Within 15 minutes we came to our first portage of the trip and, as we would inevitably discover, the easiest one. It was over a nice road that bypasses the Mattawapika Dam. The dam was originally built in 1925 for hydroelectric purposes and raised the water levels 20 to 30 feet for Lady Evelyn, Willow Island, Sucker Gut and Hobart Lakes. It has had an environmental impact on the area, not to mention a negative influence on several First Nations heritage sites. 

We shared the road with a man in a truck pulling a trailer. He was shuttling motorboats past the dam. Once above the dam, we continued up the Lady Evelyn River and made our way toward the open waters of Lady Evelyn Lake. 

We were lucky because the wind was negligible and paddling was relatively easy despite the motorboats whipping by, creating large wakes. Most boaters were considerate and slowed to minimize the wake for us humble canoeists, but every once in a while a special kind of person would fly by at top speed and create a mini tsunami. It's at moments like these that I remind myself to believe in karma. One day, those speed freaks will get their just desserts! (insert maniacal laughter here)

The river was pretty and had some lovely rock cliffs along its banks. It reminded me of the French River in places. I wondered how steep these cliffs would be at the river's natural height before the building of the dam. 

In a little over an hour, we were entering the vast expanse of Lady Evelyn Lake. We couldn't ask for better paddling conditions on such a large body of water. Rather than having to hug either the southern or northern shore to escape the infamous winds that normally prevail on the lake, we took the most direct path straight up the middle, using the distant rise of Maple Mountain (one of the highest points in Ontario) to the west as our target. There was nary a ripple on the lake. 

We stopped for a late lunch on an island site in the Waswaning Narrows. With the fantastic conditions we were experiencing, we wanted to get as far as we could before any winds came up. We thought we might make Sucker Gut Lake at the pace we were going.

After lunch, we skirted the south side of the lake at the Obowanga Narrows to take a gander at the sand-dune eskers there. I had expected large mounds of sand sticking out of the water, but instead found narrow fingers of tree-clad shoreline pointing into the lake. A number of the larger trees seemed to be falling into the water as if the sandy soil was desperately trying to cling to their roots in a last-ditch effort to keep them erect. It was interesting. 

Back in the day, camping was allowed on these fingers of sand, but now they are correctly recognized as an environmentally sensitive area and camping is no longer permitted. 

We continued moving west. Looking toward the northern shore of the lake just west of the Obowanga Narrows, we spotted a large, dark figure moving on the swampy shoreline. It was too far away to see clearly, but we probably spotted our first and only moose of the trip. In fact, for a northern backcountry area, we saw very little wildlife throughout the trip. 

We were happy when we got through the Obashingwakoba Narrows and started moving south past the islands. We had made it through the big open water without any major wind or waves. Here, my navigation ability failed me. It was Jeff's map that led me astray. We had been paddling for several hours at this point, and anyone who has done this to any degree knows that your body tends to go on autopilot after a while. So, we were paddling away, and even though I tried to pay attention to land formations, islands, etc., and match them to what I was seeing on my map, I second-guessed myself when I saw a fishing resort on an island in the narrows. On Jeff's Maps, there was no resort marked on the island I was paddling past. The only resort I could see on my map was Garden Island Resort, but that was in the large, open southern portion of this massive lake. It didn't seem like we were there yet, so we kept going. 

We were getting a little tired and hungry, so we thought we'd stop for a snack. We came upon a lovely, vacant campsite on the southeast shore. We had a quick bite and a swim to cool off. Unfortunately, some careless fools decided to leave a massive garbage bag full of empty beer cans here. Grrrr. Did these idiots think that there was a garbage boat ready to pick up their empties? If they can carry a couple of cases of full beers in, they can damn well carry out the empty cans! Grrrr, again!

Getting ready to go, I consulted the map. Again, I second-guessed our position, because there was no campsite marked on our map at the spot where I thought we were. Looking southwest, we saw a cottage, but I couldn't see the entrance to the Obisaga Narrows. I convinced myself, and my father, that we were in the wrong place based on the absences on the map. Not wanting to head too far in the wrong direction, we decided to paddle back and ask the people at the resort where we were. 

I should have trusted my map-reading skills and my instincts because it turned out we were exactly in the location we were supposed to be! The resort, I found out, was called Island 10 Retreat and wasn't marked on our map and neither was the campsite where we had our break. So, after a thank you to the fellow who pointed us in the right direction at Island 10, we paddled back past the campsite and eventually found the entrance to the Obisaga Narrows just past the cottage that we had earlier spotted. Had we originally paddled for a few more minutes past where we were, we would have seen the narrows. With the hour-long delay paddling back in the wrong direction, the sun was beginning to get low in the sky by the time we got into the narrows and we knew there was no chance of making Sucker Gut before dark.

The two sites on the north shore of the Obisaga Narrows looked dark, small, and uninviting, so we pressed on. Moving around the point and into the big open water of the southern section of Lady Evelyn, we were amazed at how large and beautiful this lake was. The northern shore of the section is dotted with several islands and inlets. We made a beeline west, paddled straight into the sun, and could now see Maple Mountain looming closer. 

We made our way into the northwestern arm of the lake that would eventually lead into Sucker Gut and looked for a campsite. We could see a beached canoe at the site on Preacher's Point to the west, so decided to investigate the two sites on the south shore of the arm. 

Again, our map was slightly wrong there. The two sites were both on the island and were joined by a trail. We chose the site on the western side of the island in the hope of catching a nice sunset. We weren't disappointed. The site had a couple of nice tent pads in a grove of pines and a cute, little firepit on a rock ledge right on the water. We set up camp and managed to get our steaks cooked just as the sun was setting. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening.