Airman recalls diverse encounters on excursion into Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness witnessed in St. Louis County, Minnesota

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In May of 1986, three friends and me went canoeing in the Boundary Water's Canoe Area Wilderness in Northeastern MN (St. Louis County). We had originally planned on doing a loop trip; beginning and ending at Moose River parking lot off the Echo Trail (County Rd 116). We had never gone canoe tripping before, although all of us had done extensive backpacking and were experienced woodsman. We ended up taking way too much gear, but being stubborn Air Force guys (stationed at Grand Forks AFB in North Dakota), we assumed we could overcome it. We ended up spending the night on Lake Agnes, on the peninsula on the northwest side. Due to poor planning, our site got raided by several marauding bears, which really messed things up. The next morning, the rangers asked us to depart the area. Since we were on leave, and had worked hard planning the trip, we agreed, but planned another route. We ended up portaging a mile into Ramshead Lake, approximately 2.5 miles southwest of Lake Agnes. We got in around 6 at night and set up camp and make dinner. The next day, everyone was bushed, but I wanted to go visit a nearby waterfall. So I took the canoe and paddled across the lake to Meander Creek, which flowed into the west side of Ramshead Lake. I ended up disappointed as there was very little water over a small cascade. I was just relaxing when I heard footfalls in the area. At first I thought it was a moose or a deer, but the sounds appeared to be very close and circling me. I thought this was odd, but was not overly concerned until I heard the sound of something hitting a tree with another log. The crack startled me and I jumped. Then the sound moved away and to my left, about 100 yards upstream. Another crack and I hit the path back to my canoe and returned quickly to the island. My friend Rick was sleeping and Roy and his son Ken saw me hustling and asked me what was up. I stammered that there was something out there, and I was a bit nervous. I didn't want to lose face, so I minimized it. Roy asked me to explain myself, but I couldn't articulate what had happened. I finally told him what I heard, so being the more mature and higher ranking person, he jumped in the canoe, while rousting everyone to follow him to show the "pussy" up. I reluctantly followed, and climbed into the canoe with Roy. Rick and Ken followed in the other canoe. We paddled back to the creek, and grounded our canoes before hiking to the cascades. Everyone wanted to know what happened, so I told them. They of course were laughing and poking fun at the "old boy scout", when we all heard the crack again. Everyone stopped talking and we listened. The noise was coming from the north of us, in the heavy brush about 15 yards away. Rod grabbed his paddle and rushed off into the woods to confront the noise maker. We heard several more cracks, and then Roy called to us to talk to him, so he could find his way out. He had run headfirst into the woods chasing whatever was making the noise, when he realized it was leading him deeper into the underbrush and away from us. It had moved westerly, and then paralleled the creek. When he called out, he was approximately 100 yards west of our position and we talked him back to us. As soon as he appeared, he ordered everyone back into the canoes and we paddled like crazy back to our island campsite. He explained that he felt whatever it was, was purposely leading him into a trap. He was certainly unnerved and because it was now late in the day, we couldn't leave. We built a very big fire that night and none of us hardly slept. About 4 am, we heard a loud splash, near our island and everyone jolted awake. We looked outside our cabin tent and didn't see anything. But we readied our clothes for an immediate pack up and head out. As soon as daylight broke, we tore down the campsite and started loading the canoes. At that point, Rick noticed a very large, wet footprint on the rocks by our canoes. It had to be at least 14 inches long and half again as wide. We looked around and there was no other traces, but we realized whatever made that footprint, also made the splashing sound and likely swam across the 100 yards of lake to pull himself out of the water. We cleared the site in no time and portaged another mile to lamb lake, and then we endured a 2 hour portage through a swamp southeast of Lamb lake before drained into Nina-Moose Lake. We spent the night on Nina-Moose, before heading out for home the next night. Neither of us smelled anything abnormal. Nor did we hear anything that resembled growling, screaming or grunting. All we heard were the sounds of tree branches being banged against other trees. Rich though he heard grunts, but it easily have resulted from our evacuation of the area and our heavy breathing.