By southern Ontario colloquial speak, one could find themselves ‘up north’ just two hours from Toronto, and therefore 3.5 hours from Niagara. My dad and I, plus some of his friends and mine, endured the 12-hour drive to White River, an hour and half north of Lake Superior. We then boarded a plane that makes you feel like you’re flying inside of a pop can with a propeller.
This is the typical routine to kick off this biannual fishing trip, which has been happening for 60 years, starting with the Letkemann family. However, every trip is an experience apart from the last one, as if comparing an orange to an apple and continuing to throw them into the same basket of memories.
I have been beyond fortunate to have joined this exquisite multi-generational outdoorsman experience since 2018, and just like the 36-inch record pike caught on this trip, I am officially hooked.
When the six-seat plane known as the Otter roars off of the lake, you leave behind cell phone reception and any modern-day responsibilities. You are thrown into the void of spruce trees, bugs and bogs, where mother nature indifferently churns her stews of sensory experience. The men in the plane have traded WiFi for interaction with a purity of nature that still survives in Ontario’s far north.
The scenery from the plane window keeps everyone quiet, presumably due to the confounding and massive abyss of nature that lies beneath them. You are more likely to see a moose than a vehicle on this flight, as the lakes layer their way to the horizon. In one glance, you may see a dozen of the 250,000 named lakes in Ontario — and those are just the named ones.
One-fifth of the world’s fresh water resides in the province’s aquatic wonderlands, which have an incalculable amount of undisturbed shorelines teeming with feisty fish, stately spruce and sedentary cedars, which fall into the water as deadfall while the layers of timber behind them slowly replace their waterfront estate. It is mind-boggling how much of Ontario and Canada’s interior shorelines must look like this.
When the plane lands on Shekak Lake, the fishing and exploring commences with excited haste. Rods in the water mean fish on the line in lakes like these, which are rarely fished, in comparison to southern Ontario’s human population and ritzy cottages. We expected to catch northern pike, walleye and perch.
Our expectations were not only met, but exceeded, with a couple of moose sightings, beavers, loons, groundhogs and a late night visit from a jarringly talkative barred owl. When we cleaned the fish for consumption, the remains were discarded across the lake on a rocky shore where bald eagles squabbled for an easy meal. I must mention that a black bear was also spotted on the drive up, just to add to the wildlife checklist of northern inhabitants.
When you are this far north, the iconic white pine and its sweeping branches elude the commanding winters. A deciduous tree becomes a visible minority. The spruce trees look like soldiers in silence, or perhaps a crowd of musical enthusiasts standing shoulder to shoulder to hear the loon’s next tune.
On one night, I boated across the lake with two other campers to set up a remote back country camp area next to a smaller lake which we had to hike to with our gear. We camped amidst mysterious matchsticks of spruce and spongy sphagnum moss, knowing that bears, wolves and moose pass through these realms like it’s their living room. We were overjoyed with the peace and solitude of the night, knowing that such a scenario is becoming a rare act of adventure for people to enjoy nowadays. Back at the cabin, hot meals of various fish-related concoctions were served up on a daily basis. Yes, there were salads, too.
All things this wonderful seem to have a finite time, and a week later, the Otter landed on our lake and was ready to take us back to our vehicles and cell phone reception.
As I write this article, I feel like I have a reality hangover for the books. I always find it appreciably challenging to come back to our defined normal lives of clock-
watching, schedule managing and the state of affairs with billionaires and world issues. There is something remarkably invaluable about that sort of isolation and nature exposure that many of us lack in day-to-day life. The northern wilderness gives you full permission and no choice to disconnect and do something healthy for yourself.
I suppose that when we choose to bond with the land, we find ourselves growing like one of the eight billion spruce trees looking for sunlight in Ontario’s treasured north. I was grateful to do so with my dad, my best buddy, and our friends new and old alike. Until next time.
