Easy Trips

Caribou Lake

This is a scenic but modest route into the wilderness that starts on Poplar Lake and heads south thru Liz and down into Horseshoe and Gaskin Lakes. You can move around with your camps or you can base camp and explore by the day. The bass and walleye fishing is decent, there is an abundance of moose habitat and plenty of beaver. The portages are modest -- not as rocky or as long as on other routes. The lakes tend to be more sheltered and less impacted by the winds. Many people come back out to Poplar Lake at the end of their trip -- a few extend this package a couple of days and make it more of an adventure by coming out of the wilderness at Ham Lake making their travel into a loop.

Ham Lake

This nearby waterway has easier portages (actually your hardest one is the first one you come to), and smaller lakes. Most visitors go past Ham Lake to Cross Bay with it's pretty lily pad filled bays and moose feeding areas. You can usually chase up a walleye or two for dinner to go along with your exploring and watching the wildlife. You will probably explore 5 or 6 lakes in this waterway system and travel over 5 or 6 easy portages during your trip. While you do not travel many miles it is still a quiet and tucked away area in pure wilderness. This route is very nice for families with smaller children.

Seagull/Saganaga

Your trip starts on the north side of Seagull and you have 4 miles of paddling along the island studded north shore of the lake. Then comes the longest of your three portages during the trip -- it is a bit over 100 rods-about 1/3 mile long. Beautiful Alpine Lake just begs to be explored and fished and is a very good spot to spend your first two nights camping. Then you move on to Red Rock Lake for another two nights. This lake tends to be more remote with fewer visitors. The fishing is usually good for walleye and bass. On your last day you take the short portage over to Saganaga Lake and are met by a tow boat for a fast ride back to the road head and our waiting van. This easy trip works well for soft fishermen, easy going couples and families.

Moderate Trips

Johnson Falls

This loop trip goes from East Bearskin Lake to Clearwater Lake (works good going in either direction), and combines scenic medium sized lakes, reasonable portaging, decent fishing for bass and walleye, and the feature of Johnson Falls. To reach the falls you walk up a small valley with a cedar forest in succession. When the valley opens up at the falls there is a sparkling swimming pool below it. It is a wonderful place to spend part of a sunny afternoon at. While most of the portages are moderate there is one exception. The long one has a decent trail, goes up a long gradual hill, and is about 1/2 mile long. Many of the lakes have thick stands of white and red pine along the shore. Moose sitings are frequent.

Hansen Lake

We usually start this trip from Seagull Lake and end it on Saganaga Lake so you have the probability of a tail wind as you cross Sag on your last day. This trip has a nice mix with a variety of lakes, combined with fishing and wildlife viewing. 6 nights of camping gives you the opportunity of spending a couple of nights in one location so you can have a soft day in the middle of your trip. This loop takes you deep into the BWCA and comes around along the Minnesota-Canadian border on Otter Track and Saganaga Lakes. Fishing is for bass, walleye, lake trout and some northern. A couple of the trout and bass lakes are very good most of the time.

Rose Lake

We start you on West Bearskin Lake and you head north through Duncan Lake and on toward Rose Lake. You cross Stairway Portage, a particularly scenic spot, as you leave Duncan Lake . A few feet off the portage is a beautiful overlook at the top of a cliff. The entire Canadian valley opens up north of you with Rose Lake sparkling in the foreground. Fortunately you are going down Stairway Portage (108 log steps) as you journey on to Rose Lake and a pine studded campsite for the coming night. The lake is known for outstanding bass fishing so it is worth casting some of the shoreline for your dinner. Rose Lake is a border lake so the north half is in Canada. You continue your trip heading west thru Mud, Rat, South, North and Gunflint Lakes. You cross the Laurentian Divide between South and North Lakes--you leave the Atlantic watershed and enter the headwaters of the Arctic watershed, much as the voyageurs did. You paddle back to our dock on Gunflint at the end of your trip.

Challenging Trips

Frost River

You start with a Ham lake entry into the wilderness heading south toward Long Island Lake. You are near the headwaters of the Arctic watershed and deep in the BWCA as you continue on to Frost Lake and into the Frost River. In thinking of how to describe this area words like- serene, surprise, solitude and sweat come to mind. This trip only works when we have a decent water level--Spring is best usually--from ice out in early May through most of June. After paddling the river you continue through Mora, Crooked, Tuscarora, Missing Link and Round Lakes. This has some of the best lake trout fishing in mid America. These are all native trout lakes--the fish all have a dark spotted skin color and orange flesh--and they are tasty.

The portages on this route are on the rocky and rough side--not real long but somewhat challenging because of the terrain. This is a fun trip for canoeists looking for a challenge and that come with previous experience.

Kawnipi Adventure

We get you a fast start with a tow service across Saganaga Lake so you can get across the Silver Falls Portage by late morning and start your Quetico adventure in good style. You stop to visit the Park Ranger as you enter the Park to get your Good Conduct Lecture and any last minute pieces of advice. You soon cross Saganagons Lake and head into the Falls Chain going on to Kawnipi. It is all remote and is one waterfalls after another. It takes about 2 days to get to Kawnipi and every paddle stroke of the way is worth it.

Most canoeists make a base camp on Kawnipi since that lake is large with a variety of arms to explore and different waterways to check out. The fishing is outstanding for bass and walleye. The campsites are primitive and you create your own safe fire ring and tent spot. You return the same way you went in and again, we pick you up on Saganaga for a tow home to save you a days paddling. Visitors should be experienced, but whitewater experience is not necessary as the waterfalls are not navigatable.

Banadad Lake

You start on either Poplar Lake or Iron lake and head south into the interior of the wilderness area on a waterway overlooked by most visitors. The lakes are medium to small, the portages are fairly level but on the muddy side here and there, the fishing is best for northern and lake trout with walleye fishing on the last two days of the trip. There are very few permits for entry to this area so you sometimes have an entire lake to yourself as you settle into a campsite for the evening. There is a pack of timber wolves in the area that can sometimes be heard howling in the distance at night.

You paddle thru Rush, Banadad, Long Island, George, Rib, Cross Bay and Ham Lakes as you journey along. The rapids connecting the lakes are small but pretty. We pick you up at the Ham Lake landing on your last day.

Quetico Trips

Man Chain (via Knife Lake entry)

After the tow boat takes you across Saganaga you check in with the Park Ranger and continue along the border on Cypress and Knife Lakes with their high rocky cliffs. Part way down Knife you head north toward Emerald Lake and on to the Man Chain--This Man, That Man and the Other Man Lakes. They are long east-west lakes--fairly narrow-- with good fishing and moose viewing. You camp as the mood strikes you, your fishing is primarily for bass and the world is in your lap. It doesn't get much better than this. You leave the Man Chain eventually and portage on to Saganagons Lake for some walleye fishing and picture taking at Silver Falls. You portage up around the falls to Saganaga Lake and the tow boat again meets you for your Sag Lake ride back to the landing where we meet you.

Kawnipi Trip (includig fly-in to Clay Lake)

You start with an air flight from Saganaga Lake to Clay Lake to save you a weeks paddling. Then your paddling adventure starts as you wind down the Greenwood and Wawiagamuck Rivers heading into the Quetico Park. You take a couple of portages off the Wawiag to Mack Lake for some of the best fishing in the Quetico for bass, walleye and northern. Mack Lake is worth an extra day for the fishing alone. Then you continue on down the Wawiag and into Kawnipi for more fishing, camping, exploring, moose searching, etc. It will take you about 2 days to paddle out from Kawnipi along the Falls Chain to Saganagons Lake as you pace yourself. You pass by Silver Falls on your last portage and then paddle out on Saganaga for your tow pickup and your ride home to the landing your last day.

Jasper Lake (via Knife Lake entry)

After your tow across Saganaga Lake you stop at the Quetico Park Ranger for your blessing, and then continue along the border to Cypress and Knife Lake for your first night of camping. The next day you tackle a tough portage back into Jasper Lake where you make your base camp. The lake is a wilderness jewel and rarely visited because of the tough portage getting into it, but it is worth it. You usually have the lake to yourselves, just sharing it with the moose, otters, mink, loons, etc. The bass fishing is to kill for, with trophies regularly caught -- we release them after a quick picture, while we keep something smaller for the frying pan. At the end of your trip you are met again for a boat ride back to the landing where we meet you.