Day Two -
The next morning we slept in and then got up and ate a big, hearty breakfast. That day we went to check out the little known portage from Fat Lake to Slim Lake. The map showed the portage was south of a little creek that flowed out of Fat into Slim. We found the trail was actually about 300 feet away from the creek and looked good from the water.
It is a narrow trail that follows a ridge line by the creek. It has a few muddy spots but it’s not too bad. It looked like someone had recently been through there & had cleaned up some of the dead fall spots. As the portage gets closer to Slim Lake it goes downhill and is very brushy and has a few downed trees across the trail. Lynn paced it off & came up with a length of about 265 rods. The Slim Lake side of the start of the portage is right before a grassy, marshy area and has a good canoe landing along with a large rock cairn to mark the spot. The trail from Slim to Fat is tougher because it is more uphill from west to east. On the trail we spotted a number of animal prints; moose, deer and wolf. In fact I walked up on a deer that took off running before Lynn could spot it. I was glad that we got to check out the portage and that we were able to walk the long, tough trail without having to portage a canoe and gear. As we paddled back to our campsite I had Lynn troll Fat Lake for lake trout, but we had no luck. We laid around camp the rest of the day on the big rock ledge, catching some sun and reading & relaxing and enjoying another great day up north.