This is a sixpart series with a video for each day of our first trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota, USA. We are Kevin and Sharon Page, from the Madison WI area. We also brought our two dogs, Papillon Dash (age 12.5) and JRTmix Copper (age 7).

On Day 1, we rented a bunkhouse for one night from Voyageur North outfitters, who was also supplying our canoe for the trip. We brought all of our own food and gear other than the canoe itself. After arriving in Ely and checking in, we had a 10person bunkhouse with kitchenette entirely to ourselves.