Bill Watts lifts a stringer of walleyes caught at the “Honey Hole”.
The story of the rest of the summer follows:
Monday, June 1, Don, Josh Hancock and Josh’s black lab “trapper” drove north in my “new” 1996 Suburban . See green log for much detail of this trip. Dick Berreth and Dick Ohnstad came to the island at 8:30 PM, June 18 and left on Wednesday, June 24. They built the log cover to the septic pit. See yellow matrix for some more detail. We left the island on Sunday, June 28 and arrived in Boulder on Tuesday, June 30.
On Friday, July 10 I took Betty to DIA, packed the truck with help from Frank Watts, ate at Chilli's and proceeded to lock all my truck keys in the truck. It cost me $35 for a lock man to spend at most 10 seconds opening the truck.. I took Frank’s advice and hid an extra key under the rear license plate bolt. Saturday, July 11 was hot and clear as we drove to Sidney, Mt., Don and Cary Peter driving my truck and Frank and son Bill Watts driving Frank’s truck. Their dogs “blue” and “______” accompanied them. Bill had just given “blue” , a young mostly black lab with blue eyes to his dad as a present .The next day we drove north, gassed in Plentywood and continued north. We encountered the tail end of a forest fire north of Prince Albert and wondered how many more fires we would see before the trip was over. It is always a push to get from Sidney to our destination of BrabantLake in one day of driving so we never spend too much time along the way for such luxuries as eating and rest stops. BrabantLake is the last bit of civilization north of LaRonge. It is the last place to get gasoline, so you need to get there with enough time to gas up before they close for the night. Not making it there in time means that you will have to wait until they open at 8 AM the next day and that precludes an early start of that “going in” day. Of course, it would be nice to also get there in time to get a cabin and take a shower. With all this in mind, when we pulled into LaRonge at 7:30 PM with 2 ½ hours of gravel road yet ahead of us, I decided to gas up the trucks and move on up the road, not even looking for a restaurant. Besides, we had packed sandwiches and snacks for just such a circumstance. Frank has a different eating style however and prefers to eat in restaurants and often. He may not eat a lot at any one sitting but he eats frequently, really nonstop. Only his nervous, perpetual motion and an inefficient body keep him slim and trim. Finally, when Frank gets hungry he just plain get ornery and irascible. So when we got to BrabantLake, Frank was not a happy camper. Chris, the owner, told Frank “I am sure you won’t mind keeping the dogs outside the cabins, I don’t allow dogs inside”. I was relieved at this policy, not being a dog person. I was also a bit surprised because there were so many dogs in and about the camp. Mostly Indian dogs of every description, looking ever as much like someone opened all the doors at a dog pound.
Now Frank was really unhappy. The mosquitoes were out in force and “Blue” was so young and “citified”, he didn’t know how to protect himself and so this situation really frustrated Frank. The cabin had two bunk beds and an extra single bed, so it could accommodate 5 people. I had been driving most of the day and was dead tired. After filing the various gas cans, paying for the cabin, buying Cary a fishing license and showering, I crashed in a bunk and never woke until morning. Not so Frank! After lying awake in his bed for half an hour, unhappy thinking about “Blue” and the mosquitoes and listening to Chris hammer, grind and saw in his workshop nearby, Frank got up and paid Chris a visit. In what I can only imagine was a somewhat strained voice, Frank said to Chris “I am sure you won’t mine stopping all this late night racket so a paying customer can get some sleep!”
The next morning I made the mistake of cheerily asking Frank how he was doing. That’s when I got an earful of all the “fun” I had missed the night before. After a quick breakfast at the café, Frank was back to a full stomach and his normal, pleasant disposition and we all headed north to the WathamanRiver, full of anticipation. It is a slow drive on a gravel road with many undulations and curves that we share with and occasional “local” driving way too fast or the 34-wheel monster mining haul truck. Meeting either of these while driving up the crest of a steep hill, and having them appear suddenly in the middle of the road directly in front of you tends to keep you focused on the road ahead of you and your hands frozen to the steering wheel, which of course contributes greatly to your fatigue. A steady rain and the resulting sloppy road further hampered this trip.
Our four wheeler trail was very wet, making the slab rocks quite slippery. Luckily we were going mostly downhill over these rocks this trip. The mosquitoes love this kind of weather and the swarming pests saturated the portage. I found my boats as they were left a couple weeks earlier and also my green rope bag left on the over turned Indian boat. Everything and everybody got a little wet, but the rain was more of a drizzle so nothing really got soaked. Among other things, we had 90 gallons of new gasoline for the island and a new supply of perishable food. The boat trip took 3 hours and 40 minutes, slightly slower than normal, but we had some choppy water to cross. I was worried about the large open water beyond IceIsland, but after plowing through the usual swells at the entrance, we were able to cross that stretch with no problems. We quickly opened up the camp and had a supper of Dinty Moore Stew, corn, bread and milk left from my earlier trip. My permafrost cooler can keep fresh milk for about a month, but even I was surprised that this milk brought in by Dick Berreth a month earlier was still good. Don had cooked so Frank washed. We were in bed by 9:45PM.
Tuesday was rainy and very cold. One of those days after a long trip that you are just satisfied to do nothing as long as you stay warm and dry. Staying dry on a Canadian island is really what building the cabin was all about, at least it is the excuse I most often give for such a crazy endeavor. But on a really cold, wet day you appreciate staying dry and warm, especially if you have experience being cold and wet in a tent. Bill and I played cribbage, each winning a game, and thus setting up a championship game later. About 5 PM, we bundled up and went fishing at the rapids, after all that was why we were there. We brought fish home for the fish box only because Frank had brought steaks for one meal and we thought we needed to eat them at their freshest.
After supper, Frank started telling stories. No one knows more stories than Frank and no one can tell a story as well. I truly think Frank could tell 1,000 different stories by himself and if he was alternating with another good story teller, he could tell 2000 stories, because the other person’s stories would help him recall another 1000.
Frank told the story of a Russian peasant, walking to his factory one very cold morning. As he walked along the country road, he noticed a small bird lying along the path. The bird was very tiny and appeared to be frozen. The peasant went over to where the bird lay and knew how bad it felt to be cold. The bird surprised him by moving a wing. The peasant was so happy that the little fellow wasn’t dead, he picked up the bird and gently placed him in his warm pocket. By the time he had walked the several miles to town, the bird had warmed up and was quite revived. As the peasant approached the town, he started thinking of the problem he had created. He would have to risk sneaking the bird into the factory where no pets were allowed or he would have to put the little bird back into the cold morning air and who knows what would happen to the poor bird. Finally he decided he must release the bird for he could not risk his job. The decision was made easier by an idea he just got while noticing a fresh steaming cow pie newly deposited by a farmer’s milk cow. He gently took the bird out of his pocket and carefully put him into the middle of the warm “pie”. He mounded the ”pie” up around him, careful to keep the little bird’s head clear. Now the peasant said good bye to the little bird, feeling good that the bird would not only be kept warm but the bird would have a great feast on the corn sprinkled through the “pie”. And the little bird was indeed very happy and started to sing his happy song as the sun started to rise over the horizon. As the peasant walked on toward the edge of town he felt good and warm all over at the kind deed he had done that early morning, oh how wonderful it was to hear the little bird so happy. Unknown to the peasant, a wolf at the edge of the woods high up the hill had been watching the whole episode unfold. He too was cold and very hungry. As soon as the peasant disappeared over the knoll, the wolf ran out to the edge of the road drawn to the exact location of the little bird by it singing and devoured the defenseless bird in a single gulp. Now this story has several morals. 1. The person who puts you into shit, is not necessary your enemy. 2. The one who takes you out of shit is not necessarily you friend. 3. When you are in shit up to your ears, don’t sing, you could get eaten. We all laughed as we recalled how a boss we had had many years earlier used to tell that story as a prelude to announcing some unwelcome assignment.
Frank tried lighting a mosquito coil before going to bed. It burst into a ball of fire and lit up the cabin as though a bright flare was ignited. Bill, who was in the loft thought we had turned on some new high intensity light. The cabin filled with what smelled like a very unhealthy odor. I rushed to open the door and windows and a breeze quickly cleared the air. How that happened I would never know. I have since tried to get one of those coils to ignite that way but to no avail. Frank must have some secret way with fire , we concluded. My practice of always burning a coil only over a large metal surface to avoid a fire didn’t seem too careful after this incident. See the next photo for the rest of the story.
