John,
Please accept my apology. I should have figured you'd have other compasses aboard. Guess my synapses were drawing a part in the heat.

It sounds like your getting very ready. Sounds like your ditch kit is shaping up nicely.

A heads up: I understand they have had a fire ban on for much of the BWCA for most of the summer as a result of it being so dry. That means you'll have to have a stove and fuel if the ban is still on. Check with the forest service in Ely about weather the ban is still on. Its also going to likely affect your foraging.

Its been my experience that a fire ban likely means the berry crop has been way down. That can mean the bears are more persistant and that one of your foraging sources, the one you use for simple sugars, may be harder to utilize. Its not a huge hit on the diet as other things (starches) can take up the slack. When the berry crop fails think of substituting salad greens and bark teas for the vitamins. There are a number of good salad greens and tea fixings up there. All that will be in your foraging book. So I won't bore you with redundancy.

If your hankering for berries persists, look on the bogs. Those are the last areas to dry up and thus some berries can still make it. At the same time the animals know this too and will concentrate on the same resource. So its not a sure thing, and its good wild life viewing. However, look out though some of those bogs have quick sand in them. If you find a concentration of animals,..mast grazers.. in one spot it means they are hanging on a food source. Look around for what they are utilizing. You might be able to grab a meal off it too.

Protien: When its dry look for the smaller sources of protien rather then the larger ones. Remember if the fishing dries up. Try for catfish and carp on the bottom and after that, netting minows at the stream lake interfaces and box trapping chipmunks and squirels. If the mast crop has also failed small animals are easier to trap.

If its so dry that the insect hatches have dropped the fish will switch from being on the surface. To going deeper. Its not worth it to them to risk surface feeding for little benifit verses the risk of being taken by an Osprey. When they go deeper they are hanging off reed beds and off deep drop offs under cliffs.

I have some friends who are presently paddling a few lakes off of your route. I'll contact them before you leave to get some advance information on the berry crop and bears etc and other things that might affect your wilderness campaign. I'll report there findings to ya of board in an e-mail.

John have a trip of a life time!

!RUSS