Great tribute to this man,good read....my younger days exploring the BWCA was a annual event with one very good friend and my trusty golden retriever,every spring we would put in at the boy scout camp on moose lake and head out with map inhand from moose lake we traveled over countless portages,all the way up to saganga,some trips we entered the canadian side "quetico provincial park" the canadian version of BWCA for folks who never been,we fished hard every lake we passed thru,some lakes were void of fish,at least we thought so,pounding the shoreline lines with every lure we had(no live bait),these lakes void of fish also had zero vegetation,we wrote these lakes off as "acid rain kills" and fested on "ramen noodles"at our camp rather than fresh fish fry,later in life my friend and I would meet every mid may,then travel to the BWCA no matter where we lived,our last trip up early 80's I lived in Alaska,my friend came up from breckebridge colo,still lives there,lucky man.as we aged we slowed down,we found the best fishing was lakes east of saganga and a few short portages to get to,we became lazy or smatened up jumping on a headstart power boat ride on sag outof the old sag store before it burned down,power boat would drop us off on American point as no power boats were allowed beyond that spot,great memories.
Always an adventure on those trips,we also stopped/met another ledgend on basswood lake one year "Dorthy Molter" she was a hermitt of sort,lived alone since the 30's on her little island,she had snacks and homemaid root beer for wary travelers,her family wrote a book about her,sadly I never read the book,but some year I will,this story about slaughter brought back great memories even tho I never herd of him,glad we made these trips way back in the good ole days,as today it sounds like a shete show up there,reservations/camping permits,nope...
If anyone is interested in a fishing trip,only guide I know still runs outof sag,"mike burg" he has been on those waters well over 20 years,sag and seagull lakes he calls home.
Last report from last summer I got was walleye fishing was spotty at best,something to do with rapid water temps heating up last summer,huge whitefish kill in july....Another friend has a cabin on the canadian side,cool setup on a small island...sadly with the canadian travel covid restrictions he hasn't be able to get to his cabin in two years,his American friend decided to make a run to his canadian side cabin last summer,he was tracked by a drone and once he set foot on canadian soil he was arrested within 15 minutes....a lesson our worthless presidential administration could learn from.