#Yearof50. Entry 24: Lake Kipawa

My family started to annually visit Lake Kipawa in the summer of 1980. A massive water system with 900 km of shoreline, Lake Kipawa is in northern Quebec and is part of the Anishinabek territory of the Kebaowek First Nation and also home to Wolf Lake First Nation.

My sister Angela Kelly was born in August 1980 and was on the Lake not long after, a tradition continued when her son Kaelan Kelly arrived in August 2001.

My sister Marsha arrived in March 1982, and I am sure she was on the Lake that summer too. I must confess one of my favourite memories of our trips is those Kellog’s mini-packs of cereal. It was the treat of the year to be able to have those sugar bombs for breakfast.

Dad loved Lake Kipawa in a way that I can only truly appreciate now. He would spend hours trolling for Kipawa’s famed Lake Trout and Walleye. For this little guy, who just wanted to read a Stephen King novel or play with my Atari or Star Wars action figures, driving a boat for hours was the ultimate in boredom torture. What I would give now to spend so much time with Dad. Youth truly is wasted on the young.

My dad was a status Indian, and had ancestral roots to Hunter’s Point, on the upper lake, in Wolf Lake First Nation. I recall a memorable (and mighty long) trip with him by boat to the village.

The annual journeys to Kipawa were big adventures for us, and we made strong connections there, including a very special woman named Millie who was an honorary aunt for me and my sisters. Years later, when working at OCAD University, I would reunite with Aunt Millie’s granddaughter Meghan. Small world indeed.

As the years ticked by, we added dear cousins to our road trips, such as Jonathan Kelly and Megan Kelly, and we made many great memories on the water under the endless sky.

Dad took a trip to Kipawa once with his brothers Bob and Glenn. I’m glad they had that opportunity. Now, only my Uncle Glenn is still with us.

Kipawa has a magic to it; a fierce beauty and power. There is an ongoing fight to Save Kipawa Lake from mining that became the Kipawa Lake Preservation Society. They deserve our attention.

We stopped going up as a family after Dad died in 2011. Perhaps we’ll take a trip one day with his urn and sit on the shore and spend hours with him listening to the waves.