Assuming you intend to camp together each night, is it more common for your group to paddle and portage together on traveling days or do you pick an agreeable destination each morning and travel at your own pace?

Always as a group.  Portage together, and have lunch breaks together.  Discuss routes, etc.  Day trips are different.  But travel days, together.  Cancelled one trip cuz the other two guys wanted to race ahead and meet up on some distant lake.  I didn't like the feel of it, even in the planning stage.

prouboy

Unless you had some way to contact each other from a distance, I would say paddle and portage together.  Too many possibilities of one or more canoes straying off path, getting lost, taking wrong portage, having a hold-up for whatever reason, capsizing, unable/fearful of crossing a windy section of water, etc. etc.
On one trip I was on, 2 solo paddlers and a tandem in a canoe; the canoe was substantially faster and finally just pushed on ahead to a designated camping lake.  Left a message for us to "catch up" at a portage....we were ready to stop 2 portages before we knew they were planning to and it was supper time, so finally we did stop without them.  We were annoyed and they, when we didn't show up, were both worried and annoyed....an uncomfortable end to an otherwise pleasant group trip.  down

I once had very tough day in Quetico due to going our separate ways to a campsite. There were 6 of us, myself and my brother Stan, my pot smoking friends Chris and Scott and my friend Eric and my Dad (he ignored the weed as he was just happy to be there). This was about 1985 (in June) and we were all 25 years old except my Dad age 55. We left in the morning from Delahey and were moving over to Veron. 2 canoes wanted to fish Delahey and one wanted to hustle over to Veron and fish there and set up camp. It was agreed that the lead canoe would take most of the packs to the portage but leave the food pack at the start for a later canoe to ferry across. We left camp with the lead canoe making a bee line to the narrows and the others fishing for trout and pike around the islands. It soon started to rain and quickly became a cold hard rain. So the 2 canoes (I am part of the second group) quit fishing and headed for the portage. At the portage there was no food pack and after a little discussion (pot smoking was always part of the decision making back then) we agreed it was nice that the first canoe hauled everything over and would have camp going when we arrived. What had happened was they made a navigational error and got lost in the channels on the east side of Delahey. By the time they got to the portage we were already over it. Not knowing this they left the food pack. Meanwhile the pair of now lead canoes fished our way through Veron in a drenching cold rain and when we got to the island site in the middle of Veron we discovered it was already taken. But not by us. The inhabitants reported they had not seen any other canoes which seemed  little odd. All of us were now wet and too chilled to keep fishing. It was suddenly obvious that we need to find our camp and get everybody warm. We had previously camped on another site on the east side of the island at the end of the narrows coming down from Camel. We thought they must have gone there (this site was not in the recent campsite reviews of Veron in the BWJ so it may no longer be in use, and it wasn't a great site).  As you now can guess when we arrived it was uninhabited. There was no alternative other than to set up camp. We had with us the personal gear, tents, and sleeping bags for the four of us, the lunch pack which included some soup and one stove, a tarp and the saw and hatchet . The cold hard rain continued and as we stood at the empty site wondering where the hell Scott and Chris were I realized that my dad (Wally) and Eric were shivering and starting to succumb to hypothermia. My brother Stan and I decided to set up the tent we had and get them into sleeping bags, then make the soup and set up the tarp. Right as we finished, Scott and Chris showed up and stumbled into camp, drenched, shivering and shaking. They explained how they went down the wrong channel came to a dead end, got in a big argument, finally retraced their route and found the correct channel, left the pack at the portage, landed at the occupied site and were shocked to discover it was not us there. They seemed extremely relieved to have found us. Stan and I got them in the tent and some warm soup. Now the fun started. Stan and I found a big dead tree, cut it down, chopped it up, built a fire under the tarp, stacked and covered a pile of dry wood. We left them with one headlamp and took the rest with us. Then we took off in an empty canoe in the fading daylight and a light drizzle for the portage back to Delahey and our food pack. The wood exercise had warmed us up but it was only 55 degrees and we had been wet for hours so paddling really, really hard became our mantra. When we got to the portage there was just enough light to see it but we used the head lamps to locate the pack. When we got back to Veron it was too dark to see anything outside the beam of light. It was a scary paddle back, and when I finally saw a flicker of campfire I was more relieved than I have ever been, both before and since. Everyone except my Dad had warmed up enough to get out and keep the fire going and big celebratory joint was rolled and smoked upon our return. Ever since this episode I have been very leery to let the other canoes in my group out of sight.
Jon
PS It rained hard all night. The next day water was running into Veron from little streams and at every one Walleyes were stacked up and feeding. Best fishing ever.

Jon,
Your story with the pot references brought back memories, some funny as hell, most just frustrating as hell.
I used to be 1 of 4 guys who made annual backpacking/paddling trips.
I wasn't opposed to a little recreational herb at the end of the day, but when you end/start and smoke ALL day and try to keep some semblance of order/schedule, it becomes one big FUBAR.
I got tired of it and went my own way. Another reason to make sure everyone is on the same page.
MT's suggestion about paddling separate but not leaving one lake for another until you meet up is a good one.
Unfortunately it only works if everyone leaves camp sometime before the day is over.