Lakes: Kilburn Lake, Middle Kilburn, Dragon Lake, Landing Crane Lake. Travel distance: 19.5 km. Portages: 4 for a total 1900m.

Pack up camp and head south. Long paddle down the length of Kilburn and west to the 1st portage. Jeff hooked a lake trout and a couple of Pike. Jim and I spotted a whitetail on the shore. 150m portage to Middle Kilburn. At the end of the portage a 16 ft fishing boat has been cached. Doesn’t look like it has been used for a few years. Nice paddle thru Middle Kilburn, 325m portage to large pond and on to 600m portage to Dragon Lake. This portage starts with 100m of floating bog. Not too bad to cross as long as you don’t stand still. We carry everything to solid ground and complete the wet portage. Paddle across the very south eastern edge of Dragon Lake to the 800m portage to Landing Crane Lake. It is overcast with intermittent showers, but warm enough that the rain gear is not very appealing. This portage is also marked as being wet on the map. More like a swamp standing on edge. How can boot sucking mud can be on slopes this steep? The portage is up and down, rocky, muddy, and very wet. Not a particularly long portage but one of the more unpleasant. Did I mention it was raining and fairly warm? Nice one to have behind you. We paddled SW thru the narrow channel and decided to camp on an Island in the NE corner of the lake. Very pretty site and we found just enough room to fit both tents. We probably should have pushed on but the next camp site on the map is about 7-8 km and another 3-4 with another portage to the one beyond that. In WCP you can camp any where you like but Albert had marked the maps with known campsites and most of those were marginal for two tents. Also the vegetation in this part of the park is much heavier than what we had seen on our previous trip further north. On that trip there were many spots that had minimal underbrush and almost exclusively Jack Pines for trees. Very heavy underbrush here with a variety of trees, much more like the BWCA. Went out to paddle around and do a little fishing after camp was set up. Jim my bow paddler is not into fishing much but very happy to paddle me around and wet a line once in a while. I only purchased one new lure for this trip. It was a weighted rap that I thought may work well for trolling for lakers and this seemed a great time to try it out. Went to snap it on, dropped it over the side and watched it sink to the bottom. I have left a lot, I mean a lot of lures behind on my canoe trips but this was the 1st one I never even got to cast once. Must have been an omen as to the fishing today because I do not remember having a single bite. Fairly early night as it looks like tomorrow could be a long day.