Great report, very interesting stuff. I hope your experience is used to lobby for the re-opening of the route, it doesn't look from your report like there are any special difficulties that a little maintenance/portage-blazing wouldn't fix.

Just curious, in getting your permits, how did you handle the fact of camping off-site within the park, which technically isn't allowed? Was the permit officer sympathetic or did you fudge your plans a bit? Or better yet did they give you permits for the sites that were shown on their out-of-date map along the now-closed route? The way I read it your first (McKaskill) and third (Bonnachere Put-In) camping spots were actual legit campsites and the last site was crown land, but the other nights would have been random camping in the park.

Also interesting to note that Jeff marks the Bonnechere River downstream of Basin Lake as a route, with a note that it's "unofficial", while from McKaskill to Basin he uses the more vague-looking symbology for "traditional canoe route". Any insight on that distinction?

That was awesome (and a worthwhile distraction from work)!  

Thanks for the comments, it was indeed a great trip.

I'm not sure about how Jeffrey has labeled the routes, I understand the upper part being traditional maybe as it was a route at one time, but why the bottom end is unofficial I don't know. My opinion, expressed in my trip report, is that there is no reason this can't be a route. It just requires a sympathetic ear at Ontario Parks/Algonquin Park, there is some precedent of opening up new or historic routes ala the Big East 
River/Hood Lake portages. I guess some requests or interest expressed by paddlers might help?

The permit office was a little out of their element, although I wasn't there for that, I came later and just said "add me to the permit". I know that the person at the office didn't know how to book what we wanted, there was a call or calls to somebody else to straighten it out. I believe it was a part time person covering the desk for a short time which may be why. It worked out in the end. Over the years we have had 
trouble getting permits for most of our more involved routes. Camping was difficult a couple of nights because of running out of daylight, it was a tough go in a lot of places and the amount of distance you hoped to travel wasn't always possible.

Steve: Sadly, the beard is presently gone. :-(
 

Wow! Thank you for writing this up!