Question about paddling the Man Chain in a clockwise direction; Carp, Emerald, the Man Lakes, … Silver Falls to Cache Bay, then home along Knife, What are the campsites like along Knife on the Canadian side? I see sites are marked on Knife but I’ve not been able to gain any info on these sites. What do you know about them? In the past I’ve paddled the Man Chain doing an out and back. Looking for a loop option this year. Thank much!

I’ve only got 1 site listed as decent on the Quetico side of Knife Lake. Not sure the site is even accurate on location from the PP review.

Ottertrack has some decent campsites Quetico side.

Another option would be to cut back up into Emerald. See some different lakes and some different portions of Carp Lake.

My son went Louisa to McEwen in June. Not saying that would be easy but he thought Glacier, and Louisa were both really pretty lakes. Be a bigger loop though.

Ryan

Don't hope for much further along on Birch Lake. The "official" island site looked ok, if a little vertical, But most of the potential sites on the Quetico side were very low to the water and seemed really closed in. I've read there are sanitation issues on the Island site, which is usually a problem with island sites. We hopped over to Polaris which was another portage we we didn't really want to do. The site there was small and had a terrible tent pad and lots of slugs, but we only needed it for 1 night.

The site across from the Island site looked like we could make it work until I saw the huge tree that had fallen and left a large tree well that had filled with very green scummy water.

Thanks to each of you for the info. Your responses are pretty much what I was suspecting. Would be kind of nice to paddle part of Knife with a Q permit and not have to compete for a site with the masses on the US side. Happy paddling.

There are slim pickings through that area, and very slim chances of finding an emergency site in a pinch (weather, etc.).