Around 1 million years ago, just prior to the Pleistocene epoch, northern Indiana was covered by the Teays River system, which flowed northwest out of Virginia, West Virginia, and Ohio, entering Indiana at Adams County and flowing about 49 miles south of what is now Syracuse Lake.

The land supported large vast Picea evergreen forests and balsam poplar, which gave way to hardwoods of oak and hickory.

Animal life included Glyptodon, saber-toothed cat, mastodon, short-faced bear, dire wolf, ground sloth, giant beaver, peccary, stag-moose and ancient bison.

It was thought that the canoe belonged to Miami Indians or fur traders, or by very early settlers, and that it was abandoned on the old shore before the lake was raised by a dam built in 1834.

The third account occurred in the 1920s, when Charlotte White discovered a disabled sturgeon measuring 7 feet (2.1 m), 3 inches and weighing 130 lb, suffocated by a pair of waterwings caught in its gills.