I entered at the Johnson Lake entry around noon. The park has installed a long mat on the floating bog section of the portage leaving Johnson Lake. It is a nice improvement over the floating riprap. I was told at the park office that the new portage at Lund replacing the 275-500 and pond crossing is open. Closed right now because of the fire but it is done. It is well north of the old trail so be sure and check with the park before heading in.

Thanks to Denton Doc's temp chart I know why I was pouring water over myself by the time I got to Hatchet Lake. I stopped early because I sensed I was heating up too much. The start of the portage to Peterson has a small campsite in heavy shade and I stopped there for the night. It was a better day when I headed out in the morning. Water levels were really low so I took some time on the 200 on the north end of Page to cut and throw the logs out of the stream. This allowed me to pull my canoe up the trickle of water and shorten the portage to 60 meters which is the distance we have been enjoying in the wet years. The 450 after Crystal is still flooded by beaver so the canoe is paddled in the midsection. A large tree fell across in this section making it necessary to wallow in some pretty stinky stuff. I found a great spot for a big camp on the lake after the 550. The new site is about 100 meters south of the creek exit to the north.

The next day I crossed Indian House and North Prairie and entered what I call the "Minjim Route." When I was in the park office I learned that a man from Germany had taken Indian House creek all the way to Murdock earlier in the year. He found it pretty easy to travel and not that many portages. My route was SW on the "Minjim" and I was very pleased to find it with plenty of water for paddling in this extremely dry year. That is great news for the future of this route to Royd Lake. There was plenty of water to paddle but I chose to wade and clear the debris exposed by the lower water levels. The water was knee to chest deep as I worked my way up stream. Two short portages later I camped on what we call "High camp Lake." The next day three portages put me on Joey Lake. Now, get this, I kept on traveling because this year I chose not to bring fishing gear! I found a new campsite on Lightning Lake about 100 meters NE of the exit portage toward Royd Creek. I made camp wearing heavy poly and Goretex because of the cold wind. The poly stayed on all night, what a change in the temps.

On Sat. two short portages put me on the small creek to the pool and drop area of eastern Royd Creek. A large log laying across the stream had been paddled under and pulled over for too many years. It took a little while but the pruning saw I was carrying this year did a good jog. I think thanks go to Kingfisher for letting it be known how well these saws can serve you. This stream also had plenty of water to allow paddling all the way to the one portage in the middle. Once out on the small lakes I did one portage and left the creek to head north to "Poodle Lake." I found a nice new camp spot just north of the first island and on the east side. The next morning my body felt as tired  as it did when I went to bed so I took the day off. I will have a youtube video showing this little gem of a lake. The park has plans to cut the portages as it will make a great option for travel in the area.

The next day I filmed the portage going north as I left. I was now on the Royd-Murdock chain and heading in Royd's direction. The park has cut a new portage to the east of the 250. Yeah! Another floating bog portage has been retired. I was heading up the west side of the Irvine Loop and stopped at a small campsite in the middle of "Splitrock" for the night. These west side portages have now been visited by a portage crew. Note that I said "visited" because they are open but not to the standards we like. The next day I headed north enjoying the narrow and high-walled "Boot Lake." When I went to use the portage to follow Larus Creek to  the north I was surprised to see it had not been cleared of its extensive bounty of wind thrown trees. OOPS I made it through anyway after filming the mess. Larus creek was wide and full of water until about half way to the ponds I came upon a long rock garden with a beaver dam sealing any water from leaving the upper creek. I had only been through in high water and never even noticed the drop in the streambed. As I entered the first pond a plane was doing endless circles to the north but Trumpeter Swans with four young held my attention. It may be a new sighting for the park.

I found a rock slab extending up to higher ground as the best and only camp spot in the area. My wife has been texting me the times that my globalstar sat phone has a working satellite overhead. I daily retrieve the texts messages when the good Sat. is over head. One text message said to call because there was a message from the park. The message was to warn me that there was a fire to the north and not to worry about it. They were not planning on fighting it but not to worry about smoke if I saw it. It went on to explain the fire was up on Larus Creek across from Twin Lakes. This happened to be right where I had chosen to spend the night. I was very tired and did not tie the circling plane to the fire that I figured must have gone out.

The next morning I went up the creek just past the northern pond and started a 3 kilometer triple bushwhack portage over to Twin Lakes. Eight and a half hour later I was on Twin Lakes and heading to a camp I had used years before. I think that nights text message included one with a question from the park. The question being" Where has Martin been camping the last few nights?

The next few days were spent traveling to Moose and Sw through a chain of lakes to Dunstan. Now the goal was to head west and hope to find a route to Echo Lake. It is not named on the park map but is the fourth lake west from the middle of Dunstan. The first portage was a simple 100 meter walk through the open woods. I scouted the next one but a large bog was going to be a real problem and I picked out a great big open area to camp on. A further review of the poor quality satellite images for this area showed an interesting shadow at the south end of the bog. The next morning I found a great route starting with a walk through the shadow in the image. A day and a half later and two more portages put me on Echo Lake. Why Echo Lake? Walleyes, why else. Some lodge has a boat cache on the lake but other wise not many have been here lately. The creek heading toward Carroll only had a tridkle of water so I set about finding  a route through one more lake to get to Walking Stick Lake. It was getting dark that night as I set up camp on a ledge 5 meters above the water. I spent four nights at the site hoping it would rain and supplement the trickle of water getting by a series of beaver dams that would give me good going for 800 meters but maybe no water for the next 3200. The route was pushed west toward Craven but I ran out of time and energy with six portages to go. You know where I will be next year. My last day on Walking Stick was spent resting for the big slog to Carroll.

The water got too shallow to paddle after the beaver dams and I tried a few techniques to make progress. Fortunately after a few hundred meters the water was backed up again. Beavers are a bushwhackers friend. I had good water all the way to Carroll Lake. I will have a youtube video about this Dunstan to Walking Stick route and my travels down the creek. The best news for you is that all of the portages are on semi-open rock and ready to be traveled. I will get the details written up later and have all the GPS info ready for those interested in checking out the Walleyes in Echo Lake.

I spent time filming and documenting the portages near Carroll and it only took me seven and a half hours of travel time from Walking Stick to Carroll. On Carroll I had a tail wind so sailed on east to the Donald portage where I spent the night.

The next morning smoke from the Larus Creek fire limited visibility as I crossed Donald Lake. A solo canoeist paddled out of the smoke so I headed toward him. It was Suncatcher heading for his arranged floatplane pickup. I continued on and missed seeing Kingfisher, Snowdog and another as they probably came from Royd. I headed on to the Solotripping rendezvous for great camaraderie, liquid refreshments and steaks.

A few videos from the 2011 WCPP trip described above are on my youtube channel.    (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)   

Gee,  I forgot to mention to the youtube users that the Echo Lake mentioned is a Walleye Lake. There is a boat cache there but do not know how often it is fished.

Awesome.  Best canoe camping video I've ever seen.  Thank You!!!!!!!!!!!!

On July 20 there were some pretty vicious storms passing over the park. I received less that a half inch near Indian House but wonder if some of the streams may have gotten enough run-off to raise them for a few days and then quickly dropped again.

Martin, Did you paddle upstream from North Prairie to High Camp? That would have been impossible in June.