My 9 year old son is planning on joining me and my buddy this year. We usually go in at Stanton Bay and paddle all over the place and exit through Nym. Any suggestions on lakes to hit with a kid.

We are looking at staying 5 days, at least that is what he says he wants to do. He loves exploring and swimming above fishing. However, when he is catching a lot of fish he becomes more interested. We are not wanting to do any long or hard portages. We would like to see some new areas are not familiar with other lakes.

Higgy,

You might head south from Stanton and hit the B-chain. He might like to check out the waterfalls between the B lakes, and the portages are short. Plus the B lakes are small, and likely to be calm if he wants to try his hand at some paddling. Pickerel will have the best beaches for swimming. Maybe have him bring a snorkel and mask for swimming?

Have fun and welcome to QJ!

Ranger

Quote:


For variety & short portages, The B-chain is a good suggestion as long as you go only as far as Fern & then backtrack - an option I'm looking at doing with my kids this year also.  If you keep going the Fern-Oliphaunt portage is tough, but doable & then you probably need to loop back to Pickerel via Deux Rivieres to Dore which can be impassable when water is low.

I've found that kids do portages pretty well, maybe better than me since they aren't carrying as much load.  That said, if you want to avoid portages there's lots to explore between Stanton & Nym with little portaging.  You could spend the whole time on Pickerel without paddling the whole thing, esp if you spend any of the time fishing/ swimming/ exploring.
-Tom

I strongly recommend the B-Chain as well. The portages have challenges but are not excessively difficult. The dam from Pickerel to Bisk is a cool spot for a stop and there are some neat waterfalls (not huge). I do recommend being exceedingly careful in the rapids that flow into Fern Lake as the youth group I led this summer damaged a canoe pretty well there.

For reference sake, we did Stanton down to Fern and camped on Fern the first night. We then backtracked and made it through a good stretch of the Pickerel Narrows for night two. We made it to the Nym Lake put-in by about 2pm on day 3. Wind was not much of a factor and the youth group I was leading was older (15-years old) however their canoeing skills were not exceptional.

I don't think you want to take on the portage to Olifaunt so I'd probably backtrack. If you do want that challenge, you could head up through Deux Rivieres. This would mean a few challenging portages as well as dealing with water levels.

If you want to base camp and take things slowly, head down to the B-chain into Fern than backtrack. There are some good sites on Pickerel, too. Skip camping on the Pickerel Narrows if possible. Feel free to send a message and I'd be happy to pass along more specific info.

Now if you could get down to Russell, he'd probably really enjoy that, but that would be pushing things.