Has anyone thought of/ researched or done the long lost portage from Fishdance to Screamer lakes? It says there was once a 320 portage there. The topo shows it pretty flat. But I'm just wondering if it's possible . It would be handy to loop thru to Hope and out. Just looking for off the beaten track and a night of having the whole area to ourselves. and good fishing!
I believe that is inside the boundaries of the Pagami Creek Fire so all bets are off in terms of any path. Which part of Fishdance did the portage exit?
I saw this post and it made me smile because this is one of the routes which has also fascinated me. When they created the PMA system, most of the routes they "deactivated" were fairly quaint and there weren't a ton of campsites to close (compared to the main routes anyways.) The stretch through the Hope chain to Maniwaki was one of the "largest" routes they closed in terms of number of former campsites and expanse of formerly maintained space. The route from Maniwaki to Fishdance via Screamer was part of that and to me it seems a really intriguing alternate route to Alice. Now, usually when stuff became PMA it was because it was a less-used route to begin with and that would make sense here. Who would have fought their way through the Hope Chain only to take two long portages to get to Fishdance when Alice was easier (I know I would have, but that's besides the point. Haha) But what was always weird to me was the number of campsites on Fishdance that seem to only exist because of that old portage. The three sites on the south end of the lake (depending on the map you look at) only make sense if there's a route down there. Was the route ever a reasonably well-used one or was the forest service just hoping it would be? In any case, it's fun to imagine. I wish I had better advice about the route for you, but I also believe the portage is long gone (Pagami just finished it off.)
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