Made camp in a quiet bay before entering the St. Josephs Channel. Yesterday we ate current going upstream in the channel and in the St. Mary's River, then entered the Soo Lock on the Canadian side. It is preferred that the recreational boats use this lock rather than the two big locks on the US side. We locked through with a tour boat beside us and entered the channel above with more current for 8 miles until we entered Whitefish Bay. Cleared into the US shortly after exiting the lock using the CBP Roam app with only a slight delay until I found my password. We crossed Whitefish Bay and tied up to a free dock at Whitefish Point around 4, with enough time to hike to the Shipwreck Musum a mile down the road. The Michigan side is pretty flat sand dune country, but looking across to the Canadian side, it looked like mountains. the hike down the road and back to the museum was a mile, through a jackpine bog filled with blueberry bushes still blooming, and more mosquitos than I have seen in a while. They didn't eat much though. The museum covered the shipwrecks mainly in the Whitefish Bay and Eastern Lake Superior, and a lot about the Edmund Fitzgerald. Interesting but maybe not the best move prior to transiting the lake. We met a couple at the dock from the Twin Cities on a Marine Trader. They had done the loop a couple of years ago. Turned out a number of years ago, he bought a boat from Bill Defenbaugh in Ely, and his son worked for Harristhal's when they owned Canadian Border Oufitters. Today we re heading for either Grand Marais, Michigan or Munising, depending on weather and time, then on to Marquette tomorrow if all goes well.