Canada 2004

Here­in lies, in a rather large and ungain­ly fash­ion, the account of the expe­di­tion of six men into the cold and crusty taiga of North­ern Ontario, Cana­da as relat­ed by one of the par­ty mem­bers, one Adam Har­vey hail­ing from the Mid­west of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. This account has been culled from his trav­el jour­nals, which were found under a rub­ber Richard Nixon mask, in an emp­ty ammu­ni­tion box in a cob­webbed and musty shed in a remote monastery in Latvia.

Pre­lude:
Pack­ing was rel­a­tive­ly sim­ple, one out­fit of sev­er­al lay­ers to be worn all week and some­thing to wear home. Pack­ing the boat was a bit more com­pli­cat­ed and despite my con­sum­mate skill at uti­liz­ing every inch of usable space, I let my uncles take care of the arrange­ment. Our vehi­cle haul­ing the fam­i­ly fish­ing boat was a leased Sub­ur­ban, one of the poor­est and most uncom­fort­ably designed vehi­cles it has ever been my dis­plea­sure to ride in. In addi­tion to myself, the com­pa­ny con­sist­ed of my three uncles Corbin, Col­lier and Dean, as well as my two cousins [Col­lier’s off­spring] Antho­ny and Joshua. We drove all night, from Ply­mouth Indi­ana, through Chica­go, into Wis­con­sin, enter­ing Min­neso­ta and final­ly cross­ing the bor­der into Fort Frances, Cana­da approx­i­mate­ly 12:40 after leav­ing my uncle’s house. Then we ate break­fast at the Mak­abi Inn.

6.5.2004
This is my 4th trip to Cana­da. The first two were when I was young, in my teens, the third was a col­lege grad­u­a­tion present, and this trip is a year after that. If this book smells like it sat in a shed for a few years, it did. We arrived at EJay’s on Camp­ing Lake, in Ear Falls, North­ern Ontario, Cana­da around 1 today after a non-stop trip from Ply­mouth, Indi­ana and my uncle Col­lier’s house. I came from Cleve­land so it was even far­ther for me. We made it on the lake by 4 and fished till about 10. We only caught 2 pike worth keep­ing and a wall­eye that was­n’t worth it but kept any­how. We also caught a crapload of ham­mer­han­dles. We also fed the eagles.

6.6.2004
Fish­ing today was rather poor, we caught quan­ti­ty but not qual­i­ty. We had enough to eat our fried fish din­ner, most­ly pike, and Col­lier had some mis­sion­ary friends vis­it from Dry­den. In the evening I drove the boat w/Corbin and he was his usu­al self and I was my usu­al self so we butted heads for a while. I only caught a dinky wall­eye.

6.7.2004
Today was a bit bet­ter fish­ing. I cur­rent­ly have the biggest wall­eye [20in] and unfor­tu­nate­ly I lost a 4 or 5 pound one when my line snapped. It rained most of the morn­ing and after­noon and we were wet through. We had some great baked fish and black­ened wall­eye and were appraised of the nec­es­saries of mak­ing it by Corbin. I spent the day in the boat with Dean and it was nice and calm. He is very patient. We were about 10 feet from a beaver and caught ome weird fish called either a sheepshead, moon­eye or skip­trip. Man was it ugly. The evening was beau­ti­ful. We also saw a mink. I want­ed to pick up a beaver gnawed log.

Inter­lude:
Pic­tures will be post­ed once I get all of my film devel­oped.

6.8.2004
Boy was it windy on the lake today! After those boat rides I felt like I’d been in a fist­fight and tak­en some kid­ney punch­es. We caught some more tro­phy wall­eye. The trou­ble now is catch­ing fish that are below the tro­phy size for bring­ing home. We had ribs for din­ner and then Josh and I hit the lake for a bit. I caught a 14in sauger and anoth­er [minis­cule] pike. When I’m on dry land I still feel every­thing rock­ing back and forth. It is a nice way to fall asleep. I got some nice pic­tures and we saw a moose cross­ing a riv­i­er with her two calves. I think that is rare as I though moose only have one calf at a time.

6.9.2004
I fished with Col­lier today and did very well. I caught 6 wall­eye, a pike and a perch and Col­lier caught the last fish for the evening and his only catch for the day. The weath­er was per­fect and we went to Pak­wash and Lost Lake where anoth­er fam­i­ly was sit­ting over the moth­er-lode of wall­eye. They were throw­ing back 24.5″ wall­eye. The Ply­mouth Berk­shires are kind of bummed out that the fish­ing has­n’t been as good as expect­ed. We still might make our lim­it and I hope we do. We found out that Tami died at about 1:30 today so we are leav­ing a day ear­ly so Dean can make it home for the funer­al.

6.10.2004
Our last day of fish­ing was a suc­cess. Antho­ny caught the big wall­eye on the trip, a 24 and a half inch­er an {sic} Josh also caught a tro­phy sixed fish. My hands are quite sun­burnt and we saw a sea­plane land right before we fin­ished fish­ing. Today I was in the boat with Tony. I have to get up in about 6 hours to hit the road home. I’m cur­rent­ly the last one up and I’m not look­ing for­ward to attempt­ing to fall asleep not three feet from Corbin’s snor­ing. If you can’t tell, I’m a bit buzzed from the cig­ar I just had; a Padr?n. Good night and thanks for the great­ness of nature which nev­er ceas­es to amaze. The sky is so wide up here you can see it move in three dimen­sions.

Postlude:
In the end, we came home with 18 wall­eye, 11 pike and 2 perch, under our lim­it in all respects, unfor­tu­nate­ly. Still, I have a freez­er full of fish and I’m itch­ing to bake some of it. The baked fish meals we had were, by far, the best fish meals I’ve had in Cana­da. I think we might only have fried fish once from now on. The sky actu­al­ly only moves in two vis­i­ble dimen­sions up in Cana­da, but it is def­i­nite­ly some­thing that puts you in your place. A boat tow­el will remain most evil­ly fish-smelling even after mul­ti­ple wash­ings. Tom­my Bartlett has a Robot World and Explorato­ry if you want to go to Wis­con­sin to see it. See­ing a pret­ty girl [or mul­ti­ple pret­ty girls, for that mat­ter] after a week in the bush with 5 male fam­i­ly mem­bers is almost enough to dri­ve you crazy, it gives ‘easy on the eyes’ a whole new ech­e­lon of con­no­ta­tion.