Thursday, August 28, 2025: Jasper, Lilypad, Saganagons, and Sig Lakes. 10.7 miles (9.9 canoe, 0.8 portage). Six portages (205, 340, 245, 330, 90, and 45 meters).

This morning we were on the water shortly after 9:00 hoping to get most of the way through the Falls Chain. Our portage into Lilypad was uneventful, and we saw a pair of swans with a signet there. It took a couple passes to find the portage into the southwest arm of Saganagons, and the portage had several downed trees. We cut branches off one tree to make it easy to step over, and cut a small tree completely off the trail. At the end of the portage the trail was underwater, so we loaded the canoe and walked it to deeper water.

Saganagons is a big lake and it always takes us a few minutes to reset our navigation methods for places where we can't simply follow a shoreline. We had lunch on an island near Dead Man's Portage, and tackled the portage right after lunch. The next section of Saganagons can be particularly confusing with lots of islands and narrow passages that can be rock-filled and impassable in low water, but we got our bearings and entered the Falls Chain.

The Falls Chain is a favorite for paddlers and anglers, so we expected to see a couple dozen folks as we traversed the route. But this year we only saw two people in the entire Falls Chain. We met them on a portage, and they were the only people we had seen since leaving Birch Lake and the US border. I had hoped to make Kenny Lake before making camp, but we found a nice site on Sig, still three portages from Kenny, at 4:00, and called it a day. We dried wet rain gear, Tia caught up her journal, I set up dining fly ridge lines over the tent as well as over the cook area, and we had a great meal. The sky was cloudless.