Last summer we I did the Powell Forest Canoe Route together with my wife and dog. Water levels were incredibly low and I don't think our experience was representative of the usual trip. For ease of travel we rented a canoe locally. The route is in a horse shoe shape, it is not a closed loop. You will need to arrange a pickup/drop off scenario. Die hards could do it with a bike, I guess, there is a taxi service if I'm not mistaken and there is a canoe shuttle company, which we used. If I were to leave my vehicle unattended for a week I would do it at the put-in at Powell Lake, not the one at Lois Lake. We could leave it with the canoe rental company in Powell River.
This is a video I made of our trip: https://youtu.be/YsOkFWLHA_4We were on vacation and took 7 days to do the trip. People have done it in as little as 3 days. We could have happily spent another two or three days, camping and exploring the lakes more. Dogs are welcome in this area, which was a big reason for us to do this trip.
Basic "tourism information center level" maps are readily available online and will get you around the route just fine.
This route is very portage heavy, some of the little lakes can be paddled inside of 10 minutes, with decent portages on both ends. The "cardiac hill portage" earned its name, but it isn't that bad. All the portages have very convenient canoe rests that make life much easier.
I recommend going clockwise, against the more general advice to go counter clockwise (so you can do "cardiac hill portage" downhill). My reason for going the other way around is that the long paddle through Powell Lake, at least to me, is a relatively boring one. You can barely get to shore, due to the number of floating cabins on the lake. Lois Lake is a more interesting and quiet lake to finish on. Going clockwise also means you get a tail wind on Powell Lake which is nice. You gain time that you can spend exploring Goat Lake, do a loop through the little lakes in the middle of the route or spend an extra day somewhere.
We did the trip at the end of the season and a few previous paddlers did not clean up after themselves. This wasn't a major issue, but we chose our camping spots carefully. My favorite campsites were Windsor Lake Camp, Little Horseshoe Lake (we only put in there after staying at Beaver Lake South), Horseshoe Creek Camp (north end of Horseshoe Lake) and Horseshoe Lake South, which is nice, but may be busier than some may prefer. We didn't see the campsites at Nanton Lake or Ireland Lake.
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