Boundary Waters Passage Part Three: Long Portage
Aidan and Crosby prepare for Long Portage. (Photo by Aaron Lavinsky)
In my experience, when people hear you’ve been to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, they sometimes ask what lakes you paddled or what fish you caught, but they always ask about one thing: portages.
How many did you conquer? How long were they? How muddy and buggy? Paths between lakes over which you carry your canoe and gear, portages are the measuring stick of a trip’s rigor.
Long Portage, the next step in our journey through Minnesota’s border lakes to the east — aka the Voyageur’s Highway — would be the crucible in which our trip was forged. At 660 rods — a rod being 16 ½ feet, or about the length of a canoe — Long Portage stretches more than 2 miles between Rose and Rove lakes.