Day 1: I would have liked to do a single portage, but the packs were heavy, and I was a novice carrying the canoe. It worked well enough to take a lighter load first a few hundred rods to scout for step over and duck under trees across the trail and then go back for the canoe and the heavier pack. While it took more time, it made for a nice, unencumbered hike back for the canoe us to see the beauty in the wood. The trail was easy enough to follow; was muddy but not so sloppy as to be a continual slide. We did a quick little ferry over swamp creek given unknown depth of the water and the reluctance to attract leaches. The paddle on the Stuart was beautiful and we had no problem with the beaver dams. We camped on the Island in Stuart just across from the Portage. It was well kept; I don’t think we found even the tiniest bit of plastic/paper when we did our walk around to clean up the next day. It probably goes without saying the mosquitoes know that every toilet is an opportunity to attack your naked bum. Fishing off the island and near the falls was good for my son. Day 2. We set off for Iron Lake. While not the hardest day, this was the longest. The portages were not that hard; it just took us a while. Camping was on the western campsite on Three Island. This was the nicest of all the campsites. It had a great landing, fire area and tent pads. It was clean of any garbage save what must have been fish guts near the lake. However, it was fun to see the carrion beetles doing their job on what was already significantly decomposed. We had Verizon cell service for a brief time when the sky cleared. Day 3: This was the most exhausting day. We went from Iron Lake to Stuart by way of Lac Lacroix and the Dahlgren River. We wanted to be near to the Stuart River because the weather when we left said there might be lightning storms on day four and five and wanted to be able to take advantage of whatever window there was to leave. The route was beautiful and the portages were short enough that we could do them in a single trip. We saw two different trumpeter swan pairs, one with cygnets. Ran into two dams that required getting the canoe over without too much hardship. Set up camp at the Stuart site on the Northeast side. The campsite was great including fishing from the bank but we spent a lot of time cleaning up small pieces of plastic or paper and we still did not get it all. That night we had a tremendous lightning storm. The campsite drained well but the wind and rain was from three different directions during the night and it exceeded the rainfly and tarping we had in place. It looked like we had about two inches of rain Day Four: Remained at Stuart campsite per plan so my son could fish and have a rest day. It also gave us a chance to dry off gear. The day was windy, and the swells made fishing a bit challenging. We avoided having any more rain and our gear was able to dry. Day Five: My son did some final fishing near the discharge of the falls, which was very active from the rain. The rain had raised the water level on the Stuart such that we could canoe with some effort over the dams. We were able to do the portage in single trips; we had lightened our snack load and our packs were lighter ?.