We were getting tired - after all, we'd just paddled 12 miles, and, even worse, we'd had to portage our canoes already five times that day. None of us looked forward to lifting the canoes from the water and carrying them on our backs through the woods again. But that was the only way we could continue on our wilderness canoe trip. Beaching our canoes on the shore of Slim Lake in northern Minnesota, the eight of us got ready to carry our canoes and equipment across land to Fat Lake - the next body of water on our map. We checked the map to see how long the portage trail would be. "A whole mile!" We gasped in disbelief. After the five smaller portages that day, none of us felt strong enough to carry that much luggage that far.
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