edit:  oops, I didn't see your attachment and answered the wrong question, talking about the narrow gap with current wehre Batch empties into Pickeral L, so I erased my answer.  I wouldn't call that Batch to Pickeral Narrows, but Batch to Batch Bay - guess it may depend on which maps you are looking at

where you have the pink arrow ? I assume - that seems like a mile of portage to avoid maybe 3 miles of paddling - not sure many people would opt for that, so it likely is no longer used if it ever was.

If it is a current "official" portage (i.e. they will clear it every few years at least), it would be shown on the Chrismar park map - I'll look at that when I get home if you don't get a better answer in the meantime.

Thanks MM.. My friend and I had a long discussion about it and we are leaning towards it doesn't exist...

S_L, Looking at my Chrismar map and the portage you have an arrow to isn't shown.

There is another way from Nym to Pickerel, the "Racer Portages". I've never used them, but they go from Nym's Black Bay, to Gillnet lake, to Pickerel.

Canoe Canada maintains a couple of portages from Nym to Batchewaung along the western shore through a small lake, not Jump Lake though.

The park also has a short portage from Batchewaung to Little Batchewaung Bay.

All depends on the wind conditions which way to go.

If nothing else we will paddle down the shoot and cut around.

Does anyone have information about this portage to the East? The creek is our main concern.

SaltedLeech wrote on May 15^th, 2014 at 9:35pm:


The map you can purchase at the Ranger station - it's the 'official' map of Quetico.

(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

its worth picking up a copy of the Chrismar map, to use as a backup map and to cross check for portages  - of course, if you want to be really up to date, you would have to buy one every few years I guess.

"official" as far as the one the park recommends - not sure if they have any actual connection to the production of the map or not, but it is supposedly the most up to date. its a bigger scale than the Fisher maps, so less detail, but you could navigate the park with just that map - folds up about like a standard sized road map.  I do use it for cross checking portages against my old fisher maps (some of which are near 30 years old and portages are out of date in some cases) - but I have a lighter map I bring as backup that is also quasi official

Thanks MM. Part of the adventure is exploring. I will let you know what I find after our trip we Leave June 14th.

Thanks again for all the info.

ST, You might be lucky you didn't find that portage. I used it on my 1st trip years ago and remember it being kind of tough. We found it, but we were going in from Sturgeon. I was always curious how quiet Halliday might be for a layover, if there was a campsite.

"My trip report highlights that point as I was attempting to find the portage to Halliday out of Elizabeth."

that is a tricky one to find.  before you get to the very end of Elizabeth, look to your left shore for a really narrow dip - in high water, you could likley paddle in - the year we did that it was low water, and nothing much to point out the way except that everything else we looked at was wrong - it takes you to a smallish pond if I remember right, then you do the portage from that pond into Halliday (its not Eliz to Halliday).  The time we did it, we set a bunch of log rollers up and rolled the canoes into the little creek or bay for maybe 30 yards, it being too shallow and rocky to paddle.  And yes, the Halliday to Sturgeon portage was deep muckhole that year (2000) - I'd hope its been improved woth more corduroy since.

"was it on the right side of Elizabeth on the eastern end?"

ST, that spot was on the North bank of Elizabeth, before you get to the very east end.  I don't remember the portage from that pond to Halliday, but that usually means that it was not too hard to find - but my memory is somehat dim.

of course, by now, they may have cut a new route thru there

ok, I looked at a map (can't copy it it seems) - what I'm thinking of is maybe an eighth of a mile before the very eastern end of Elizabeth, there is a little stream that connects Eliz to an unnamed lake that you travel to get to Halliday - that little stream was where we did the roller log thing.  So its not a portage from Eliz to Halliday, rather its Eliz to unnamed to Halliday.

use the link below (couldn't get it to save to the detail) - in the search box for Find Locations, type in Halliday Lake and poke the arrow on right;  that gets you to a drop down list of lakes with that name - click on the one that says Rainy Lake and that will take you to the topo.  you can see that little stream at the north shore that takes yoo to the unnamed lake - maybe its considered a part of ELiz? I don't know, but it took us a long time to figure out that we had to take that little channel - it was almost dry that year - you may have paddled right thru ?

(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)