Thursday, May 17, 2007 (Day 1)

• Drove to Mowat Landing and put in
• N on Montreal River
• N into Indian Lake
• Camp on island site (UTM 566450E, 5267409N, based on UTM Zone 17, NAD83)

Daily Portage Distance: 0 m
Cumulative Portage Distance: 0 m
Daily Paddle Distance: 17.99 km
Cumulative Paddle Distance: 17.99 km

Friday, May 18, 2007 (Day 2)

• NW through remainder of Indian Lake
• N on Montreal River
• W, then N into Big Spring Lake
• SW on Spray Creek
• 7 Beaver Dam liftovers
• P170m (River Right)
• SW through Mendelssohn Lake
• P2240m into Skull Lake
• Camp on East shore of Skull Lake (555311E, 5262390N)

Daily Portage Distance: 2410 m
Cumulative Portage Distance: 2410 m
Daily Paddle Distance: 20.27 km
Cumulative Paddle Distance: 38.26 km

Saturday, May 19, 2007 (Day 3)

• S through Skull Lake
• P70m into unnamed Lake
• P720m into Greenwater Lake
• P90m into Holden Lake
• P260mm into Lockie Lake
• P220mm into Niccolite Lake
• P100m into unnamed Lake
• P70m into Bergeron Lake
• P760m into creek
• P30m
• P110m
• P50m, all while still on the creek
• S into Anvil Lake
• Camp on Anvil Lake (UTM 555411E, 5252970N)

Daily Portage Distance: 2480 m
Cumulative Portage Distance: 4890 m
Daily Paddle Distance: 11.58 km
Cumulative Paddle Distance: 49.84 km

Sunday, May 20, 2007 (Day 4)

• SW through Anvil Lake
• P130m into Inez Lake
• P360m into Bessie Lake
• P380m Old Bill Lake
• S into Hobart Lake
• S into Sucker Gut Lake
• E into main body of Sucker Gut Lake
• N through main body of Sucker Gut Lake
• P200m into Lady Evelyn Lake
• E on Lady Evelyn Lake
• Camp in Obisaga Narrows on Lady Evelyn Lake (UTM 561873E, 5246284N)

Daily Portage Distance: 1070 m
Cumulative Portage Distance: 5960 m
Daily Paddle Distance: 21.50 km
Cumulative Paddle Distance: 71.34 km

Monday, May 21, 2007 (Day 5)

• NE through Lady Evelyn Lake
• Camp on island site (UTM 574173E, 5250809N)

Daily Portage Distance: 0 m
Cumulative Portage Distance: 5960 m
Daily Paddle Distance: 13.23 km
Cumulative Paddle Distance: 84.57 km

Tuesday, May 22, 2007 (Day 6)

• N through Lady Evelyn Lake
• P260m around Mattawapika Dam
• Take out at Mowat Landing
• Pack up and drive home

Daily Portage Distance: 260 m
Cumulative Portage Distance: 6620 m
Daily Paddle Distance: 8.55 km
Cumulative Paddle Distance: 93.12 km

• Route Description on Canadian Canoe Routes
• Maple Mountain Myth: The Highest Point in Ontario
• Ontario Parks: Obabika River Provincial Park
• Ontario Parks: Lady Evelyn-Smoothwater Provincial Park

• Darren Cope
• Matt Fallowfield
• Mike Proper

• Mike and I met Darren in North Bay at Donny’s house
• From there after we had breakfast at "Dave’s" we finished packing up my car and headed for Mowat Landing
• We un-packed and loaded up the boats, headed up the "never ending" Montreal River
• We were paddling along and saw something that looked like a rock that had been painted red
• Turned around and went back to check it out, turned out to be a dead bloated moose
• Shortly after that we saw a muskrat
• Continued on paddling, and then we paddled, and then we paddled some more
• Ended up at Indian Lake to the un-marked island site (CR 32?)
• We didn’t find the marked camp site on the shore
• The island site was across from a cabin with lots of wood, a camper trailer and more
• We had supper of STEAK, potatoes, mushrooms, onions, and fiddle head ferns! MMMMM fiddle head ferns
• Hit the bed WAY before dark.
• Still plenty f’in hot out, sun beating on the tent didn’t help matters.

• Breakfast of Oatmeal/Cream of Wheat, dehydrated fruit
• Continued paddling on the never ending Montreal River
• Into Big Spring Lake
• Unnamed pond #1 with tree stand
• 2 lift overs then 2nd unnamed pond
• 5 beaver lift overs into spray creek
• Mendelssohn Lake, stopped for lunch at the campsite on the north shore.
• Began strategizing for our challenge that lay ahead
• Paddled into a real stiff south wind
• Darren and I were alternating in the solo boat
• We searched for the portage for just over 1 ½ hours
• Portage is in the swamp at the south end of the bay, the portage is to the left of the stream that comes in from the west.
• We scouted the portage half way to make sure it was the right one.
• Returned to the start and carried all of the gear half way across and then continued to the end, we saw a few moose prints on this trail.
• The portage took 2 hours and 20 mins once we found the portage.
• We camped at the land site on the east shore of Skull Lake.
• The site was pretty nice, bugs were bad.
• Supper was spaghetti and dehydrated meat sauce at 7:30 pm

• Breakfast of Oatmeal/Cream of Wheat, and dehydrated fruit
• Paddled south on Skull Lake
• P70 M was easy
• P720 M - ankle busters, swampy but was ok.
• Green Water Lake was nice!
• P90 M to Holden was nice
• P260 M to Lockie was ok
• P220 M to Nicolite was ok
• Paddled SSE, go into first channel into swamp (Look for cut trees)
• Portage is on the right approximately 50 M into the swamp
• We had to cut one tree over hanging the swamp to get through
• We wandered around on the floating moss to find the portage
• The portage is about the nastiest 100 M portage any of us had ever done.
• When we reached the other end we had to cut another tree that a beaver had laid across the trail.
• P70 M ok
• P760 M - Ankle busters, swampy but wasn’t so bad.
• The beaver pond was very buggy.
• P30 M "Tabernack tree" AKA Tamerack tree (the tree with a nice rack and sounds like tabernack)
• I went swimming non-intentionally
• P110 M - we lined down and got really wet = felt good but not as cold as we expected.
• P50 M Was really short, didn’t seem like 50 M
• Just after that 50 M portage there were a ton of trees that were taken down by some crazy cracked out beaver that we decided must have been hired by a forestry company or something
• There had to have been 20 or more trees that were freshly taken down within not too long of time along the river.
• Got to Hammer lake and while looking at the map we saw that there was an abbreviation for a type of fish on the map that there was no explanation for (According to Mike WA = Walrus)
• We paddled to the first camp site on the west shore
• It was a nice LARGE sandy site
• Set up the tent, clothes line, and pumped water.
• Then it started to rain while we were making supper of Tuna wraps
• Put everything away and now its 5:30 and we were in the tent.

• Paddled South on Anvil to the P130 M into Inez Lake, it was a good portage.
• South on Inez to P360 M
• We had to clear the trail, there were 2 blow downs that there was no way around
• The trail seemed to be proaned to blow downs as there were a lot of trees down around the trail as well.
• South on Bessie Lake to P380 M which was ok
• South on Old Bill to the river that lead to Hobart Lake
• Hobart was a really nice lake to camp on
• South on the fun river to Sucker Gut Lake
• When you get to this river keep right, there is the most water going that way, and actually the left side there is no real water that runs through all the way.
• Stopped on the North shore of Sucker Gut for lunch of stonners, summer sausage, cheese, granola bars, and fruit.
• Sucker Gut was about 4 or 5 feet low in water, on average there was only about 6-12" in most areas.
• Paddled south, east and then North into the head wind then East again to lead to the main body of Sucker Gut Lake
• North on Sucker Gut into a brutal head wind
• We stopped to figure out what to do to defeat the head wind.
• Put a 'Bridal' harness on the boats to tow the solo boat.
• Just after we got back on the water we got stopped by a Conservation Officer and a Park Warden to see if we had permits for Obabika River Provincial Park.
• After leaving them we paddled North on Sucker Gut, and noticed that after over an hour they still weren’t able to get their motor boat running and they were still sitting where we had left them.
• Got to the P200 M and talked about trying to camp in the middle of the portage.
• Decided that we were going to eat supper at the beginning of the portage, then complete the portage.
• Had supper of Chili and then packed everything back up to push on
• We carried the gear across the portage and when we all went back for a second load, Darren and I returned to watch my canoe 'fly' via the wind over 6 feet in the air tumbling to the rocks below.
• No damage done, but we tried to raft up and sail down the west arm of Lady Evelyn Lake to make up some time.
• Ended up not being able to sail, so we paddled painfully down the lake to eventually make it to a camp site in the Obisaga Narrows to call it home for the night
• Set up camp, drank the rest of our Amarula
• Hit the bed just as it started to get dark.

• Woke to a beauty day.
• The BIG lake of Lady Evelyn was glass.
• We had breakfast of Oatmeal, Cream of Wheat, and some pre-cooked bacon. That pre-cooked bacon is really, really good as a boost at the end of a trip.
• We figured this was likely a fluke so we hustled to get breakfast done, and get on the water to beat the wind.
• Turned out there didn’t end up being any wind all day, but we paddled leisurely along to a large island just to the east of Ellen Island to meet up with Mike’s dad and his buddies that were up there fishing.
• Mike’s dad told us that if we could find them to stop in for a fish fry as they would likely have more than enough fish to feed us too.
• So as it turned out we were there for less than 5 minutes and all of us had beer in hand and shootin’ the shit about how we were roughing it.
• Swapped stories and watched the guys gut fish for lunch.
• Darren and I peeled potatoes and sliced them up for lunch
• Vern cooked the fish and potatoes and we sat down for a feast!
• Shortly after lunch of fish we hit the water to paddle the short distance to our site for the night.
• Once we got to our site we laid out all of our gear to dry and kicked back to relax in the sun.
• Darren and Mike both jumped in the water for a quick dip, and then we kicked back to relax some more.
• Had a mish mash of stuff for supper, didn’t feel much like a meal after the lunch feast.
• Cleaned up everything and we were in the tent exhausted by just before dark.

• Kicked around taking our time to get things packed up.
• We were all reluctant to leave, however Darren had to be back to work the next day.
• Breakfast of the remainder of the Oatmeal and Cream of Wheat
• Slowly packed up, and hit the boats to pump some water.
• Miandered our way up the narrows towards the dam.
• Darren noticed some sort of animals playing back in the rocks of the embankment
• We stopped to check it out, it ended up being 2 friendly, playful, yet shy otters.
• Got to the Dam and ended up meeting up with Mike’s cousins Mitch and Clayton.
• Stopped to order Mike’s dad a case of beer and then headed across the portage to the rest of the short trip back to the car.
• We got to the car and packed up everything.
• Started to head back to North Bay, had to stop in North Bay for some Cold and Sinus drugs as I passed a cold around between the 3 of us.
• Headed back to Donny’s after going to the grocery store, got cleaned up and changed
• Went to Burger World for lunch -- still one of the best burger joints to date!
• Split ways with Darren for an uneventful trip back to Paris to drop Mike off.
• Good trip over all, recommend that the trip be done in this direction as it is a little more with the flow, as well as you have a better chance at a prevailing wind on Lady Evelyn Lake.
• We didn’t get to hike Maple Mountain due to a misunderstanding between Darren and I in the planning of the trip. But we will eventually return to hike it.