I’ve been away, paddling in Quetico Park in Ontario, Canada, but now I’m back in town. Quetico Park is a huge protected wilderness area of lakes, rivers, bogs and pine forests in the central part of the continent, just north and adjacent to the Boundary Waters (northern MN).a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_T8lplfcx_Ro/THLkkSkLWNI/AAAAAAAAAiA/NlhuD1jZJsk/s1600/Mark-Quetico.JPG”img style=”display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 302px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_T8lplfcx_Ro/THLkkSkLWNI/AAAAAAAAAiA/NlhuD1jZJsk/s400/Mark-Quetico.JPG” alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5508716606337538258″ border=”0″ //aWe (Mark amp; Margaret) spent 9 days paddling a big loop of about 165 miles, with 42 portages. The portages are trails that connect adjacent bodies of water, and on these portage routes the canoe and equipment are carried; on our trip the portages varied from about a mile to as short as the width of a beaver dam.br /br /Much of the trip was spent paddling the historic routes of the Voyageurs, the fur traders who transported goods across the continent on water routes. The canoe routes and portage trails in the Quetico wilderness have been used for literally thousands of years by the original inhabitants of the north woods, and appear almost unchanged today. br /br /Mosquitoes were an issue, thus long sleeves, hats, and long pants.
