Northern Trails And Tales

On Saturday, we thru hauled 450 miles from Sault Ste. Marie to Thunder Bay, a good part of the way in sight of Lake Superior, and what a sight much of it is! The eastern shore is mountainous and I thought we’d reached the Rockies already, but the overlooks gave you views of gorgeous rocky bays and the water was the purest blue thanks to a cloudless sky. Traffic was light for the first two thirds of the trip, but trucks and RV’s constituted about 90% of vehicles. The last third of the trip was characterized by construction and some small delays. Altogether it took us about eight and a half hours. But I was excited to arrive at the campground as the owners had promised to site our trailer right on the trout pond. And their word was good. We sit about fifty feet from the water. So, as so on as we had the trailer set up, I broke out the five weight and tried a couple dry flies. Nothing. Then, I tried a couple streamers. Nothing. I resisted trying nymphs. So here I was skunked on my first outing— and I can hear the chuckles all the way up here. Laugh a little harder, folks, cause, earlier in the day, a kid supposedly hauled a five pound rainbow out of Lucky Pond! But this morning I was up early and managed to get rid of the horse collar. I caught four rainbows, all on streamers, the largest approximately four pounds. One of the others wasn’t too much smaller. Of course, this is a private catch and release pond and the trout have been in there for a while and, supposedly, some are larger than the one the kid got. This evening, I’ll try again…. We’re not traveling today because Dave has located another petting zoo. Oops…. Actually, since we left Connecticut, we’ve had no power in any of the trailer’s electrical outlets, excepting the GFI’s.

It’s probably a relatively simple thing, but I’ve run through the obvious without solving the problem This is an inconvenience and Dave hopes to find a dealer tomorrow who will fix it. This may mean we lose a good part of tomorrow, too, but we have some layover days built in…. Earlier this morning after fishing, I was talking to a guy from Manitoba who told me that last weekend a group from Nova Scotia on their way to Alaska was at the campground. They decided not to go any further because of the price of fuel. Instead, they we just going to spend the summer in central Canada and spend their money on other things!….. One of the remarkable things is how many people travel with dogs. Even more remarkable is that many travel with two dogs. The object has to be either companionship or having an excuse to take a walk…..This campground has wi-fi but you have to been in the main office to be able to connect up.

Unfortunately, we’re a long way from the office. But I’ll get down there sometime this afternoon and get this posted. I know it’s sounding a little like a trucker’s log, but maybe later today, after nailing a seven or eight pounder, I’ll have time to tell some stories…. Till then….

[and here are some photos Dave sent while my father was ‘too busy fishing’. Click on any picture for a larger version. Note the lack of any fish in these pictures…
-dan]