Drag Lake Primitive Management Area

Delta Lake is the gateway to the western part of this Primitive Management Area. From Delta Lake, Slowfoot Creek and Slowfoot Lake are manageable from the south end of the lake. Proceeding out of the northeast corner of Delta Lake, you can continue on Drumstick Creek out to Quartz Lake. From this point, the difficulty increases substantially. Blinker Lake and Starlight Lake are a long bushwhack past Quartz Lake. Starlight Lake could be a very worthy destination, but you will have to work hard to see it. There is a maintained campsite on Delta Lake that could be used as a basecamp for daytripping out to these destinations. Delta Lake has the distinction of being half in and half out of the PMA and the BWCA. The campsite is outside of the PMA so it is maintained by the U.S. Forest Service.

Another good trip would be the chain of six lakes extending out of the northern part of Lake Insula. One could spend a week easily exploring all the islands and shoreline of beautiful Insula Lake. When you have finished exploring Insula, following these six lakes: Cache, Fast, Jut, Beam, Sable and Coon will take you to Kiana Lake the hard way. Kiana Lake is normally reached from Lake Insula via a 180 rod portage out of its northeastern tongue. All these lakes look like they have enough water depth to support fish. A few have islands to explore too.

Finally, past Drag Lake (which is to the east of Fire Lake), there is Museum Lake. Another fairly large lake for a PMA. It has several islands and a lot of shoreline. It will also require a hearty bushwhack to reach. Hood and Brunch Lakes; remote, lonely lakes in this PMA, have probably seldom seen people.