Quetico: Stanton – Russell – Elizabeth Loop (4 days / 86 km)

When you live in Thunder Bay, Quetico (it’s just “Quetico”; there is no “The”) is basically in your backyard; a long weekend or a five-day trip to Quetico is as easy for us as a trip in Algonquin was when I lived in southern Ontario. Except there are fewer crowds. And no thunder boxes.

The interesting thing about Quetico is that, although the road access is off the TransCanada Highway, most of the summer visitors are Americans, who in most years come across the border by water from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota, using what is known as a Remote Area Border Crossing Permit (RABC). Except in 2025, when the Canadian Government suspended the RABC program…which changed the dynamics on the north side of the park.

Trip Completed: August 2025

Trip Summary

Starting Point	Stanton Bay (Pickerel Lake)
Ending Point	Stanton Bay (Pickerel Lake)
Duration	4 days / 3 nights
Difficulty	Intermediate
Total Distance	86 km
Portaging Distance	5.4 km
Number of Portages	15

Location: Quetico Provincial Park, Atikokan, Ontario

Traditional Territory: This route takes place on the traditional territory of Michif Piyii (Métis) and Anishinabewaki ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᐗᑭ.

Maps & Resources

Guidebook: All of the lakes on this route are described in A Paddler’s Guide to Quetico and Beyond (Kevin Callan, 2007, ISBN-13 978-1-55046-500-6); Canoe Trails through Quetico (Keith Denis, 1959, Quetico Foundation) and Canoe Routes: Quetico Provincial Park (Ontario Department of Lands and Forests, 1962)…but they aren’t described as one continuous route. We also used Pictographs of Quetico (Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, 1984, ISBN O-7743-9119-7).

Maps Used: ChrisMar Adventure Map – Quetico Provincial Park & Area

NTS 1:50,000 Topographic Maps: 52-B-05 (Poohbah Lake)
52-B-06 (Kawnipi Lake)
52-B-11 (Pickerel Lake)
52-B-12 (Quetico Lake)
Quetico 2021 Fire Severity Map (link)

Permits & Reservations

Campsite Reservations: Individual campsites are not reservable in the Quetico interior. Each of Quetico’s 23 Backcountry Entry Points has a daily quota (ranging from 1 to 10 groups per day, depending on the lake), which are reservable. Once in the interior, all campsites are first-come, first-served.

Permits: During the summer operating period (May to October), backcountry permits must be picked up in person at one of the six Ranger Stations located around the park’s perimeter. Outside of the operating period, backcountry visitors must print out and carry their online reservation confirmation, which serves as their permit.

Know Before You Go

Season: This route can happen any time during the open water season in Quetico (typically mid-May to early November), but in our opinion, early September provides the best balance of low crowds, warm weather and no bugs.

Cell Reception: On a good day, you might get one or two bars on Pickerel Lake…but don’t bet on it.

Water: Most of the route is on medium to large lakes with good drinking water (if filtered). Occasionally, a lake in Quetico gets a blue-green algae bloom in mid- to late-summer.

Wildlife: Black bears are always a consideration in the Quetico backcountry…take appropriate precautions with food and campsite cleanliness. Raccoons are uncommon (we’ve never seen one).

Waste: There are no thunder boxes, outhouses or garbage cans at the Stanton Bay Access Point; the nearest trash can and public toilet is at the Can-Op gas station 20km east of the access point on Hwy. 11. Campsites in Quetico have no thunder boxes or outhouses; bury your bodily waste in a cathole. Please don’t leave toilet paper lying around the campsite; that’s just gross.

Outfitters & Shuttles

Outfitter: We did not hire an outfitter, but there are a few who service the area:

Canoe Canada (Atikokan) https://canoecanada.com/
Quetico Outfitters (Atikokan) https://queticooutfitters.com/
Canadian Quetico Outfitters (Thunder Bay) https://www.canadianqueticooutfitters.ca/
Voyageur Wilderness (Atikokan) https://vwp.ca/

Shuttle: No shuttle required…if you’re a Canadian resident. Non-residents are not authorized to park vehicles overnight at the Stanton Bay Access Point (I don’t know why, I just read the sign…).

Trip Report

Day 0: Dawson Trail Campground

The eastern end of Quetico Provincial Park is about a two-hour drive from our home in Thunder Bay, so whenever we’re starting a trip out of one of the northern entry points, we prefer to stay the night before at the car campground in the northeast corner of the park. The Dawson Trail Campground has 106 campsites, five cabins, showers and a small visitors’ centre. The campsites are arranged in two campground areas: Ojibwa and Chippewa. We tend to like the sites in the Chippewa area better, as they are generally larger, more private, and most of them have direct access to French Lake.

On this trip, we stayed at site 21, the westernmost site on the Chippewa loop, which is my friend’s favourite site in Dawson Trail. We liked the privacy and the access to a bit of private beach, but the site is on a slope and has been terraced such that our car was parked on the top level, the tent was set on the middle level, and the fire pit and picnic table are on the lower level. In addition, a big wind storm had blown through the park about a week before, and there were a lot of trees still being cleaned up in the campground while we were there (though we had no issues on the canoe trip).

We left right after work, made good time to the campground, set up the tent and grilled some smokies on the fire for dinner. There was still plenty of daylight left to hike the Teaching Trail (2km) and enjoy the Ojibwe Horses that were in the park for their annual demonstration by the Lac La Croix First Nation.

Day 1: Stanton Bay Access Point to Twin Lakes (17 km)

From previous experience, we knew that Pickerel Lake can get pretty whipped up in a wind, so we were up early, had a cold breakfast and loaded up to drive to the access point before 8am. It’s only 26 km from the campground to the access point, but it takes the better part of an hour to get there…at least if you’re driving a Hyundai Tucson. 11 km west of the campground, turn left onto the Stanton Bay Access Road (it’s well marked). This is a loose surface forest access road that can vary in condition from very good to very bad, depending on the season and how much it’s being used. In 2025, the road was seeing heavy use by construction crews working on twinning the hydro corridor between Thunder Bay and Atikokan; in consequence, the road was in poor shape, at least for a Tucson. We bounced along at about 20 kph, doing our best to avoid boulders and car-swallowing potholes. We’d been on the dirt road about five minutes when an outfitter van (I won’t say which outfitter) hauling a canoe trailer came barrelling down the road, and placed herself squarely behind us, blowing her horn, obviously in a hurry to get her clients to the access point. There’s nowhere to pass or pull over on this road. She eventually got the hint and backed off.

Driving to Stanton Bay, even in the best of conditions, is an adventure. Because it’s a forest access road, there are any number of branches and intersections…every time I’ve been down there I get to a point where I wonder if I’ve missed a turn, but there are a couple of small Ontario Parks signs along the way to reassure you. Eventually we arrive at the parking lot, a grass-and-gravel clearing that can hold about twenty cars. On this day in mid-August there were ten. While we unloaded, the outfitter van arrived, and although no words were exchanged, her clients were clearly in a hurry to get on the lake…they were unloaded and down the portage before we had our canoe untied.

Portage from Stanton Bay Parking Lot to Stanton Bay (Pickerel Lake) (474 m): The Stanton Bay portage is easy by Quetico standards. The hill down from the parking lot, and the hill down to the lake at the south end, both have a bit of tricky footing, but most of the portage is wide and flat, with boardwalks over most of the mucky parts. Most of the time at least…I’ve been here in the spring when water levels have been high and have seen ankle-deep water flowing down the trail like a small river. But on this trip, the trail was dry and free of any deadfall. The landing at Stanton Bay is flat and sandy, with plenty of room for four or five canoes to unload at the same time.

We pushed off at Stanton Bay around 9:30 am. We’d hoped that would be early enough to beat the wind, but as soon as we were on the bay, we knew we were wrong; Stanton Bay is sheltered, but we could see whitecaps piling up on the main part of Pickerel Lake.

Pickerel Lake is big (5300 ha; 27 km long). When it’s calm, it is a lovely lake to paddle, but it has a reputation for big winds, and it always seems that the wind is coming from the wrong direction. Today was no different; although Stanton Bay was reasonable, the orientation of the mouth of the bay was taking the full brunt of the southeast wind, with big whitecaps off our port quarter for 8 km if we took the direct line to Dore Lake. We pulled up on a small island at the mouth of Stanton Bay and considered our options.

Pickerel Lake is also a bit of a maze of islands and bays; this can make for tricky navigation if you’re not paying attention to your map, but it also provides options in dealing with the wind if you take the time to plot a sheltered course. On this day, instead of taking the most direct route to Dore Lake, we headed west, following the north side of Long Island, hooking around the western tip of Emerald Island and the shelter of several smaller islands on the southern side of Pickerel Lake. This meant adding one short portage to our route, but ultimately only added about a kilometre of paddling and saved us the hassle of fighting the wind and whitecaps.

Portage from Pickerel Lake (main lake) to Pine Portage Bay (Pickerel Lake) (130 m): This is a quick and easy, well-used portage with flat sandy landings on either end. We stopped and had a lunch break in the sun on the beach on the Pine Portage side.

A kilometre and a half across Pine Portage Bay brought us to the Pine Portage. An interesting bit of history about Quetico is that much of the park was part of the ‘Voyageur Highway’ during the fur trade, one of the main routes that crews of North Canoes would take on their way between Fort William and Fort Frances. Many of the portages along this route were named by the Voyageurs; in the case of the portage between Pickerel Lake and Dore Lake, it actually has two names. “Pine Portage” (on the 1:50,000 topo map), because it runs through a stand of large pine trees, and “Portage des Morts” (on the ChrisMar map). Legend has it that a voyageur was once crushed to death under a canoe here, and is buried under a pile of rocks near the trailhead.

We arrived at the portage at the same time as our American friends, who were in such a hurry to get underway when we last saw them in the parking lot. Even though they’d left ahead of us, they’d taken the direct route into the wind. It made us happy to know we’d made the right decision with our detour.

Portage from Pine Portage Bay (Pickerel Lake) to Dore Lake (Portage des Morts – 494 m: Bill Mason famously wrote that “anyone who says they like portaging is either a liar or crazy”. So it may seem funny for anyone to say they have a favourite portage, but this one is mine. It’s not my favourite because it’s easy…though it is. Wide and straight, it starts with a long but gradual rise from Pickerel Lake before levelling off about halfway to Dore; there are level sand landings at both ends. But this is my favourite portage because of its subtle energy. Look down; notice how deeply the footpath is worn into the soil and think of how many thousands of people over hundreds of years have walked this same path in order to pack it that deep. You can almost feel the history of the place if you take the time to pay attention.

The Portage des Morts was crowded by Quetico standards; while we were there, there were two other groups going in the same direction as us (and we could see another paddling in on Pine Portage Bay), and two more groups heading in the opposite direction. Never before had I seen more than one other crew on a portage in Quetico. Chatting with some of the others, we learned that, in part, this was due to the federal government’s suspension of the RABC program in 2025. This seems to have resulted in higher than normal demand for entry permits in the BWCA, and since Americans couldn’t cross over into Canada from the water access points along the border, many were choosing to drive into Canada and access Quetico from the north.

The sky had turned dark grey while we were portaging, but the wind had dropped off… fortunately, it never did rain, but we were now hustling in anticipation. We headed southwest on Dore Lake towards the Deux Rivieres Portage, but stopped to take a look at a small pictograph on the way by. The pictograph is on a low rock face on the south shore, directly across from a small island with a nice campsite on it. Near the waterline is an image of a canoe. Much fainter, and partly damaged, is an image of a moose.

Portage from Dore Lake to Twin Lakes (Deux Rivieres Portage – 753 m): We’d done this portage before, in both directions, and it never gave us any trouble, though if you’re coming north on the portage, there’s a bit of a climb. But the week leading up to this trip had been a bit wetter than my previous times here…

The approach to the portage from Dore Lake is down a short dog-leg channel that makes the landing hard to see from the lake, but once you go around the corner, it’s obvious where to pull up. The take-out is on a low, flat dome of bedrock with plenty of room to pull up several canoes. We did see a pair of older men coming the other way on the portage who must have missed the final turn on the portage trail and were bushwhacking to get to the lake, and had taken the saying “treat it like a rental” to heart. Coming off the dome of rock, we got our feet wet wading through an intermittent stream that hadn’t been there on past trips and was a harbinger of the conditions over the rest of the portage…it was wet and mucky, sinking up to our knees in a couple of places, and not at all like the hard-packed trail I remembered from the past. Apart from the mud, though, this portage is wide, clear and well-used. The landing on the Twin Lake side is a level spot under some cedar trees with an easy put-in.

Twin Lake is just as the name suggests…two smallish basins separated by a narrow channel. There are no “official” campsites in Quetico, and in consequence the “official” maps don’t show campsite locations; but unofficial maps identify two campsites on each basin. We set up on the island in the south basin.

Twin Lake Island Campsite (48.576N, 91.460W) is a nice enough site in a red pine stand, though the tenting area is at the top of a rise and it’s a bit of a climb to get water. The bedrock takeout is a bit tight, but we only had one canoe to worry about. The site is generally south-facing, gets good sun throughout the day and has room for three or four tents. Plenty of firewood on an island site suggests that it doesn’t get much use, though we saw plenty of canoe traffic through the afternoon and evening as people passed through on their way to Sturgeon Lake. As with all sites in Quetico, there is no thunderbox, but the island is large and open enough to provide plenty of cat-holing opportunities.

Total Distance	17.4 km
Portaging Distance	1.8 km
Number of Portages	4
Campsite Reservation	None Required

Day 2: Twin Lakes to Russell Lake (15 km)

It was hazy and still when we got up on our second day; we’d planned a longer day of paddling, and with the number of people we’d seen heading in on Day 1, we made sure we were on the water as early as possible.

It’s only a few minutes paddling from the island campsite on Twin Lakes to the outlet into Deux Rivières. Deux Rivières is like a box of chocolates…you never know what you’re going to get. On this trip, we were heading downstream, and the water levels were good for August. But the beavers had been busy, so we had to drag over four dams of varying heights between Twin Lakes and Sturgeon Lake. The first kilometre downstream from Twin Lakes is fairly straight and confined, while the second kilometre opens up into a broad beaver meadow and the river becomes a bit more sinuous. The final hundred metres or so is through tall sedges which hide the exit into the lake until you’re right on top of it…it can be challenging to find the opening into the river from Sturgeon Lake if you’re paddling in the opposite direction.

The northernmost end of Sturgeon Lake can be tough to paddle in low water; heading west from the mouth of Deux Rivières, stick to the north (right) side of the island for deeper water. About a kilometre and a half from the river, the lake dog-legs to the south and narrows for a little over a kilometre before opening up into the main part of the lake again. If you’re facing a south wind, the narrow bit can be a tough paddle, but it was fairly calm on this trip and we covered our stretch of Sturgeon quickly.

After three and a half kilometres, the lake narrows again and swings west; this is the junction with the Maligne River. The current was noticeable but manageable when we started into the river, and we didn’t see any rocks or obstructions ahead, so we decided to paddle through to Russell Lake rather than take the short portage on the right. We were doing just fine with this approach until we came around the final point on Russell Rapids, where the water became shallow very quickly, and we hung up on the bedrock. The current spun us 180 degrees, took us off the rock, and it was a bit of a challenge to get heading back upstream again…if the water had been any higher, we probably would have lost a lot more ground. As it turned out, we pushed hard and made it into the lake, but in retrospect, the portage would have been less hassle going upstream.

Where Russell empties into the Maligne River, there is a small island in the middle of the stream. It was an easy pull out on smooth bedrock, so we decided to get out, stretch our legs and consult the map. This island has maybe three dozen trees on it, all older red pines. Every single one of these trees is marked with an ancient scar from an axe; when I saw the first one, I thought it was an old blaze (odd for an island), but when I saw that all the trees were marked this way, I realized these were artifacts from the historic Indigenous and Voyageur users of this canoe route.

In the days of birch bark canoes, sites such as these were used as repair stations; patches of bark were removed from pine trees so that the sap would weep and harden into resin. Paddlers who knew where the sites were could stop, build a fire, and melt the hardened resin to make repairs to their boats. Academic researchers refer to these as “Culturally Modified Trees”, but the Park staff typically refer to them as “Peel Trees” (the Park has a pamphlet about them available at the Visitor’s Centre). We enjoyed the subtle sense of history that was present on this island. Please don’t camp on this important site.

Our intended route on Russell was to visit Chatterton Falls, then portage into Chatterton Lake and Keates Lake, where we were going to spend the night. The wind was up by this point, so we took the longer path through a cluster of islands to get as much shelter as possible. About 3km south of the Peel Tree Island, we came upon a nice-looking site and decided to stop for lunch. The site was so nice in fact that, given the wind, we decided to shorten our route and just stay there for the night.

We ate lunch, set up the tent and cut firewood, by which time the wind had settled down a bit, so we loaded up the fishing rods and paddled the rest of the way to see Chatterton Falls. This cataract is about 600m long, with at least three distinct drops and rapids in between. There are a couple of mediocre campsites at the tail end of the falls, and a trail that follows the river upstream for about five hundred metres before petering out short of the top of the falls. It’s a lovely walk with some great views and we spent a good hour exploring the site before heading back to our island campsite (we struck out on the fishing though).

Russell Lake Campsite (48.479N, 91.468W): This site is on the southwestern tip of a large horseshoe-shaped island in the middle of Russell Lake, and was too good to pass up. The take-out is on smooth, but steep bedrock. The site itself is bi-level; the tenting area is on the lower, flatter level, with room for three to four tents, while the fire pit and kitchen area are on the higher level, on mostly bald rock. A rocky spit provides a good site to swim and fish from, and when the wind wasn’t howling, we could hear the falls a kilometre and a half away. This site obviously gets more use than our previous site on Twin Lakes, and we had to work hard to scrape up a decent pile of firewood.

Total Distance	16.7km (including side trip to the falls)
Portaging Distance	0 m (we bypassed the 73m portage around Russell Rapids)
Number of Portages	0
Campsite Reservation	None Required

Day 3: Russell Lake to Elizabeth Lake (22 km)

Since we’d cut Day 2 short in order to take advantage of the great site on Russel, we were also ahead on Day 3, so we took the opportunity to have a relaxed breakfast, enjoy the sunrise over the misty lake, and an extra cup of coffee. Yesterday’s wind had disappeared, and we pushed off onto a calm lake around 9:30.

We headed west, following the south shore of the lake and into the small embayment at the west end. This part of the lake is a lot more open than the route we took through the islands yesterday, and probably would have been a struggle in that wind, but we had no problems on Day 3. After an easy hour, we hit the first portage of the day.

Portage from Russell Lake to Sturgeon Lake (424 m): Some people refer to this as the “Staircase Portage”, but there certainly aren’t any stairs here to make it easier! Although it is a moderate length, this portage essentially goes straight up, then straight down. Plenty of rocks and tree roots provide sketchy footing throughout the length of this carry.

Back on Sturgeon Lake, we headed northwest across the open part of the lake and into the narrow channel north of Scripture Island. As we followed the north shore of the lake, to our left we started to see evidence of the big fire of 2021 that burnt some 20% of Quetico. Four years after the fire, most of the dead trees here are still standing, with plenty of greenery covering the ground between them. It was a bit surreal paddling with a healthy forest on our right side and the burn on our left. After about an hour on Sturgeon Lake, we came to the next portage that started the northward leg of our route.

Portage from Sturgeon Lake to Lonely Creek (168m): This is a quick and easy portage on the edge of the burn. The landing on Sturgeon Lake is flat gravel; on the creek side it’s a bit marshy. In between the trail is well-used, but being at the edge of the burn, it’s probably prone to blow-down. We had no problems, though, other than an angry grouse who spooked us as we crested the hill.

After our misadventure on Trail Creek (on the other side of Quetico) last year, we approach “single line creeks” with a bit of trepidation, especially in August…but Lonely Creek had plenty of water in it, and other than lifting over one beaver dam, it was an easy paddle and a nice change from being on the open lake.

Portage from Lonely Creek to Lonely Lake (248 m): The short paddle on Lonely Creek ends at a small rocky section where the creek flows out of Lonely Lake. It’s a pretty spot, and the bedrock landing is easy, though there’s only room for one canoe at a time. The trail is mostly flat and easy, though there were a couple of patches of slimy clay that stuck to everything.

Our first look at Lonely Lake was deceiving…it looked more like a river than a lake. From the portage, head to the left (west) down a narrow channel for a kilometre and a half…and when you get to the small island with the campsite, make sure you take the right finger – don’t go into the other two marshy fingers, which both dead-end. From here, Lonely Lake opens up; it seemed bigger than it looks on the map. And the wind had come up, but now it was at our backs, so we clipped along nicely in the sunshine.

Halfway to the next portage, we pulled up to a campsite on the north side of the lake (48.527N, 91.581W) for a lunch break. The site was fronted by a fishhook-shaped finger of bedrock that acts as a natural breakwall against a south or east wind, and created a lovely spot to pull out the canoe and swim. It was a great spot for lunch, but not much of a campsite; it looks like several trees have come down recently, and the remaining parts of the site are mostly bedrock. Maybe room for one tent. The site on Lonely Lake closest to the portage to Walter Lake looked much nicer if you’re planning on staying on this lake.

Back in the canoe after lunch and heading toward Walter Lake. We got a bit turned around looking for the portage; once we passed the last campsite on Lonely, we misread the shoreline and went back and forth along a reedy bit of shoreline looking for a take-out. I was about to wade through the grass and try to find a trail when we heard voices off to our right. It turns out that we were about 300m south of where we were supposed to be…to get to the portage, you have to paddle through a different reedy patch, over a beaver dam and down a short channel. It probably sucks in low water.

Portage from Lonely Lake to unnamed pond (126 m): Finding the trailhead was tough, but the portage itself was easy, just a quick up-and-down into a small pond between Lonely and Walter; you can see the beginning of the next portage from the end of this one.

Portage from unnamed pond to Walter Lake (70 m): Also short and easy. The only complaint with this portage is the need to load and unload the canoe twice between Lonely Lake and Walter!

Walter Lake is basically a circle with two long arms coming off of it; the portage comes into the southern arm, which was a lovely sheltered paddle until it turns north into the main part of the lake, where we had a bit of a crosswind. The north shore of Walter Lake is fairly featureless, but we could see the portage landing from two kilometres away; look for a patch of red dirt along an otherwise uniform shoreline.

Portage from Walter Lake to Elizabeth Lake (241 m): This carry has rocky but level landings on either end. It’s somewhat uphill going from Walter to Elizabeth, but it posed no problems.

Elizabeth Lake is long and narrow (3.5 km), but all the traffic we saw was confined to the west shore, a short stretch between Walter and Jesse Lakes. It only took us ten minutes to paddle from the portage to our intended campsite for the third night.

Elizabeth Lake Campsite (48.574N, 91.555W): Easily the best spot on Elizabeth Lake, this site is on the north shore, about a kilometre east of the portage to Jesse Lake. The bedrock landing is a bit steep for unloading the canoe, and the tent pads are set back a ways from the water, but otherwise the site was perfect: a wide open red pine stand with space for several tents, a great fire pit and kitchen area, good swimming, and possibly the best bear hanging spot I’ve ever seen in over forty years of tripping. We cut and stacked enough firewood for ourselves and the next group, cooked up some Indian-Mexican Fusion Burritos and thoroughly enjoyed yet another great Quetico sunset.

Total Distance	21.8 km
Portaging Distance	1.3 km
Number of Portages	6
Campsite Reservation	None Required

Day 4: Elizabeth Lake to Stanton Bay Access Point (29 km)

This was the final day of our trip, but we didn’t plan it that way, nor would we recommend others to do this in a single day. But sometimes you need to alter your plans…

Sometimes you wake up and just feel…off. The morning was grey and humid, neither of us had slept particularly well, and we just wanted to get on the water. We discussed whether or not it was possible to combine Days 4 and 5, decided we’d make a decision at lunch time, but rearranged our menu so that we had a quick cold breakfast (which we always plan for the final morning) and got onto the lake as early as we could.

It’s just a short hop from the campsite to the Jesse Lake portage, and we were unloading again in less than ten minutes after pushing off the site.

Portage from Elizabeth Lake to Jesse Lake (760 m): On paper, this was the longest portage on our route, but it was of average difficulty. Good landings on either end, generally uphill from Elizabeth to Jesse and overall well maintained by the Quetico portage crews.

By the time we got to Jesse Lake the morning haze had burned off, the sun had come out, and we could already feel the wind building, even though it was early and Jesse is a fairly small lake. Jesse also seems to be a popular lake; every time I’ve been through here I’ve seen several groups coming through the lake, or set up on the many campsites. Coming off Elizabeth, we came across two other groups heading in the opposite direction, and saw two others camped on the lake. And with good reason; it’s a pretty lake with several nice places to camp. It’s also a complex lake, with several finger bays and quite a few islands, so it’s important to keep an eye on your map when you’re looking for the portages.

Portage from Jesse Lake to Maria Lake (705 m): Another flat and easy carry, with good landings on either end. The only sketchy spot is a muddy area in the middle; somebody laid down some corduroy may years ago, and the wood has become slimy and uneven. I chose to walk in the mud rather than on this ankle-twister.

Maria Lake is just a smaller version of Jesse, pretty and popular. It looked to us like every site on the lake was occupied while we were there, though it’s a short, quick paddle between the portages.

Portage from Maria Lake to Pickerel Lake (302 m): The landings on both ends of this carry are a bit tricky…steep and rocky on the Maria side, shallow and rocky on the Pickerel side…but otherwise this is another easy, well-maintained trail.

Like I said before, whenever I’ve been on Pickerel Lake, the wind has been blowing in the wrong direction, and today was no different, a strong easterly wind, which meant that we’d be paddling into a headwind for most of the remainder of the trip. From Maria, Pickerel starts with a large, shallow embayment that was starting to show a few whitecaps while we were on it. Fortunately, the lake turns north after a couple of kilometres, and we were sheltered from the wind when we pulled up at a site to stop for lunch.

The site we picked (48.618N, 91.531W) was on my list of backup sites for this route, at a spot that the NTS topo map identifies as “Mosquito Point”. The takeout was awful; steep, broken rock with no good footing. I was waist-deep pulling the food pack out…we just tied the canoe to a tree, because I couldn’t figure out where to pull it up properly. The site itself is raised about ten metres over the water, and the view is lovely. It’s a smaller site, with spots for no more than two tents. Another decent spot for lunch, but the takeout would dissuade me from staying here for the night.

Just before we got back into the boat, I trotted back into the trees to dig a cathole…and I was surprised at what I found. First thing was, the land was abnormally flat compared to the rest of the area. Eventually, I started to find old junk…discarded bottles and cans and a few other items. And if I used my imagination, I could see the ghost of a road or cart path heading off through the trees. When I got home, I consulted my 1956 Quetico canoe map (which I am fortunate was still intact when I picked up a copy of Canoe Trails Through Quetico at a yard sale). It turns out that Mosquito Point was once the site of a Quetico Ranger cabin.

Leaving Mosquito Point, we swung east, into the part of the lake known as Pickerel Narrows, a long and skinny part of the lake replete with small islands and finger bays. We again had a headwind, but the islands in the Narrows broke it up for us, so the paddling over the next six or seven hours wasn’t too bad. We continued to see the crowded conditions on Pickerel Lake that had surprised us on Day 1, coming upon groups heading in either direction or camped on the many sites along the way, including one group who had tied four canoes into two catamarans, apparently to give them more stability in the wind, which was picking up the farther east we headed.

At lunch, my partner was all but convinced that we should end the trip a day early, and when we got to the last campsite on Pickerel Narrows, where we had originally planned to stop (about 15 km from our site on Elizabeth), we both agreed that we weren’t feeling up to another day, and that we were better to push on.

Once again, we took the long route in order to keep out of the wind as much as possible, snaking through several small islands until we came to the western tip of Emerald Island, the largest island in Pickerel Lake. We chose to take the shallow and narrow passage between Emerald and Long Islands, which gave us some reprieve from the waves for a couple of kilometres, until we emerged into the same wave-ridden open water that we had done our best to avoid on Day 1. The crossing between Emerald Island and Lookout Island, and thence to Stanton Bay, was a hairy mess of colliding whitecaps, hitting us both on the bow and the starboard quarter. We kept ploughing on through, bracing often, swearing under our breaths just as often, until we finally hit the calm waters in Stanton Bay.

The worst thing about starting a loop trip from Stanton is that you have to finish your trip with the same 474 m portage as you started it with. Normally, this carry is pretty easy, but today we were exhausted.

Portage from Stanton Bay (Pickerel Lake) to Stanton Bay Parking Lot (474 m): Same as before, except in reverse, and this time after paddling nearly 30 kilometres. At least the food barrel was lighter this time.

Back at the car, we loaded up and headed back down the lumpy bumpy access road to the highway. A quick stop at the Dawson Trail Visitor’s Centre to use a flush toilet and buy a couple of cold drinks, then on the road back to Thunder Bay.

Total Distance	28.9 km
Portaging Distance	2.2 km
Number of Portages	4
Campsite Reservation	N/A

Reflections

When you live in Thunder Bay, Stanton Bay is probably the main access point people use to get into Quetico. We’ve started plenty of trips here, but we always try to get to at least one lake that we haven’t seen before. This time it was Russell Lake and Chatterton Falls, and they didn’t disappoint. The Peel Tree Island at the top of Russell Rapids, the hike along Chatterton Falls, and the phenomenal campsite on Russell Lake were all big highlights of the trip.

Apart from the crowds on Pickerel Lake, and ending the trip early, there really weren’t any down sides; the route was solid, the water levels were all good, the portage crews had been out following the wind storm of a couple weeks prior. We did learn a lot about navigating in wind, especially that the straight route is not always the best route. And that 30 km in one day is possible, even when you’d rather be curled up in bed.

Author Bio

Steve Bobrowicz started canoe tripping as a Boy Scout in 1983. A former trip guide in Algonquin Park and Scouting volunteer for more than 26 years, he has led nearly one hundred backcountry trips for youth and youth-at-risk. Now located in Northwestern Ontario, between trips Steve pays the bills as a fisheries biologist.