Sea Gull Lake Trip Report

Last weekend, we camped at the Trail’s End Campground at the end of the Gunflint Trail. It’s near several entry points into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. It’s also a great place to camp and photograph. If you’re into photography, check out my photography map for the campground area.

It’s a popular campground due to its closeness to popular entry points and its remoteness, so you’ll likely need to reserve a spot if you plan on going. This trip, we stayed at campsite #25 and found that it was a lovely place to stay. #24 would have been slightly better, but we had great neighbors there and in #26 as well. These sites are packed in close to each other, so if you get rowdy neighbors it might not be so great.

June is always a crapshoot when it comes to bugs, and the bugs are bad this year! Really bad. Luckily, these sites are high above the water and there was enough wind during the weekend that they mainly stayed away. Our Thermacell bug repellent device was able to keep most of the bugs away until the black flies showed up. Luckily, that was just as we were packing up to leave. We were swarmed by 100s if not more of black flies.

We typically head out to the Sea Gull Palisades on one day when we camp up there, and this trip was no different. But we decided to explore the northern bay on Sea Gull. I’ve only gone through that area once before on my way to a portage. Our route ended up being a little over five miles.

The camera icon shows the palisades. The “i” icon shows a constricted area where the current from Sea Gull pours north into the river. It was a fast current on this trip, and we were able to practice ferries across the current and do eddy turns. My 9yo kid hasn’t canoed on a river before, so he was interested in seeing how it was done. I could have spent an hour there, but the family didn’t want to play in current and eddies for more than a couple of turns.

I don’t know if it was the mild winter, but there were many turtles around. I think we saw nearly 100 on Sea Gull. It was fun seeing so many. Of course, my kid wanted to try and catch them. He wasn’t successful.

In addition to the turtles, we found a life vest, a buoy, two really nice lures and some trash. We kept the lures and hauled the rest of the trash back to the garbage. In the early season, it seems like there’s always lots of trash floating along the shores of lakes close put ins.

One of the fun parts of traveling on Sea Gull is all the islands. I love weaving in and out and checking out their various shorelines. You never know what you are going to see.

Here are a few images from the trip. Hopefully, you’ve enjoyed this short trip report. I haven’t done many of these in the past, but I thought it might be fun to add these to the website. Let me know in the comments.