Next year I’ll be 60, and am considering and starting to plan a big solo canoe trip to celebrate. I’m looking to do a minimum of 14 days, but would really like something around 30 days.
I already have some ideas, e.g. NFCT, Rio Grande, Woodland Caribou, any other ideas to get lost? Canada probably has endless possibilities, but who knows if that’ll be possible with the virus still going, so what about in the lower 48?
I’m personally a big fan of southern paddling:
Atchafalaya, Bartram Canoe trail, Tennessee blue trail, Okeefenokee, Suwannee, ACE Basin, South Carolina, Everglades, Georgia Coast Saltwater Trail (inland route on a canoe), Apalachicola, Perdido, Mississippi river to Gulf Coast.
Best to go Fall-Spring
The Green River through Canyonlands leaps to mind. If you can’t get lost back in those canyons, I don’t know what it would take. Lost in beauty, silence, lost in deep time… It has the added advantage of being able to get yourself unlost by simply finding your way back to the river. A fine touchstone if ever there was one. Autumn is a fine time.
Allagash Wilderness Waterway. Don’t know if you can get too lost, but can be 10+ days.
Maine is good, go when there is water, paddle the Northbranch into the West Branch, then mud pond carry into lower allagash, then webster brook and the eastbranch, add a few side trips to the trip and you’ve got a month (lobster lake, dagget and round ponds, allagash lake, saddle brook, mountain catcher pond)
I think if I stay south (I’m in North Carolina), I’d probably do a trip on the Cape Fear combined with part of the Coastal Saltwater Trail.
Definitely on the list, I need to do some research. Are you in the West? Any other ideas, any advice on the Missouri?
Do you have a planning/map resources to recommend? Is this a spring trip? Too little water any other time?
Lake Superior to James Bay via the Michipicoten, Missinaibi, and Moose. Set up a resupply in Mattice. If interested get Hap Wilson’s book: Missinaibi - Journey to the Northern Sky. From Lake Superior to James Bay by Canoe. - Hap Wilson
No, I’m not in the west. That might be part of why I remember it so fondly - it was very much unlike every other place I’ve ever paddled. It was, for me at least, like a canoe trip to another planet. Very memorable. Its strange and exciting to paddle in a place where the plants, the landscape, most of the birds, were new to me. I’d like to go back and do more of it before I get much older.
Never done the Missouri, though I have several friends who have done the Missouri Breaks. It looks lovely, though they’ve all commented on battles with the wind.
Getting lost on a river takes some doing. Some side canyons can be confusing.
Getting lost in remote lake country is easy. Use some old grown in portage trails and you may never be heard from again.
As you said if Canada is open there would be a tremendous increase in possibilities. Here is one:
Very enticing to some of us. I can dream, right?
I was just looking at pictorial trip report on a 25 day trip that was basically a figure eight with a loop in BWCA and a loop in Quetico.
I do plan on coming back, my wife would kill me if I didn’t 
I’ve been on the Missinaibi 4 times so far but not from the mouth of the Michipicoten. Peterbell to Mattice in '97 and Hawk Lake to Mattice in 2009 for the Upper. Mattice to a couple of miles below Moose Crossing in 2000 (bushwacked to the tracks) and Mattice to Moose Crossing in 2018 for the lower. Once you get into the Hudson Bay Lowlands below Hell’s Gate the river is very young and is in flux. Lots of natural erosion between 2000 and 2018.
Wilderness Waterway in the Everglades is VERY easy to get lost in (literally!). Might not be long enough for your plans, as most sources recommend about a week to cover the 99 miles, but it’s a cool place to add to your bucket list.
Make a loop trip in the Everglades and go down the WW and back up the Gulf. Eztend to Naples 3 Weeks
The WW is kind of boring after a while
Start at Silver Islet and paddle Superior. to Agawa Bay. Takes aboyt 3 weeks not including wind days
Woodland Caribou essentially entirely burned this year so campsites are deatroyed or not usable and ports not cleared
Yukon River waits. Whitehorse to Circle AK
about 700 miles I have done Whitehorse to Dawson. 550 miles 10 days
Wabakimi Provincial park is a place to get lost in for 3-6 weeks Much bigger than BWCA and Quetico combined and you have to fly train or paddle in. Not hit by many fires this year
Great ideas. I watched a Joe Robinet video on Wabakimi recently, looks great. I hadn’t thought about the Yukon, but that is a fantastic suggestion although I maybe limited by when I can go. Looking like mid-August to …
Edit to add: I just looked at the map where SIlver Islet and Agawa Bay are on Lake Superior. Wow, that may have to be on top of the list. I grew up on Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes hold a special place in my heart and mind. It might also give me an excuse to buy another boat, now which one?
LOL
A Sea Wind
I being poor use a secondhand Mad River Monarch
Ain’t that the truth, if it wasn’t for budget constraints I’d already own that Sea Wind in the classifieds.