We took a tour up the Minnesota side of the Mississippi river and down the Wisconsin side on a beautiful pre-fall day.

A panorama of a Mississippi slough.

A slough (pronounced ‘slew’) is “a marshy or reedy pool, pond, inlet, backwater, or the like.” Along the Mississippi they have mostly been filled in for farmland or other development, but this area is preserved as the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge. Land (or water depending on the river level) owned by my Mother’s maternal grandparents is included in this refuge and immortalized as the Mertes Slough Landing. My great-uncle Jake once ran a marina at this site. I remember visiting and taking a boat ride and possibly fishing when I was just a little tyke.

This makes it Official!

Across the slough you can see Castle Rock. The Mertes farm is at the base of the rock and is once again home to a large family who are raising chickens and goats.

Castle Rock above the Mertes Slough.

Back in Winona, Minnesota. A view of Sugarloaf. My Dad told me that sugarloaf was the remnant of extensive gold mining on the bluff. I learned from Wikipedia here, that is was quarrying for the rock itself!

A perspective of Sugarloaf on the bluff above houses.

A close up.

Upon reaching Port Hardy we learned that we are needed elsewhere so we quickly arranged transportation back to Bend. It was awesome flying over the route we would have taken by boat, seeing the tops of the towering mountains pockmarked with blue freshwater lakes fed by the lingering snow fields. Robert hand carried a 50 pound box of frozen fish through 3 airports! We missed one flight and had to wait several hours at the Vancouver, B.C. airport for the next flight to Portland. Luckily the hotel there had a convenient walk-in freezer for the fish (I guess they’re used to frozen fish passing through!). We were rescued at the Portland airport by a friend who drove from Bend to pick us up and drive us back to Bend! We enjoyed a neighborhood meal a few days later, entre of grill-roasted chicken provided by grill-meister Robert!

Chickens flavored with fresh herbs from my window boxes and spice mix by Pat! Yummy!

We anchored in Milbrook Cove, a tiny cove with a tricky entrance, yet it still sheltered 6 boats overnight! Robert has been reading a book Dean had onboard; Glaciers, Bears and Totems, and I noticed that one of the boats looks like the sailboat pictured on the inside flap of the book. Sure enough, it’s the Osprey.

“Glaciers, Bears and Totems is a rich book of adventure travel that is as valuable for its reading fun as for its travel information.” Amazon book review

Their blog Voyages North very accurately describes the next day, Aug. 16, as we traveled past Cape Caution and across Queen Charlotte Strait to Port Hardy on the north coast of Vancouver Island. An eerie, foggy experience, we saw only one other boat as it emerged out of the fog briefly then vanished as we passed it!

We spent 2 days at Shearwater, doing laundry, catching up on computer work and enjoying the sunshine. We headed south again on a beautiful sunny day.

We saw our first sail boat with a sail up in Fitz Hugh Sound.

We also encountered a whale breaching dozens of times and slapping his fin on the surface.