Tuesday, August 26, 2008 We are up early and packing the gear for a traveling day. Our plan and goal is Thomas Lake and plan on starting on the northside looking for campsites. The landing at the Ima/Hatchet portage is one of my favorites, setting in a small cove with room for one canoe to land. We paddled in and unloaded and began the portage, no one was around and it was a good portage to start with, 50rds with a good climb at the start. The skeeters were eating, I was slapping and CG was grinning. I hate being used as bait, its just wrong. Moving into the narrow stretch of water headed to Thomas Lake we saw many white water lillys and a few yellow that hadn't started to open. We meet two canoes just exiting Hatchet Lake and headed toward Ima. All of the portages are easy on this stretch with shallow water in between. Landing are generally narrow with room for two canoes. We meet one group coming out from Frazer Lake, they mentioned it was the 20th year they had been going. It was evident by the trees the wind would be blowing on Thomas. We arrive at Thomas and take time to grab some jerky and cheese for lunch. We paddle a little ways out to get a better view of the lake and determine where to head. White caps are evident, but the wind is behind and travel will be at a 45 degree angle on the crossing. Being in big waves were of little concern after paddling in them on the first day. We decided to head to the notheast corner of the lake and checkout the sites. Except one canoe coming in behind us there was no one on the lake or camped at sites we passed. The two sites in the NE corner are brushy with few big trees and limited tent pads. We decided to work out way back along the east shore into the wind and check sites. There being only one until you get to the middle of the lake and then there are several island sites. The east mainland site is tucked into a back bay and has limited wind blowing in to keep insects away. We headed for the island sites, the first site in the middle of the lake had one good tent site, good trees for hanging bear bag and protection from storms. MORE important was there were litterally no skeeters. We paddled around to check the west island site and decided to head back to the east island. We setup the VCS16 screen shelter/tarp for gear, hung the bear bag and pulley system and the tent. This was another night for crispy cheese pie. We ate supper and then took a bath in the lake just to rinse several layers of sweat off. Tomorrow would be a fishing day.