I know this is an old post, but some of you may find my response interesting. In one post, someone asked if there were Muskie in the Menakos. I never caught one there, but about 30 miles south on the west side of the road, was a little lake with a small handwritten sign: "Robert's Lake". There, in less than 3 feet of water, I caught a 50" Muskie in 1970. I was 17 at the time and travelling alone and thought it was a huge pike. I never knew it was a Muskie until I showed the photo to someone years later!
That was my first trip there. The local First People tribe was fishing the lake commercially then, cutting and storing ice in winter and packing the fish out in summer. They were a proud people and very industrious and aloof to whites. I went back several times over the next year to great fishing and camping, particularly on the river.
I returned though in 1974 to work in a developmental gold mine outside of Pickle Lake. There, the tribe members would come by often in raggedy clothes begging beer. Some of the girls ever were prostituting themselves. What a horrible transformation!!!
The gold mining, or perhaps just more tourism had addicted many to alcohol and they had abandoned their ways. I learned that the Government had given the tribe the entire abandoned mining town of Pickle Crow with good intentions during that time. However the tribe had dismantled it and burned it for firewood. It was very sad!
The fishing there was awesome in those days! Pike, Walleye, or Perch on nearly every cast. It was the pristine end of the road in 1970.
I am planning on going back this summer. I see it is now a provincial park under the control of the tribe, so hopefully the addiction was addressed and life is better for those folks!
