Can you give me your recommendations on a route from Atikokan to Ely? For fishing and scenery. Possibly 7-10 days. Suggestions on Entry Points and routes would be appreciated. Also, I'm not sure it matters, but we were thinking of going in early June. Thanks a bunch for the help.

The classic - a scheduled event once upon a time - is French Lake through Kashapiwi to Prairie Portage. Times were in the 8 to 1 hour range iirc. You might go down Moose, and take as long as you want. 75 miles or so. Maybe this is too direct for you unless you want some layover days.

We did a cross-Quetico trip back in 2010. Put in at Beaverhouse, paddled southeasterly through the park to Saganagons, then southwesterly through the Man Chain (and peripheral lakes) to the Moose Lake chain. We took out at the Moose Lake landing next to Latourell's and the Boy Scout canoe base.

How are you handling your shuttle or transfer of vehicle?

We did a fishing based Atikokan to PP 14 day trip starting 6-1 a few years ago, and the fish wore us out. It was Nym, Batch, Jesse, Walter, Lonely, Sturgeon, Russel, Chatterton, McDougal, Kawnipi, Falls Chain, Man Chain, Carp, PP. You can take a tow out of PP to to save 1/2-3/4 day paddling at end of trip.

Tremendous fishing throughout, tremendous scenery of every variety, lots of wildlife, lots of falls and moving water, beautiful cliffs on Man Chain, portaging was not bad. It might be a lot to tackle if you fish a lot, but you could shorten trip by taking Agnes back...or add a few days ;).

Agnes does not have great walleye or smallmouth fishing, but is great for lakers and has some large pike. Kawnipi is remote and a fish factory so I would hate for you to miss it. The route through Kashapiwi is pretty but not as good for fishing, and has some pretty wicked portages as well as quite a bit of burn from Shelly to Sark.

You could also start on Pickerel which can get scary windy but is beautiful and great fishing, especially west end and southern part. You could start at Stanton Bay of Pickerel to avoid some paddling but would need to be dropped off as US citizens cannot park there.

If you started at Stanton Bay or French Lake, you would probably want to head south through the B chain and Alice, but you would miss Chatterton Falls and some awesome fishing lakes. You could also turn off the Falls Chain from Kenny and go through McEwen and Louisa (loaded with lakers, but mostly smaller ones) but it is not as travelled and a bit more rugged and the portage from Louisa to Agnes, at beautiful Louisa falls, is a very steep downhill, which I hate. Fishing is good through here.

All of this said, if I had 10 days and were doing it, I would probably cut off Falls and Man chain from my first suggestion and take Agnes back south. There are three routes out of Agnes - east, middle and west. The west would be before a lot of the good parts, the middle sucks from what I remember, so I would take the east route down through Anubus and Bird. Have caught some really nice walleye, largemouth and smallmouth in Bird.

This would be easy in ten days and leave time to fish or explore if you do not dilly dally too much. Stop to see Louisa falls on the way through Agnes. Agnes is a long and sometimes windy paddle, but a beautiful lake.

Sorry If this is a lot of info or if I gave you info on stuff you already knew. I hope you get to do it, it will be fun! I did thirty days last year and we are planning a forty day trip this year to celebrate my wife's retirement. Spring cannot get here soon enough! Just ask if you need more help.

mgraber gave lots of great info and has done the trip before (and in the same time frame), so I'd take his notes into serious consideration. I'll add some of my own thoughts for your consideration as well.

For me, a big part of enjoying paddling and spending time on a lake is how big the lake feels. I don't mind being on a big lake that paddles more like a medium sized lake, such as Kawnipi or Kahshahpiwi. Agnes on the other hand just feels too big for me to enjoy in a canoe frequently. So if I were doing this route, I would avoid traversing the entire length of Agnes. But that's just me.

Walter and Lonely are favorites of mine on the north end, but I've only done one trip out of Atikokan, so limited knowledge there. On the south half you'll have a good variety of options. Starting from the northwest and moving southeast:

1) Cairn/Sark/Keefer/Kahshahpiwi - direct, short portages, and Kahshahpiwi is my favorite lake in the Q (solid four species fishing in my two trips there, beautiful lake with numerous bays and islands and old growth forest). Downside is you'll be paddling through burn area for the better part of a day from Shelley through Cairn/Sark or so. That isn't a no-go in my book especially since most of the portages are shorter, but it's worth taking into consideration.

2) Kawnipi til around Rose Island, southwest through Keewatin, Hurlburt (supposed to be good for trout, very remote), Trant, and Kahshapiwi. Great route. The only part I haven't done is Keewatin/Williams/Payne. I have a bias towards small to medium lakes that are remote - this route provides that in spades.

3) Agnes via the middle route through Murdoch. Murdoch is a great smallie and walleye lake. Nearly just another bay of Kawnipi.

4) Agnes via the east route through Anubis and Bird. I've fished McVicar Bay of Kawnipi (not much success that day), but I haven't been through Anubis and Bird yet. They're on the list for when I take a 10ish day trip up through the Man Chain/Falls Chain/Kawnipi/Bird/Woodside/Kahshahpiwi trip.

5) McEwen/Louisa route. McEwen is large and beautiful. McEwen is good for smallies, pike and trout. Lots of nice small lakes and streams. We did this route last year and saw a bull moose on McEwen Creek. The fishing was good but not great by Q standards. Lots of medium size smallies and pike for us. Great route if you like traveling and variety of lakes.

6) Falls Chain/Man Chain. Another great route with solid four species fishing.

I'd probably order them 2, 6, 1, 4, 3, 5 for my own preferences of smaller feeling lakes, fishing and remoteness. You certainly can't go wrong with any of those options though, but you will have to choose :)