My wife and I did a day trip from Spider to Creswicke last October on a quick 3 day weekend away. We stayed on Spider, the first 500m portage isn't too bad, is pretty well maintained trail, but does have a bit of up and down to it. Also note (may not be an issue this year) we did get attacked horribly by hornets at the portage start on Spider (was collecting firewood off to the right as you came off the lake) so keep that in mind.
You absolutely have to do the 400m portage rather than the 100m route if you are tripping. We "accidentally" took the correct portage into Creswicke and were surprised at how long it was taking us to do 100m, we figured the low water levels made it necessary. On the way out, for poops and giggles we decided to try to paddle through the marshy area, and while we made it through, it certainly wasn't easy, at times I was getting out/pushing off the floating islands of muck, and don't think it would be doable with a loaded canoe at all.
Creswicke was a nice lake, but the one complaint that I would have is that you are close enough to the channel to Georgian Bay that we could hear some of the power boat traffic going up and down the channel..and this was on a weekend in October, I can only imagine what summer weekends might be like. It wasn't over-present, but definitely something that was noticeable to us.
Tim
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