First off let me ask a question that I've failed at finding an answer to. Are you required to exit at the same entry point you entered at? If so, then this whole idea will be scrapped haha.

My rough idea was to enter at EP 51 at round lake, do some portaging around those lakes and ultimately come to the mile long portage from paulson to seagull lake. From there depending on time, either stick west and go up the alpine lake chain area heading north until we get spit out at saganaga or hug more eastern and do the grandpa lake portage heading north, both ending up in the same area of southwest saganaga.

Once we've been spit out on saganaga, most likely we would then hug the southern shore doing a U-turn down south into the entry point 55 area.

I recognize this is pretty close to entry points in two different areas, so would traffic be overly high say in mid to late august? I'm also eyeballing from previous trips, but I'm unsure about the total days required for this. I'd like for it to fit in a week, we're all young men late 20s early 30s so fitness shouldn't be an issue, but there is something to be said about not rushing the fun.

I'm unsure if the whole leave at a different spot than where you came in thing is even allowed. I think it'd be such a fun juxtaposition of experience (loads of portaging smaller lakes -> bigger lakes paddling -> massive grand lake to end the trip) from start to finish that I'd be willing to put up with the logistics of getting canoes where they need to be to make it all work.

This sounds like a wonderful trip with a tinge of challenge.

Yes, expect traffic in seagull and sag but not too many of the interior lakes.

The challenge may be getting from Glee to Paulson.
Check out trip reports from tuscaroraborealis. Pretty sure he did a trip through her in the past few years

You can enter and exit at different points. Just work out the shuttle ahead of time.

Excellent, thank you for the knowledge!

Agree with Mocha. I've done trips the last two years in late august ending in Seagull. Expect many campsites to be taken on lakes like Seagull and Alpine and along your route on Saganaga.

An option is to have an outfitter drive you to your entree point or pick you up at your exit. We used Voyageurs Canoe Outfitters and have done trips to both Magnetic and Round Lake where we had them drive us to the start and then ended up paddling right up to their dock at the end of the trip.

You need to enter at the entree point on your permit with the number of people specified in your group, but you can exit whereever or whenever you want.

You're good to go. I'd add though that the portage from Paulsen to Seagull is longer than a mile. It's 1.6 miles. Worth doing, but it might be the most difficult portage i've tekan. It's worse going from Seagull to Paulsen.