Lake Insula

Lake Insula covers 2,840 acres in the Kawishiwi district of the Boundary Waters, in Lake County east of Ely, and it is a different kind of water from the smaller lakes that lead to it. Nearly 75 miles of shoreline is folded into it, wrapped around islands and pushed out into long arms and narrow bays, so the map reads as a maze rather than a single open sheet. Crossing it means picking a line through the islands, and you will be checking the map at most of the narrows.

Most parties come in at Entry Point 30, Lake One, work up the Numbered Lakes and carry 95 rods out of Hudson into the south end, which is also where the lake drains back out. From the far end a 45-rod portage reaches Lake Carol and a longer 168-rod carry runs over to Kiana, while the Kawishiwi River comes in from Alice.

While Lake Insula reaches depths of 63 feet, roughly 40 percent of it is shallow water, and even there the weeds stay thin and quit around eight feet down. Most of the shore is boulder and ledgerock, with some rubble and a little sand between, which is the same rock that shapes the fishing.

Walleye and northern pike are what the lake is known for, and pike have a history of running to good size here. With so little weed cover, both hold on the rock: points, island drop-offs, and the moving water where the river comes in. Cisco stay down in the cold below them, and whitefish and perch fill out the rest.

Forty campsites are spread around the lake, sitting far enough apart that a north or west wind shutting down one long reach still leaves a sheltered arm to duck into. Those open stretches build real chop when it blows. Motors are not allowed.

The southern half burned in the 2011 Pagami Creek Fire, and some of that ground burned hot enough that the forest has been slow to come back. Cover is sparse at that end, where young aspen and birch have filled in with jack pine coming up among them, so campsites there sit in sun most of the day with little to break the wind. North of the burn the older forest still stands, and with it the shade.

Insula suits a party that wants to set up a base camp and paddle out from it rather than pass through on the way somewhere else. It sits several lakes and portages in from every entry point that reaches it, with more shoreline than one trip covers.