Brule

Big, bad Brule lived up to the hype. Brule is a large lake that is south of us, and it has many permits due its size. Since we are one of the closer outfitters to town, a lot of people heading to Brule go through us. While Brule isn’t any closer to town than our lodge, geographically, it is hard to get to from the Trail. We had to drive most of the way back to town before heading west again. Birds find it much more accessible from Clearwater.

Anyway, due to the distance we threw the canoe on the car, a royalex this time (heavier, but not as bad as a ‘lightweight’ aluminum). Once we got to Brule we loaded up the canoe quickly as it was already getting into early evening. Of course I navigated us the wrong way off of the boat ramp but we quickly recovered to find a good site near the portage on the northern side of the lake. Since it has many campsites easily within range of the public access it can make for a very leisurely trip. The campsite next to us decided that a boom box was a good idea for this short paddle. Not really no (noise) trace camping.

Our site provided excellent sunsets, since there was a just enough cloud cover (and no rain!). On the second night, as we climbed down to the lakeside rocks for a better view, we saw to swimmers in the water: beavers. While our last encounter with beavers was frustrating to say the least, these two were trying to get across the lake unnoticed. The first beaver encounter of the summer, way back in early June, was an audio experience only as it smacked its tail on the water just beyond our sight. This time we made a bunch of noise so that the beavers would hear us. As the younger one continued on to the island of our shore, the mom circled back for a show. It swam back and forth smacking its tail until the little one called its mom back to its side.

Beavers weren’t our only wildlife treats for the weekend. As we were making breakfast in the morning a family of ducks quacked their way past our site. Then as we set out on our day trip around Cone bay we circled the islands and say two bald eagles fishing. As we got close they just stared back before flying off just over our heads. We also saw a nearly all black loon. It was fishing just in front of us and it popped up just in front of us.

Brule is also a lake of many islands (rumor has it 64 in all). It is also close to Eagle Mountain, the highest point in MN, at a whopping 701 meters above sea level (you do the conversion). This means that the islands on the lake jut out of the water quickly, making them taller than most of the other flat islands on other BWCA lakes. As we left Cone bay, we made our way through the middle of the lake and weaved our way through the many rocky islands. Brule, being a larger lake, regularly has choppy waters, which are not ideal for canoeing. But we’ve formed quite the tandem as canoers this summer. So white caps don’t phase us as they would have earlier in the year. The gusts of wind pushed us back home for another lovely sunset.