I am headed to Kawishiwi next weekend, entering on Saturday morning. I haven’t entered on this entry point before. I was planning on heading to Lake Polly for the first night but am worried about site availability. I understand that it is a popular lake. Does anyone have an opinion as to how busy the lake might be and suggestions for a fallback (or fall forward) option that might not be as busy if I am unable to find a site?

I would push on to Koma or Mallberg rather than taking that rather long portage back to Kawashacong and the burn zone.

I'd push on to Koma since it seems that the direction you're headed next. One more portage, but less distance and easier ones. There are a lot of sites on Polly and I've never not found one. If you see an open site, take it. I'm pretty sure you'd find one on Koma - I've hardly ever seen people camped there. I'd take one since if you go to Malberg it's more of a destination and due to the configuration of the lake you could have to paddle a lot back and forth to find a site.

Thank you Boonie and Inspector13 - that is the advice I was looking for.

Last couple of times I was on Polly was in mid-June (23 and 24), and I literally had Polly to myself. I would be shocked if you had any issues with site availability there on Labor Day weekend.

Camped on Kawishiwi, Square, Polly, and Malberg last year over Labor day. No problems at all finding a spot.

The lakes I've seen close to full along this route are Kawishiwi and Malberg. Going through last summer, Square and Kawasachong were empty, only one spot occupied on Koma, and Polly was about half full (from the sites we passed). Talked with a couple groups looking for a site on Malberg that opted to push on to River Lake with how full Malberg was.

Our group was in this area for the first time a couple weeks ago and we never felt pressured to find a campsite. We passed through Polly on a Wednesday on our way to Malberg and most campsites were vacant. As portagerunner experienced, Kawishiwi and Malberg were the busiest on our route but there were still plenty of open sites on both lakes. We passed through Polly again on Saturday afternoon and still half the sites were available. Btw, on our Friday day trip from NW Malberg to Fishdance every campsite we passed was empty.