Keith - I created a new account yesterday to ask almost exactly the same question(s) you have, except in my case I'm coming from Buffalo and my son is 10.  He'll be 11 when we're talking about a 4 day trip, and I'll be cracking bones at 51.  I have canoe-tripped many times in the park, but not since...gulp...2000.  I was 35....So I have the same considerations you do with your son, except I would benefit from the easier portages, as much as he would.  I've got a lot of mileage left at age 51, but adding 16 years between canoe trips....I don't know what to expect of myself - but like you, I know the load will remain largely mine.  My son is a pretty strapping kid, he'll pitch right in there, but he's not a mule, he'll get tired, and I'm not going to sit in the back of the canoe and chirp at him to dig harder, right?  This needs to be a fun-camping-with-dad memory to ensure that it will be the FIRST fun-camping-with-dad memory and not the ONLY fun-camping-trip-with-dad memory.  We've done a lot of cub scout camping, no backcountry.  We will double-portage for certain.

I was looking at entering at Magnetawan or Rain.  Less paddler traffic than route 60 access points and easy from Buffalo provided you leave home at 3am to avoid Toronto traffic....  It is really hard to assess what kind of distance we could make per day, but I think we could travel 4 hours a day, maybe 5 if it came to it, maybe 8 or 9 KM?  Hard to know if he'll enjoy that traveling part of it as much as me, but I get bored buzzing around a campsite, and I suspect he might as well.  It looks like I can keep the portages 400M and less (mostly....), although I don't remember the terrain as well as I might in that area.  Given the variability of individual portage length, I was thinking how much could we do in a day as opposed to oh-no, there's a long one?  1500M maybe?  One route I was looking at would have us doing a 90M and 1150M I think it was.  That's a long haul, but we could do that I think, just allowing him some rest time on the trial.  And probably his geezer father as well.... 

He wants to do some fishing, he wants to stay on an island campsite, and he wants to make big trout lake.  I need to pick lakes to camp on that aren't barren of fish, give us a shot once or twice at an island campsite, and there no way we'll make big trout.  I think he wants to go there because he figures all the fish are giants or something anyway. 

Other criteria for our trip is I want to stay away from huge lakes - like Opeongo.  No way.  I've faced some awful conditions on that lake, and really have no desire for a repeat ever, especially not with the boy.     

There is one other thing we're trying to work in - a mix of river and lake.  I don't really enjoy camping on rivers, but going through marshy/rivery areas is part of the landscape.  If that doesn't work into our loop, it might work into how we spend part of a day, just making a sidetrip once we set up a camp somewhere.

I don't know if any of my thoughts are helpful to you or not.  I can tell you that I did the Farm-Booth loop you are talking about with a friend of mine several years ago who had never been camping at all, and it went pretty well.  The portages were not bad, the lakes were pretty, we had a mix of river and lake travel, it worked out well.

I apologize if this is considering a hijack of your post.  I don't mean to do that at all - I figured I was trading thoughts with you that might be helpful to your cause and I'm hoping you'll get responses that might be helpful to both our causes.

David

The kids are old enough to be carrying. They'd like to contribute too. Hopefully both of them are paddling; they are old enough.

we're not hard core but when our kids were 8 and 11 the four of us did a loop around Cedar-Catfish-La Muir -Hogan-Philips -Radiant. The grownups were 35 though. The kids did fine and if you look at the map there were some long portages. The main part was that they had fun. We left the long ports till the end . We did have a week.

When you consider what kids have to carry in school, having them haul an appropriate to their size load is not terrible.

You are probably aware that island campsites are heavily stripped of wood. Just in case a campfire is important to your experience. And bear proofing is even more important there as bears use them as garden path stones in between swims.

I agree the Booth Lake area is attractive. I think Rock-Pen is quite busy.  You might consider going through the Joes and making Burnt Island the first night.. Tom Thompson and the mega beaver dam the second night and back to a Joe the third night. The 1140 out of Burnt Island is the only longish one. Don't know its condition but I know lots of people use it.

Trip planning is fun.   I come from the Ottawa side too and that section of Rt 60 through the park is so short that it doesn't matter whether access is at Canoe or Rock or Booth.

Laughing.. at 51  David,you have 20 years or more left.  I don't think the kids will need rest stops. We started our youngest at 2.5 years. Dragging her blanket in the mud she did her first Boundary Waters trip. 6 days 44 portages . Average of 400 yards a portage.  She is all grown now and not psychologically or physically harmed. And most of that week it rained!

Looking back we were horrified

Last edited by kayamedic (1/14/2016 8:47 pm)

My second trip with my 5 year old daughter, my neighbour and 8 yearold daughter was to Shirley lake.  We paddled most of the length of the lake to a spot across from the island.  The campsite was lare and airy and had a great beach. 

The portage was doable and we had a great trip.  23 years later we're still all tripping.

The first trip with my daughter was to Rain Lake.  We returned two years ago.  Still not my favourite lake.

Dave, don't worry about the thread jack, the more the merrier. I'm just glad I'm not the only one.

The boy is definitely paddling and will carry an appropriate load - But the bulk of it will still fall on me. I'm looking to work within both our limits so he has the most enjoyable time possible. We've done straight canoe-in before, and it is still on the list, although going up to open go for that, I'm not sure.

About the references to Misty, Shirley, and Rain, I will take a look. For Achray, do you have any specific recommendations?

Thanks

As far as Achray goes, for some reason it has always struck me as a busy spot, and it seems much further away. I did do a Barron Canyon trip once, I think it was a fall trip, and it wasn't too busy.