Looking at a mid-June enter at Johnson Lake. If I cut across the lower edge of Douglas, and then north through Hatchet, Peterson, Page, etc. on the way to Joey Lake and points north . . . would I see any motorized boat traffic or outpost cabins? I know I would on the larger lakes just south (Optic, Telescope, etc.) but wondering if I avoid that heading north right away through Hatchet. Thanks for any input.

As you cross that short lower section on Douglas you will see a glimpse of a lodge to the north and rarely a boat in that section. As you enter Hatchet you will walk by a boat cache and see a private cabin across the water, very rare to see a boat being used on Hatchet. There is an outpost cabin on Peterson but not in view and not likely to be any boat moving on the waters. That outpost does have a boat cached on the Page side of the portage but again it will probably be cached and not out on the water. After Page there are no more boats. Entering Indian House you may spot a small cabin used by rice harvesters and the same on North Prairie. Even with the extremely low water levels this summer I had friends pull their canoe up the creek from North Prairie on the way to Joey. They had visited me at my MN cabin this winter and brought in steaks to eat as they picked my brain about doing the route through Joey and on to Royd. As they pushed through the shallow and hardest sections of the route the meat for this year's visit was switching back and forth from hamburger to steak. Once at the nice camp on Joey and catching all those Walleye the menu was back to steak.

Park staff or your outfitter can help you steer your trip to non-mechanized areas of the park. Nearly all mechanized activities occur along the Gammon River and the Bloodvein River Systems where small fishing camps are located. The park is zoned for non-mechanized activities outside these river systems other than the occasional float plane landings.

No cabin on Peterson and the small harvester cabin on Indian House has been removed. Hope this helps... again, you may contact the park office at (807) 727-1329 or woodland.caribou.mnr@ontario.ca

For motorized boats, the park has a 10hp limit. On my my trip through Douglas to Optic and back, saw one or two motor boats in the distance but was not bothered by them in the least. Since you are going in on Johnson, you will miss the busiest part of Douglas which is around the Viking fishing lodge. Going by that was somewhat of a zoo with motor boats and float planes coming in and out. On the bright side, as we passed the lodge, 2 guys in a motor boat came up to us and offered me and my partner a cold beer. :-) Seeing it was 10:30 AM and we had a ways to go to the Red Lake portage, we refused the beer yet had an enjoyable conversation.

Have fun. Even with boats and outpost cabins, WCPP is much more wild than the BW.

...the Viking fishing lodge...Yup.
We basically paddled the length of the float plane "runway."
An interesting paddle, fer shur!