Keith Morris of Grand Marais recently paddled and portaged from Ely to the middle of the Gunflint Trail in less then 24 hours in this kayak. Keith spent 15 years building and designing kayaks before settling on this 18-foot, 21-inch, 32-pound model.
As feats of endurance go, Keith Morris’s kayak trip from Ely to his cabin on Poplar Lake in 23 hours and 10 minutes—a trip of almost exactly 100 miles that included 30 portages— is nothing short of epic.
“It was like running four marathons back to back. Only instead of using your legs, you use your arms,” Morris said.
Morris, who says he is “somewhere north of 60 years old,” began his journey from Fall Lake in Ely at 4:02 a.m. on June 24 and ended his paddle at 3:12 a.m. on Tuesday, June 25, leaving his homemade kayak on the south end of Hungry Jack Lake and then jogging the two miles to his cabin on Poplar Lake where he ended his exhausting trip.
Along the way he endured fatigue and thick swarms of mosquitoes on the portages.
“At night it was perfectly calm and there was a full moon. I saw a couple of meteorites and about 20 beavers slapped their tail in the water when I went by. Early on there were people in the campsites but about the last 20 miles I didn’t see anyone. As far as the mosquitoes, they were terrible on the portages but I was so trashed it didn’t matter much,” he said.
To keep up his energy Morris packed three peanut butter jars full of a powder mix that contained electrolytes and protein, “but not many calories. I mixed the powder with lake water and drank every 20 minutes or so. I didn’t want to get too bloated with too many calories. When I needed to pick up my energy I had a few gel packs and ate a handful of raisins now and then,” he said.
Portages, which can be hard to find in the daytime, are especially hard to locate at night with a headlamp that gives you “maybe two to three feet of light,” Morris said.
But he knew the trails well. He had tried and failed to complete this journey last year, ending it at the 85 mile mark when “a bad storm came in and I had to build a little fire to stay warm as I waited for the weather to clear. I was nearly hypothermic and the weather was life threatening, so I ended it on Gunflint Lake.”
Morris’s route took him from Fall Lake to Newton Lake then through a series of bays on Basswood Lake where, he said, you hit the U.S.-Canada border.
From there he paddled the following lakes: Prairie Portage, Birch, Carp, Melon, Knife, Cyprus Otter Track, Swamp, Saganaga (far west end), to the Gunflint River, upstream (not downstream) on the Granite River to Marabou Lake, Gneif Lake, Clove Lake, then to Magnetic Lake where he hung a left on Gunflint Lake and proceeded on to Little Gunflint Lake, Little North Lake, North Lake, South Lake, Rat Lake, Rose Lake, then up the Stairway Portage to Duncan Lake, West Bearskin Lake, and finally Hungry Jack Lake where he docked his kayak and hoofed it home to Poplar Lake.
“I did the whole trip without maps or a GPS. I did it the old way, all by memory,” Morris said.
Due to the long winter and late spring, Morris didn’t get much training time. “I paddled maybe eight or nine times before my trip. I don’t think I did as many training miles on the water as I did when I made my way across from Ely to Mid-Trail.”
Morris spent 15 years developing the 18-footlong, 21-inch-wide kayak he used on this sojourn. The kayak is made of cedar strips and once the hull and deck were built contained more then 150 little pieces that fit together like a puzzle.
“All in all it takes about four weeks to build one of these kayaks,” Morris said.
At 32 pounds the kayak is easy to portage, and because of some innovative engineering it is easier to haul across land than most kayaks.
“When you are portaging, the kayak has a built-in yoke system that is part of the seat that rotates to a balance point and makes it very easy to carry. The whole process takes less then a second. It is very effective and very simple to use,” Morris said.
It is also very comfortable to sit in. “It feels like a La-Z-Boy recliner. It has a very good support and seat system,” he said.
Earth magnets keep the yoke in place when carrying the kayak across a portage, said Morris, adding, “You also don’t have to carry the paddles when portaging. There is a spot to slide them forward in the bulkhead.”
Morris also has two large hatches covered with fabric that can be easily removed and rolled up and stored so the kayak can be used more like a canoe, or can be used to carry a child or a pet.
“Although this isn’t a racing kayak, it is a fast touring kayak. I’ve been designing and redesigning this model for the last 15 years. There might be a few small things I can still tinker with, but really, I am very happy with it at this point,” Morris said.
Although he grew up in Cook County and has always been an avid outdoorsman, Morris said his new kayak design has allowed him to see more of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) than he ever saw in all his years of canoeing. “This really opened up the BWCA for me,” he said.
When asked if he was sore after his 100-mile journey, Morris said, “Well, I went right to bed and when I woke up I couldn’t sit up because my stomach and back were so sore I had to roll over and use my arms to get in the sitting position. But by Thursday I was okay except for a few blisters on my hands, and I went to work.”
A long-time carpenter, craftsman and renowned artist, Morris also has a long history of competing in endurance sports, racing in cross country ski events and biathlons when he was younger.
When not at Poplar Lake he lives next to the Pincushion Mountain trail system and still runs trails once or twice a week.
When asked if has any other big kayak trips planned Morris laughed, “No, this cured me. I can see doing 20- to 30-mile day trips, paddles that take five or six hours, but nothing longer than that.”
Morris is now in the process of finding someone to buy his kayak design and market and sell it. “I have taken out patents and I’m trying to sell the kayak design. Once you’ve tried this kayak you won’t want to use anything else. But I’m more of a creative person. I like the creative process of building things but not the business side of selling them. That’s best left up to somebody else,” he said.
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