Day 5 - York L. - Kirk Creek

Spent the day with some rangers cleaning up portages and the one campsite on York L. (which, by the way, is very small and does not seem to have a privy). The majority of the day was spent tooling about on Kirk Creek (E). We paddled it up to the Little Mountain portage and back down again into 3 Narrows. Looks like there are some really nice campsites on that southeastern arm of the lake, not to mention access to Quartzite L., plus less cottages. AND by going down to that end, rather than through work, if one were camping, you avoid the two 700 m portages in and out of York L. I did both of those with the gear bag and the canoe, what a workout. It was definetely painful (swearing and grunting down the trail) but I'm glad I did it since the rest of the day turned out to be pretty easy.
Another advantage to skipping York L. would be seeing the greater extent of Kirk Creek. Didn't see much wildlife up there though: one heron, saw a beaver splash and a pair of terns once it began to open up into the lake.
Saw a new kind of water lily though. The flowers look like miniature and stubby pickerel weed blooms except vivid pink and the leaves are about 3" long, thin and dark greenish red.
One really nice waterfall right after the 110m portage. Also very interesting to paddle through such thick larch and white spruce stands while still in Killarney. Lots of fun going down the beaver dams, despite the wet feet.
The only real work I did all day, other than the extreme portaging i already mentioned was cutting the cedar to build a corduroy road where some boardwalk had rotted away. Still lots of work to be done on mastering my backcuts and not pinching the saw, although today was not nearly as bad as the big dirty hemlock two days ago.
Tonight i made sushi for the crew. By my standards it was a particularly quick prep sushi meal considering i made 7 rolls. Carrot, red pepper and avocado lasted well. Avocado was hard when i packed it. Nori didn't get cracked during transport and the bag of tuna steak worked out great. I'd still love to try some Pike Maki!! Definite repeat meal.