Oh Quetico!

I made my first cast into the dark, clear water of Gratton Lake and immediately felt the telltale tick of a fish inhaling my jig. A quick hookset and a 2-minute battle resulted in a fat small-mouth in hand before my fishing partners had even finished setting up camp. A second cast resulted in the first fish’s twin and sealed the deal for me. Suddenly, that last brutal half-mile-plus double portage seemed worthwhile. The wilderness of Quetico Provincial Park was, indeed, the smallmouth promised land I had always heard about.

Quetico Provincial Park is the Canadian counterpart of the famed Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, found right across the Ontario border in Minnesota’s Superior National Forest. Quetico’s iconic wilderness is renowned for its rugged beauty, towering rock cliffs, pine and spruce forests, and picturesque lakes. And, of course, its smallmouth bass, walleye, northern pike and lake trout. This world-famous destination for backcountry canoeing and fishing boasts more than 2,000 lakes spread throughout more than 1.1 million acres of remote forest.

My first Quetico journey had dubious beginnings. Nearly 20 years of contentious meetings, needlessly long conference calls and unreasonable deadlines had left me needing a recharge. The wilderness was beckoning. My brother-in-law, Mike, had been to Quetico many times over those past 20 years, and he and my son, Josh, had made plans to go in late summer 2017. Unfortunately, the timing didn’t work for my