After paddling many routes in northern Ontario including Quetico and White Otter Provincial Park, I was really looking forward to exploring places less traveled. I began poring over Google Earth and was intrigued by a series of smallish lakes southeast of Ignace that looked like they should be able to form a decent canoe route. Do you ever see a lake whose name inspires you to visit? That’s what happened with Sparkle Lake. I just knew I needed to get there before it was too late. The only information I could find about this area came from the Boy Scouts 2019 Atikokan Crown Land Route Book which gave vague descriptions and rudimentary maps of possible trips in this remote region. While studying the satellite imagery, it looked as if there were a lot of logging roads, some with actual names, that would allow someone to get relatively close to these lakes and avoid several days of paddling. I called up Canoe Canada and spoke to Shane and he assured me we could work something out to get further north than Dashwa. He wasn’t entirely sure where the drop-off would be but had a general idea we could get close to Below Bow Lake to put in. So, on May 25, 2024, my youngest son JJ and I headed out. I was awakened at 3:00 am with notification from Delta Airlines that our 6:30 flight had been cancelled. With some wrangling I was able to rebook on a connecting flight that got us to Minneapolis around noon instead of 9 am, so that wasn’t too bad. We ended up arriving at Canoe Canada around 8:30 pm and stayed in the bunkhouse there.

May 26 16.8 miles travel (16 miles paddling, 0.8 miles portaging (0.2, 0.3, 0.3 miles))

A huge plus for this trip was having Jim Clark’s input on maps and portages. He’s long retired from Canoe Canada but still has an incredible mind and memory. He did me a huge favor and marked up portages (as he remembered them from probably 30 years ago) so we had some idea of a potential route. After going over maps with Shane and figuring out the right place to get dropped off, we headed up Highway 622 and turned onto a logging road (Hardtack Road) just west of Finlayson Lake. The road was in pretty good shape, but it was barely wide enough for one vehicle and we were constantly slapping branches as we went. Water was over the road in one location but the road base was firm and we were able to get to our destination, a small no-name lake about a mile east of Below Bow. We unloaded the canoe and gear and got onto the water around 9:30.

It was a perfect day for paddling…blue skies, cool weather and no wind.

The first lakes ended in narrow creeks, and these were navigable. In fact, there were only three short portages on this day, with a total double portaging distance of 0.8 miles. We headed up through the no-name lakes into Lower Bow, then a short portage into Upper Bow Lake and continued the long paddle northeast. We passed the Bow Lake outpost cabin and found it occupied, with the tenants fishing Bow Lake, then continued. The terrain was rugged, with steep hills and dense forest extending right to the water’s edge. Around midday I began looking for potential camp sites and literally found nothing for miles. We finally found a broad rock clearing where we ate lunch, but still never saw anything resembling a camp site.

Finally, at nearly 5 pm, we saw a small peninsula with a relatively flat area that was acceptable to set up camp, despite the presence of significant blow down with toppled trees everywhere. We shared the location with a fussy goose who was not happy about us being so close to her nest.

We cleared a spot for the tent and set up camp, then headed out to do some fishing. This yielded one good bass early on, but little action after that. So, we enjoyed a fish appetizer along with our freeze-dried meal. Then it was off to bed for a cool night.