Lake Opeongo: Untold Stories of Algonquin Park's Largest Lake

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

To place this local history in “the big picture,” Shaw starts with
the glaciers and rapidly moves forward through the centuries until he
reaches the 1800s. Loggers, settlers, fishers, and trappers fill the
accounts of the 100 years preceding 1893, when Algonquin was designated
as a provincial park.

Algonquin is a spectacular wilderness park covering a massive area of
central Ontario. Within this large park is a large lake called Opeongo.
After a century as the site of numerous lodges, camps, and outfitters,
an active fish research station, and a snowshoe manufacturing business,
Opeongo is known to nearly everyone who has visited Algonquin.

Shaw recounts the legends and lore of the lake, the bear attacks, the
deaths by storm, the ghosts, air patrols, and events that define its
character. The lake, he says, is “a weather breeder, a mother of
storms.” Nonetheless it has always been popular with fly-in fishing
parties and canoeists seeking a wilderness experience.

The book is packed with detail and black-and-white photos (many from
the 1930–60 period). It is presented in a readable style, with sources
well documented.