Yesterday's satellite imagery was excellent for a change.

Basically, the entire Quetico is open for paddling.

That's not to say that there's not still a few spots of ice...for example, Batch looked iced in the north end, meaning someone portaging in from Nym would have had to adjust...even then, I think they could have gotten through.

Pickerel showed 90+% open, and a few other large lakes had some floating sheets still visible. But nothing to stop someone from traveling.

The little remaining ice looked so dark that it may all be gone as of right now, as it was above freezing last night. And if there's anything left right now...since they are expecting 60+F temps today plus wind and rain...any last remnants will be gone fast.

That is good news.

I tried to find some historical data to see just how ahead of schedule we might be and I found this blog post on Sawbill's site from two years ago. Just eyeballing the chart, I see a lot of data points just to one side or the other of May 2nd. So if we use May 2nd as the median, we are maybe a week early. Still, it is not all that early considering the mild winter we have had, and not an abnormally early ice out.

Sawbill Historical Ice Out.

the park has a facebook page. they have been posting fairly regular lately on conditions.

they recently posted french lake was open but still some ice on the larger bodies of water as you said.

water levels are low as we had little snow this past winter and not too much rain yet this spring.

hoping to be up that way next week.