Might seem totally obvious but...most of those who really love to solo are introverts at heart.  You have to be comfortable on your own for hours and days on end with very little interaction with other canoeists.  If you are an extravert, plan a short trip to start with and don't get down on yourself if you exit early regardless.

I'm an introvert.  My first solo (with 30 years of tandem tripping experience under my belt) was a 9-day trip where the weather turned windy and cold halfway through the trip and never let up.  Nevertheless, I relished every day of the experience and was a little bummed when the last day came.  Of course, once I got out of "tripping mode" I was delighted to get back to my family but as long as I was "in the zone" I enjoyed the solitude.

My route was ambitious.  I entered at Prairie Portage and went up the S-Chain as far as Silence, then veered north thru a small chain of lakes that led to Trant Lake.  Then down the creek to Kashahpiwi and across to Joyce, Marj, Burt, and into Suzanette where I layed over.  From there, I deviated from the original plan which was to drop down thru Brent and Earl to Ted, and then bushwhack my way to Robinson via an unnamed lake and creek. From there I planned to go to Kett and then back into Basswood with hopefully a layover day to spend fishing around the English Channel.

By the time I'd gotten to Joyce I'd developed a nasty blister on my foot and I realized I'd brought WAY too much crap that I didn't really need soloing, so I opted to take a different route out of Suz and headed to Kett via Brent, McIntyre, Sarah, and Tuck to minimize the portaging a bit.

I'd never been in a solo canoe in my life prior to shoving off from Prairie, so the butterflies were churning pretty good.  I'd rented a double-bladed paddle and started with that but the motion was very unnatural after a lifetime of single-blading and I could tell it was going to take many hours or days to adjust (and probably some very sore muscles to boot) so I quickly switched over to the single blade and found it to my liking.

Doing ALL the camp chores was less of a bother than I'd feared.  I kind of enjoy them all anyway; it was just a matter of adjusting my schedule to allow the extra time it takes to do it all yourself.

The push from South Lake (first campsite) to Trant in one day was brutal.  At this point I knew I was overpacked but nothing to do but either cache gear and scrap the planned route to allow a return to pick it up or else just suck it up and make the best of it.  I sucked it up.

Lost my canoe briefly on a (fortunately) small beaver pond on the creek from Trant to Kash as I was scouting the portage.  Lesson learned!  When solo, secure the boat at all times.  I was just glad it happened where I could easily swim out to retrieve it.

Got my blister from a pair of socks that rubbed me in the wrong spot on a day where I continually had wet feet and nasty portaging.  Duct tape makes a good substitute for skin.  Shoulda stopped and fixed it much earlier than I did.

Fishing solo is fun, but wind is a problem unless you troll, so did a ton of trolling.  Fish pictures are also a problem (since solved with a Go Pro camera with a suction mount on my canoe).

My modified route took me straight south on a very windy and rainy day but again, perserverance won out and I made it from Suz to Kett in one day as I'd decided that an extra couple of layover days fishing Basswood would be just the ticket to reward me for carrying way too much crap around that loop.

The confidence I had from my day in the wind was nearly my undoing on Basswood as the wind was howling but the fishing holes of the English Channel called me incessantly onward.  I misread the true direction of the wind as I entered Basswood, electing to follow the US shoreline which entailed a hair-raising crossing, fully loaded.  Once I hit the US shore, I found it to be windier than the Canadian, so I crossed back in heavy seas, broadside to the wind not by choice but because I simply could not set my load corrctly to allow me to keep the wind to my stern.  I did a lot of praying...and prying.  Stay loose and stay low was my mantra as I rolled in the heavy surf.  Once more crossing, this time more out of the wind and I was home free.  But I learned that day to never, ever, take chances like that again.

The final 2 days on Basswood I camped by the English Channel and tried to stay out of the wind.  The evening of my final night I called La Tourells on my sat phone and arranged a Washington Island pickup as it was clear that the wind wasn't going to die overnight.  Bring a means to contact help because you just never know.

The trip was both liberating and exhilerating.  It freed me from having to ever worry about missing a trip again due to my favored partners' inability to make a trip with me and also freed me from having to try to scrounge up someone else in that event.

The following spring I bought a solo of my own and used it that same year as part of a 3-man trip.  This year, I will be back in the park on my own again, this time for 10 days.  Can't wait!