Made a trip up to Big Island Lake Wilderness Area 2nd week of October. Went in on the back side via Byers Lake trailhead. Checked out the kiosk at the TH on Haywire Grade before heading in just in case there was any info I should know (turns out there should have been). I brought along a fair bit of gear and I paddle a Penobscot 16 (Royalex) so I triple carried (62 yo). No problem getting to Byers Lake, packed the canoe and headed across to find the portage into Twilight, my destination lake. Just a heads up, OnX is not correct as to the portage location. The actual portage is about 50-75 yards north, right at the point the lake starts to get swampy.
No issues getting to Twilight, straightforward easy to follow trail, that ends directly into the middle of the only campsite on the lake. Again, OnX is incorrect, as is Avenza and several other maps I consulted. They all show the campsite being south of the portage. It’s not. Anyone that comes along is coming straight into your camp.
Once I started to settle in I noticed a paper stapled to a tree stump. Turns out the lake had been treated with Glyphosate (Roundup) recently for an invasive species. I was extremely bummed that this info wasn’t posted at the trailhead kiosk. Even though it was several days past the water usage warning period I chose to not spend 3 days drinking and cooking with the treated water. Everyone is welcome to their own opinions on Glyphosate, mine is I don’t want to willingly consume it. So I used only enough filtered water to rehydrate myself and some breakfast in the morning, then I packed up and headed back to the trailhead and my truck. Double checked when I got there to see if I missed the notice….nothing. I feel like the NFS should have had a notice posted at the start of the portage instead of only at the end.
It is a beautiful area and the colors were peaking. Loved it and will return. But I will be contacting the Hiawatha NFS offices to see if any treatments have been done before I go.
No issues getting to Twilight, straightforward easy to follow trail, that ends directly into the middle of the only campsite on the lake. Again, OnX is incorrect, as is Avenza and several other maps I consulted. They all show the campsite being south of the portage. It’s not. Anyone that comes along is coming straight into your camp.
Once I started to settle in I noticed a paper stapled to a tree stump. Turns out the lake had been treated with Glyphosate (Roundup) recently for an invasive species. I was extremely bummed that this info wasn’t posted at the trailhead kiosk. Even though it was several days past the water usage warning period I chose to not spend 3 days drinking and cooking with the treated water. Everyone is welcome to their own opinions on Glyphosate, mine is I don’t want to willingly consume it. So I used only enough filtered water to rehydrate myself and some breakfast in the morning, then I packed up and headed back to the trailhead and my truck. Double checked when I got there to see if I missed the notice….nothing. I feel like the NFS should have had a notice posted at the start of the portage instead of only at the end.
It is a beautiful area and the colors were peaking. Loved it and will return. But I will be contacting the Hiawatha NFS offices to see if any treatments have been done before I go.
