I will however let Claire fill people in as I do not want to speak out of turn.

Buy one night get one free? ;-)

When Portagekeeper made this post I think he was referring to a possible new route. It will probably be a while for that one if it still seems feasible. Something good that is going forward is a fix for the Knox Bog Walk. The park listens to our input and Claire went out personally and checked out my suggestion for a reroute instead of trying to build a boardwalk over the old bog walk. After the red tape is taken care of it could be done this summer. Basically heading to the main lake instead of the creek and then a boardwalk over only 50 meters of low ground mid-way that would deteriorate under the heavy use of that portage.

That Portage fix would be good news enough for me.

Martin, your home!

YAY! A fix to Knox would be amazing! We always laugh thinking back on that long slog.

Fixing that portage is going to complete taking care of all the wet slogging from Lund to Knox for all those using the Lund access for the Bloodvein River. It was not that many years ago that the Knox bog walk was a minor annoyance compared to the two other long portages coming in from Lund Lake. They are still long but on solid ground now.

The Knox Bog Walk is dead, gone and not to be slogged ever again. The new route has been cut with some corduroy but a short boardwalk is coming.

I'll pass along my thanks as well. That trail to Knox was a knee-twister waiting to happen. The "other two" portages are indeed on high ground and much easier than the old trip reports I read about crossing through the bogs. Were the original paths on traditional "trapper" trails that they went through those marshes? Just curious.

One of my goals has been to find fixes for a lot of the bog portages is WCPP. I feel there are multiple reasons for the bog portages. Snowmobile access seems to have been a big one. My searches have often times found cairns and blazes on lost portages where the paddlers have mistakenly followed the wet open winter trail and the high and dry trail faded. Access after a fire is also a culprit. The easier route often times went through the marshes that had no mess to climb over. The middle portage of the Lund three was like this. The bog used by all for years ran parallel to a high trail with cairns and moss free lanes over the dry and open terrain. Last week in Manitoba I took a little time before mucking through a kilometer long section on a 2.3 K portage and found a dry alternative with cairns that had not been used in maybe decades. Mature forest allowed us to use the dry route after tossing aside some rotted debris.

I thank Claire for pursuing and doing the work on this Knox fix. It is important to know that certain red tape had to be worked through before even this fix could be implemented. The park likes to hear what we find in our wanderings but leave the establishing, flagging and blazing to their trained workforce. In this case the lumber for the short boardwalk to do the job right has now been dropped at the site.

Hurrah! Feeling good and am back on for Lund to Bigshell for next summer. The fix is certainly welcome news.

That last slog of the Knox swamp I did after 2 days of rain was very brutal. But as a glutton for punishment I secretly sort of liked it. But the new way will be gladly embraced.

A
A preview of the boardwalk over the moist areas of the Knox Lk trail.

Oh my, what a beautiful sight for anyone who has used the old Knox portage section. We will miss reading all the misadventures though. When half loaded canoes are dragged along a portage because it is the easiest option it makes for good fireside chuckles.

quote Que: " A
A preview of the boardwalk over the moist areas of the Knox Lk trail. "

How nice is that! Thanks for the great trailwork so far! I'm sure it's going to be great when it's completed.

Awesome!

From 2014...Karma the lab went in up to her belly...she did not like the portage at all.
Paul just tried to walk along the edge as best I could.
This will be a huge improvement!

Thanks for doing this

SunCatcher