December 16, 2015 at 08:46PM

As we loaded our canoe this morning it started to snow. After a few minutes the packs were covered in a layer of white. By the time we hauled our canoe across the west end of Ensign Lake, an inch of fresh snow had fallen. We decided to paddle through the open water in a narrows instead of taking the winter portage. We carefully hopped from rock to rock along the shore and hauled our canoe across several feet of rotten ice and into a pool of open water. We climbed into the canoe for one last paddle. The canoe slid down the narrow riffle between Ensign and Splash. It was snowing harder than ever as we paddled for 50 yards down the narrow channel into Splash. Amy spotted a beaver swimming in the pool of open water in front of its lodge and a raven flew through the snow storm overhead.

When we reached the ice, we paddled as hard as we could and rammed the bow of the canoe up onto the ice, breaking off several large chunks. We reversed and repeated the process. This time the bow was firmly perched on solid ice. We carefully climbed onto the solid ice and hauled the canoe out of the water.
The temperature hovered around freezing and the wet snow clung to the bottom of our canoe. We lunged into our harnesses but we couldn’t get the canoe to budge.

We had to unload the canoe and use our paddles to scrape the wet snow off the bottom of the canoe. Then we quickly loaded the canoe and tugged with all our might. The canoe broke free of the sticky snow and once again slid across the lake. By this time about 3 inches of snow had fallen and it was getting harder and harder to haul the canoe through the thick, wet snow.
We portaged our heaviest packs across the winter portage between Splash and Newfound Lake. Then we hauled the canoe with the remaining gear across. The alders and tree branches were coated in white, forming a narrow tunnel for us to traverse.
A few minutes before we reached our new campsite on Newfound Lake the snow stopped as quickly as it had started. A 4 inch blanket of new snow made it feel like winter has finally arrived.
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