Very short 3-day, 2-night trip over MEA weekend. In Friday and out Sunday, October 21. Any suggestion for route with minimal deep water portages entry/exits? Kind of want to keep chances of hypothermia at arms distance.

Out the Gunflint, you might consider East Bearskin. You can go out to Pierz, Canoe, or Crystal without any difficult portages and come back the same way. The portage going from Canoe to Pine is long and hilly, but you can walk without gear/canoe.

You can go in at Lizz and go a couple of different directions without any difficult portaging. Go to Horseshoe area, on to Gaskin or Vista, go out through Allen to Omega.

You could go in at Cross Bay all the way to Long Island, even Frost.

EP 36, Hog Creek,
Camp on Parent Lake and do day trips from there. Lots of shot portages, small water.

+1 on East Bearskin. Paddle to Crystal. Beautiful lake! Last time I was there in the fall we heard a bull moose chase a cow all the way down the lake. We were camped at far end of lake and you could hear them come from over the hill on the other side of lake, but trees were so thick we never saw them. Also caught my first couple lakers where you hear the water trickling down, I believe from Spaulding lake in north central part of lake. Day trip portage to Pine Lake and take the trail to Johnson Falls. Dang it now I wanna go there again too

I agree with the previous posts. In the Ely area, LIS North and Mudro are great. Sawbill and Baker are also great in the Tofte area.