Lorenz Lake

LORENZE LAKE, ONTARIO
One year, sometime in the early 80’s, I decided to set up a trip quite a distance into northern
Ontario. Four of us were going. My old buddy Jay, whom I taught to cast and the scared with the
bear, one of my best friends, Ray Bennett and another guy. I can’t remember his name. He wasn’t the
type that a person would remember. He was a the sort that should go camping at a resort.

On this trip, we were headed for a lake called Lorenz Lake. It is up to the west of James Bay, which is
connected to Hudson Bay. Which is a bay in Canada, for those of you in Texas and Arkansas. To get there was quite a journey in itself. We had to drive from our home in southern Michigan, north 400 miles or so
on I75, to the Canadian Soo. At the Soo we boarded the Algoma Central Railroad train and rode
north, for 10 hours. Hurst, a small town in Northern Ontario, is as far as the train goes north.

The Algoma Central is an unusual train. A person can buy a ticket on it to any mile marker he or she
wants to. You can look at a map in the train station and select the lake or river you wish to fish and
pay your fare accordingly. You load your gear and canoe on the boxcar and the train will stop
wherever you choose. Hundreds of miles of wilderness!! When you get tired of fishing you just go
out and flag down the next train and they stop and you are on your way. The train isn’t really very fast
and with the many stops a rider gets the chance to see some beautiful landscape. The Agawa
Canyon is beautiful.




We spent the night in what passed for a motel, right near the train station. Next morning the flying service sent transportation and took us to
the floatplane base. The base was on a fairly large lake.

Usually a Beaver is used for these flights. Big, noisy but powerful which is needed for hauling fishermen and their gear into remote campsites.

The plane was at the dock so we didn’t waste much time loading our gear. We off loaded all our gear and loaded it on the Beaver. This is an art in itself because it all has to be balanced and the pilots are masters at this.

From there we flew north
about 140 miles to the lake. It is north of the Albany River, which empties into James Bay. This river
was a main traveling route for Voyageurs. They were French trappers, for our Southern brothers.


The lake we were flying to was a big lake and the outfitter couldn’t tell us much about it as we were the first
group they had ever flown into it to fish. They had flown moose parties into it in the fall. They said it
was shallow. They did not tell us just how shallow it was though! :0) There is a good-sized river
running into it and another draining the lake. This river ran south, to the Albany.
We were pretty excited about fishing this virgin lake. Right! :0 (The lake was about 8000 acres, I
would guess. That is just a guess! The deepest place we found was about 5 feet. Man, try to fish
walleye in water like that!

We decided to explore the river coming into it. We had to get out of the
boat, I was using a square sterned canoe, and DRAG the thing into the river! It was so shallow!
When we got into the river, it was fine. Nice and deep and lots of fish. Not huge fish but enough to
have fun with. It was wild!! We actually saw mink running up and down the banks. Couldn’t believe it!
They were all over the place. We explored for miles on that river. Saw plenty of moose too. There
was a good indication of how deep the snow gets in the winter. We saw trees that were dropped by
beavers. The cuts were 5 ft above the ground! Told Jay that they had big beaver up there! This was
caused by the fact that the snow was 4 ft deep on the level!


This story is about a little excursion two morons in our crew took. Namely Jay and I! Like I said, this
lake is a big lake. Picture a big round lake with a long peninsula almost splitting it in half, coming
from the south. Well not in half but about three quarters of the way up the center. We were camped on
the west shore and the outlet river is on the southeast end of the lake. The lake looks like a set of
lungs, actually. It was a long boat ride from the camp to the river but we were there to explore.

One of us had the brilliant idea of exploring the outlet river. Heck, didn’t look too bad on the map! I
did happen to mention to Jay that I seemed to remember it being almost all white water, as we flew
over it. Not to worry, says he. We will just check out where it leaves the lake. Made sense to me, at
the time. :0) We were up there for adventure and a bit of exploring and my buddy Jay would never steer me wrong!


We knew it would be a full days excursion so we went prepared. We took food for a lunch, plenty of
gas, bait and one of us suggested taking a little beer. It was a warm day so somehow we figured 18
ought to be just about right. Right!


Off we went! Our little square sterned canoe just a purring along and we were as happy as if we
were in our right minds. The lake was as calm as glass and it was a great ride. Heck, Gotta have a
beer to kick off the trip, don’t we? To get around that spit of land that is splitting the lake, we had to
head northeast. The lake was calm and I will tell you, even though we knew the lake was shallow, the
size of it was intimidating. Especially in a canoe. Setting in the canoe, all we could see was the top
of the trees. Standing up, I could see the shoreline. I gassed up just before leaving camp and was
going to watch and see how much gas it took to get to the river. Wanted to be sure we had enough
to get back. I wasn’t no dummy! :0)


We finally got out to where we were to make our cut to the south, toward the river and decided that
we should really have another beer to celebrate our success so far. Heck, it was looking like it could
be a hot day. We were just a buzzing along, on calm water, and hoping to see some moose. I had to
edge the canoe toward the east shore if we were to do that, so I cut her over. After a while we
spotted a cow and her calf feeding. They are so damn ugly that they looked like they were built by
committee. We didn’t try this time but some times we could get within 15 or 20 ft of them in a canoe.
Ain’t smart but we never considered that a deterrent!

We decided to toast them with a fresh beer.
We did this and headed for the river. Boy it was turning out to be a great day, fresh air and good
companion. The canoe wasn’t very fast but it did give us time to enjoy the scenery. As we
approached the river, we couldn’t see it. All there was a lot of brush. The water was flowing through
it at a good clip, but we couldn’t see where it was going. There was a solid wall of brush and the water was about two or three feet deep and it was moving fast.


We started weaving our way through it and could hear a roaring noise. Makes a sane man a little
tense. Didn’t bother us, for some reason. I have to say here that neither of us really drank much as a
rule! Anyway as we broke clear of the brush, there was the river. Beautiful! It dropped directly into a
rapids, about a hundred feet ahead of us. I aimed the canoe towards the right bank, which would be
the west shore and beached it, directly above the rapids. That was living! Time for another beer!
We decided to fish the rapids a bit. See what we could pick up. We picked our way among the
boulders and managed to get in position to make a few casts into the hole at the bottom of the short
rapid. We didn’t have much luck so decided to have our lunch. What the heck. Gotta wash it down with
something, don’t we. Moose probably pooped in the dang lake anyways. Nother beer!


Now along about here, I figure I should tell you a little about my buddy Jay. Now he is a puny little
runt. Sharp as a tack and as nice a guy as you will ever meet. Takes a lot of kidding and doesn’t
mind giving it out. Just ain’t no good at it! He had always seemed to be a pretty sensible guy to me
and knowing this, I sorta counted on him to control my natural tendency toward getting myself in
trouble. Problem is, I had never experienced the little moron when he had been drinking! The dang
fool was coming up with some mighty strange ideas. Problem was, when I was drinking, they made
perfect sense to me! He was my Forman at work but we enjoyed mutual respect. Not much. :0)
Now we had just eaten our lunch and had popped the top off a beer to celebrate a successful lunch.
Jay says," Why don’t we just go down this rapid and see what is down below. Well it didn’t seem
like a bad idea at the time. Wasn’t a bad rapids, really and what the heck. Might be some fish down
there. We were in Northern Canada on a fishing trip, weren’t we?

We finish our beer and load our gear and push off into the flow. Dang, the water was pretty low so
we clobbered a few rocks, but we rode the rapids and slid into some slick water. We paddled a
way and come to another hole. We broke out the tackle and started casting. We actually caught a
couple walleye. Threw them in the cooler. Getting a little room in there now.


Jay says," Lets see what is a little farther down. How far is the Albany anyway?" I told him that we
weren’t gonna go to the Albany. It was too far! Told him to pass me a beer. I started the motor and
eased downstream. Started hearing a roaring again. Nother rapids! Jay says that the Albany can’t
be far. It is only a couple inches on the map! Moron! Trouble was, he wasn’t a moron at the time.
Made sense to me!! Heck, a couple inches can’t be far. The whole lake was only about three
inches. With a perfectly clear mind, that probably would have told me something. As it was, our
minds probably weren’t at their peak. Something about the clear fresh air, seems to cloud a mans
thinking, it seems.


We edge up to this rapids and, well I guess you could say I wasn’t paying as much attention to the
boat running as a person might be expected to under these circumstances. Well the upshot of it is,
we ran another rapids. This bugger was about twice as long and a bit rougher than the last. For
some reason we thought it was funny and laughed our asses off and decided to have a beer. I
am now starting to put the beer into this story where it makes sense, as there is no way I can remember when we popped a cap. Who the hell was counting??


We went like this, rapids after rapids for hours. There were places to fish between many of them
and we did. We gave no thought of how we were gonna get back and what our buddies back at
camp were gonna say. We just kept going and fishing when we could. Caught a few too!!

The country was just beautiful, as I recall. The shore line was varied, wide and marshy in places and then the shoreline would close in on the river and there were many places we could not even get out of the canoe if we wanted. The shore was too steep and since this was all covered by a glacier during the last ice age, the soil was all rock and sand. Huge boulders were showing up the canyon walls and many had rolled into the river. That is what made many of the rapids. There were places that were very rocky and others where we had to negotiate sandbars. Usually below the sandbars there would be a hole, where us usually managed to catch a fish or two. It was a wonderful day, warm and sunny.

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Jay was really hung up on seeing the Albany. Maybe just to piss me off. One of us had to be the
leader and show a little common sense. Problem was we both insisted that it be the other. Finally,
after we had gone so dang far that it would take a helicopter to get us back before dark, I said OK
lets do it!! Like I had a choice.


I should tell you that the river was now running pretty fast and the banks were vertical. Straight up!
Well at a, probably 70 deg angle. They were about 80 ft high and all sand and boulders. Couldn’t get
out of the water if we wanted to.

It gets dark late, that far north. Around 10:30 pm or so. It was getting late and I was getting a bit
antsy! I sure didn’t want to be on that river in the dark. It was almost a continuous rapids now. Not a
real violent one at this point but it was beating the hell out of our canoe.

At every turn I was looking for the Albany River. Jay was setting facing rear and I was doing the
paddling at this point. We came around a curve, between two vertical rock walls and I almost
crapped my britches! There was the Albany!! About a mile ahead and about 50 or more feet below
us. Now THAT mother was a rapids. Jay saw my face and I yelled for him to hold on! Man we shot
down that rapids and I was scared. I didn’t think It was ever gonna end and just knew we were gonna
flip over. We were a beating the hell out of that canoe and ended up busting all the ribs out of it. We
shot down that rapids and out onto the Albany.

Jay was bailing the canoe out as we had taken a lot
of water! What an awesome ride it was! I was so dang relieved when we hit that slick water. I started
the motor and headed up stream a ways and put into the north shore.
We got out and broke out a beer. We were about out and maybe more than a little loose :0) Jay
asked what we were gonna do now. I said we had to set up camp. With what, says he. Well we
emptied the canoe out and hauled it up the bank and set it up so we could use it for some shelter. Flipped it
over, between two rocks.

Then the lad says," What we gonna eat??"
I guess this would be a good place to tell you a little more about Jay. He is a bit of a city boy. Never
had much experience with wildlife. Food always was fixed for him. Always expected his food to be
properly cooked and completely dead. He was teachable though. I always did all the cooking and he
learned that there could be exceptions. Half raw is good, burnt is good, if it is organically sound, it is
food!

When he asked me what we were gonna eat, he obviously wasn’t thinking. We had about eight fat
walleye! Nice and fresh! He then gave me a look that reminded me of a calf lookn’ at a new fence.
Sorta untrusting like. :0) He was wonderin’ just how we were gonna cook the things. I told him I had it
all figured out! We gotta get some sticks.

We had a nice fire going. I was a boy scout and knew how to start a fire with one match and a cup of
gasoline. It was getting pretty dark by now and hard to see. Didn’t help that my eyebrows were burnt
off either! It was about 11:00 pm. We climbed up the bank and cut a couple willow branches. Jay didn’t say much at this point but he did look at me a bit doubtful like.

We got
down to the fire and took the fish off the stringer. Dang thing was sure lively. Floppin’ all over the
place. Jay started bellyaching about how we were gonna clean them. I had it all figured out. Weren’t
gonna! Just took that stick and shoved it down its throat and out its rear. He whined, "Aintcha gonna
kill it first?" I said, "Heck the sucker looks dead now"! Heck, he would be dead too, if he had a stick
stuck down his throat and out his butt. Jay just wasn’t thinking! Had to do his too.


I stuck it over the fire and roasted it like a hotdog. Jay didn’t seem to think it was the way to do it but
there wasn’t much choice. We cooked them up and then started to eat them. It ain’t as easy as it
would seem to be. Specially in the dark! Got the scales and then the guts! Jay was doing OK until I
happened to mention that he should be careful not to eat the guts. Hard to see in the dark and they
were probably full of Hellgrammites! That is a damn bug. Fish eat them in northern Michigan. Sorta
look like a darned centipede with claws! Don’t know if they have them up there but I convinced Jay
the place was loaded with them. Told him how they were a problem, if they weren’t completely dead
because if he should happen to eat one they would crawl under your tongue and when you went to
sleep crawl down a person’s throat and build a nest. Upshot is, I now had lots of fish to eat. No
wonder he is so scrawny. Not much of an eater.


It was a rough night. We were soaked to the bone from our day on the river and it got pretty cold at
night. It was in early June and the ice hadn’t been out but for a few weeks at that latitude. Fire helped
dry us some but it was miserable. The side toward the fire would be nice and toasty and the other
freezing. Then we would turn around and toast the other side. Didn’t make for a good nights sleep.
We were right at the base of the, last long rapids and the noise was deafening. For a city boy, Jay
held up pretty well. I had been in messes like this before but it made for a long night. I wasn’t about to cuddle with the boy neither!

We eventually did get some sleep. Next morning we woke up to a clear day. Wind seemed to be
picking up a bit. I cooked up another fish and this time Jay joined me. Helped that he could see the
fish, I expect. Least he could identify the guts! We then loaded up the canoe and tied everything
down, as best we could.


We pulled the canoe over to the river and gave a look at the task we had. Man, what a task it was.
We had come down a very rough river and lord knew how many rapids. Turns out to be about 26
of them. Didn’t know how far. Around 20 miles! There were two guys up at the lake that didn’t know
where we were, which added to the urgency of the situation.


The rapids were not huge. We couldn’t walk the banks, so we had to wade all the way. There were
stretches up river that we could use the motor for short runs, but that proved to be a long way off. The
river was full of boulders and rocks of all sizes. Miserable to walk on. I was wearing boots and found
early on that once they filled with water, they felt like they weighed a ton. I took them off and cut a golf
ball sized hole in the side of each one at the instep. This allowed the water to shoot out with every
step.


What we decided to do is tie a long rope on the bow of the canoe and a shorter one on the stern. I
took the bow and Jay the stern. I did the pulling and he did the steering by keeping the bow aimed
into the current and guiding it around the boulders. By letting out or pulling in line, he could guide the
canoe around the boulders and snags. There had to be a million of them in that river!! I did the bull
work and he did the guiding. His job was as tough as mine was. It took a mile or two to get the
system down so we could make some decent headway. Not fast but steady. We were constantly
falling and stumbling but there was nothing we could do but keep going. Hour after hour. The trek
seemed endless. We would always be on the verge of killing each other, as it was hard to work in
unison. He would stumble or fall down and the canoe would come charging into shore or threaten to
capsize, causing me problems and when I would have a mishap, he would have to bust his butt to
save the canoe. Endless!! We growled a bit but we managed not to get too upset. We needed each
other!

About 2 or 3 in the afternoon, we took our first break. The rapids were a little farther apart now and
on occasion, we could use the motor! :0) We came to a sand bar on a bend in the river, and it sure
looked inviting. We stopped and I just fell down and lay there. Exhausted! Jay did the same, of
course. We just lay there with our own thoughts. I was wondering just how far the damn lake was and
if I had the strength to make it. I have always been in pretty good shape but wasn’t no damn Mule!! I
fell asleep! Only for about 10 minutes, but it sure helped.

We left that sand bar and headed up river, once again. After a while, all the rapids started looking
the same. Just work! All of a sudden I looked up and saw one that picked at my memory. It was the
one that we had had our lunch at, the day before! We had made it to the lake!! Home free!! We had
been coming up that river for about 10 hours!

We hauled the canoe over that rapids and set down for a rest before heading across the lake. I
gassed up the motor, as I knew that we used a little more than a half tank, coming to the river. Didn’t
want to run out of gas crossing the lake. The motor was one of those old ones, a three horse, that
had the gas tank on top of it.

We got the canoe ready for the crossing and happily started for the lake. As mentioned before, we
could not see the lake from the river mouth because of all the brush growing at the mouth. We had to
pick out way through it to get to the lake.

There seemed to be a wind picking up that we hadn’t noticed before. Seemed we could hear a bit
of surf up ahead. Came through the last of the brush and damn near shat!! Dang hurricane and it
was coming straight from the north! We were at the south end of the lake!! Those waves were a
sight. Coming right at us. We went back into the brush and collected our thoughts. I would have
stayed right there if it wasn’t for the other two at camp. They had to be worried sick!

We decided to go for it. Tied everything down we could and with Jay facing me in the rear, headed
out. The waves were huge. Anyone that knows lakes knows that the shallower the lake the more
treacherous it can be in high winds. I don’t care if it is only 5 ft deep. Half a mile from shore and
huge waves and the old butt muscles clench up real tight. We found out later, from the pilot that the
winds reached 45 miles per hour in that storm! Try that in a damn canoe, if you want an adrenalin
rush! Jay was terrified and the little sucker didn’t even have to look at the waves! He preferred to set facing the rear.I was scared my own self!


I tried to keep grinning and joking, just to keep him from flipping out. That false bravado seemed to help
my mood too. I was a laughing and singing every stupid song I knew, just to keep my own spirits up.
It really helped me and I think it helped keep Jays mind off the fix we were in.


It was odd but it seemed that most of the waves were comparatively a constant size and since we
were going directly into them, got to be almost fun to blast through. We would ride up the face of the
wave and then bust through the crest with a splash! Every 5th or 6th wave seemed to be a third
larger than the others and pretty frightening! Ole’ Jay was a watching me and starting to relax and
then one of those big suckers would come along. I must have gotten a look on my face when I saw it
coming because he would just hold on and close his eyes. He said that when he saw the fear in my
face he could have crapped!

Going down the river, coming back and now fighting the waves had taken a toll on the canoe. All but
a couple ribs were broken and as we busted through those waves the damn canoe flexed like it was
made out of paper. It was a 16 ft aluminum canoe.


I had headed directly north, into the waves so I could get into the shelter of the trees on the far shore.
Slowly we battered our way across. As we approached the shore the wind calmed down
considerably. Once we got there we had to head south toward camp. This would be done with the
waves, of course. I planned to get the canoe up on a crest of a wave and try to adjust the speed of
the canoe to ride it all the way. Great plan!! Problem is that the ice water must have frozen my brain
and I forgot one important thing. We will get to that! :0)

We bailed out the canoe and made sure
everything was secure and off we went. I got out in the wind and the waves were picking up. I had to
sorta crab the canoe a little to the West so I could edge toward the camp as I was going down wind.
The wind was getting even worse!! I slid that canoe right up the back of one of those waves and with
Jay in the bow setting in air, just rode that wave. Easy as pie!! That is until I ran out of gas!!! :0(
I had made it to the river from camp on less than ¾ of a tank of gas. Figured I could do the same on
the return trip. Problem is a motor uses a lot more gas fighting the waves. I had forgotten this.
Moron!


There we were, waves 4 ft or more and floundering. I grabbed a paddle and try to swing the bow
down wind and look for something that would help us. Just ahead there was a sunken island. Thing
was that it was not sunken with these waves! I could see it in the trough of a wave dead ahead. I
yelled to Jay to get ready to jump out when I told him to and to hold onto the bow rope. Course he
thought I was nuts! But he got ready. As we got to it, I yelled for him to jump and to his credit, he
didn’t hesitate. Out he went and hung on to the rope. The canoe swung around until it was facing
upwind and I jumped out. The scrawny little sucker did a yeoman’s job that day! Dang wind and
waves was threatening to drag him off his feet but I jumped behind the canoe, and held onto the
motor. This took some of the pressure off Jay and he grabbed the bow. With the canoe, somewhat
secured, I started gassing up. The wind and waves were beating the crap out of us but I managed to
get a half tank of gas in motor.


He jumped in the bow, after shoving it around with the wind and I jumped in and started the motor.
Off we went for the safety of our shore. As we neared shore I looked up and saw Ray a running down the shore and just a
yelling his lungs out. He was pissed but elated that we were alive. I think! The wind and waves were
still a building and it was a jumble of noise from the wind and surf. We came to the top of a wave
and slid down in the trough and I’ll be damned if we didn’t hit the ground! No water in the trough! We
stuck to that ground and the next wave, which was huge, came over the stern and filled the canoe.
We were still a couple hundred yards from shore but I yelled to Jay to jump out! We had to wade the
rest of the way. Waves beating the crap out of us all the way. Jay got knocked flat on his face a half
dozen times.

Ray came a charging out into the lake to give us a hand. Cussing and a yelling all the time. He had
thought we were dead and wasn’t all that sure that he didn’t prefer it that way. He had a rough night
and day, worrying about us. We hauled the canoe up on the shore and since we had overshot the
camp by about three hundred yards, just left it!
When Ray had heard the boat motor he had immediately put on a pot of chili and a pot of coffee. By
this time he hated my rotten, disgusting, inconsiderate, miserable ass, but he didn’t want me to
starve or freeze to death. He laid all the blame on me. I tried to explain that it was all Jays fault but he
wasn’t buying it. He had made a number of trips with me in the past and figured it was probably my
fault. He said that when he saw the beer we were taking with us that he just knew there would be trouble. Neither
Jay nor I were really drinkers and Ray had been my friend long enough to know that strange things
tend to happen when I get into the grapes! :0)


Ray and the hairball he was with had decided we had drowned and the other moron was already
composing our obituary and trying to decide what to tell our wives. Seems like when we failed to
come back on the previous day, Ray wanted to come out and do a search. This fine gentleman
didn’t want to as he was afraid of the lake. This was on the calm day. Ray threatened to strangle him
or something and they went out. Then he wanted to stay in the middle of the lake, where nothing
could be seen because he was afraid of hitting a rock!


This guy should never have come on such a trip. Some can’t handle the isolation and really get into
a depression. That is what happened to this guy. He folded into himself and really was useless.
Most of us love the isolation and chance to be just a little nuts. I would hate to take such a trip with a
lady. I mean, hanging your butt across a log, tied between two trees isn’t the type of toilet that is
acceptable to most ladies. Having your buddies spray your butt and with bug spray, before making
your trip to the facilities isn’t something any lady I would want to be associated with, would consider
great fun. This is something that must be done in the spring up there because of the black flies,
horse flies and mosquitoes! A person that hasn’t spent time at that latitude, in the spring can’t really
imagine what it can be like. Living in Michigan I always thought I knew what Skeeters and biting flys are but they are nothing like they are in Northern Ontario.

I loved the trips and the time with friends, some of which have now passed. Ray now is gone. He
was a joy to know and I have many memories of my adventures with that crazy sucker.
I realize that this story is not about treasure hunting but it is adventure. Most of us have been
attracted to the MD hobby because of the adventure and excitement of it. I hope that you enjoyed it.
This was only two days out of a 7 day trip. Many things happen on each trip that were exciting.
Because of the size of this thing, I had to cut a lot out of it. I enjoyed reliving it as I was telling it. I
hadn’t thought about this two days in my life for a long time and loved to enjoy it again. Thanks!!