The Pocket Fisherman

In the 1970s, when the summers came, we fished. It was a short drive from Leaf Rapids to the Swanee River campground, where we parked the camper (or the tent trailer, in the early years) and set off in the canoe or the motorboat to cast our lines into the rivers or lakes. 

Mom and Dad did most of the casting. I usually read a book, though from time to time they coaxed me into working with rod and reel. Out of all those summers (was it really only seven or eight of them before we came to Alberta?), I caught perhaps three fish, all of them jackfish, all thrown back into the water because they were too hard to clean. I never caught a pickerel or a perch, the tastiest fish, but luckily Mom and Dad made up the deficit. 

We had at least one Pocket Fisherman, and I remember being fascinated by its design. To my surprise, you can still buy a Pocket Fisherman today. I find that comforting. 

Sylvia's Made-to-Order Camping

Tonight Sylvia described a pretty brilliant idea: made-to-order camping for people like us who love the idea of camping, but hate the work that's associated with the activity.

Sylvia describes a system something like AirBnB, but for campgrounds. You'd sort through a list of campgrounds, choose where you want to go, then find your ideal, ready-made campsite. You could choose from a variety of trailers or tents, which would all be stocked with meals, bedding, equipment to start fires in the already-filled-with-chopped-wood fire pits, binoculars, fishing gear, everything you need for marshmallow and weiner roasts, etc. At the end of your stay, you just leave; the proprietors pack up your mess.

"Some people might argue that setting up and taking down the tent, washing the dishes, rolling up the sleeping bags and all that other stuff is part of the fun," I said.

"That is not the fun part!" she replied.

I can't argue. I always thought the best part of camping was looking up at the unspoiled stars and enjoying the crackle of the campfire. I can do without all the setup and takedown.

On the other hand, I feel a bit guilty even sharing Sylvia's brilliant idea--if implemented, it would surely leave swaths of people even less self-reliant than we should be. On the gripping hand, there are certainly some people--again, myself included--who probably aren't observant or diligent enough to camp safely. So this might very well be a boon to folks who should get outdoors more, but lack the confidence or skills to do so! 

Camping in Leaf Rapids

Here's a photo of Dad (at left) with his cousin Hugh, standing in front of our tent trailer. Do they still make those anymore? It looks like Dad and Hugh are preparing to grill some hamburgers over charcoal; I'm sure they were delicious, but my favourite campground meal remains fresh-caught pickerel. In fact, that fish may be my favourite meal, period. To my palate, nothing has ever beat it for its juicy, savory, flavour.

To my shame, I never contributed much to those meals; I was a terrible fisherman, too squeamish to clean the fish, and I'm a dreadful cook. But I was sure good at eating the fillets. 

Mystery Marshmallow Roast

That might be me in the foreground; on the other hand, it might be my cousin Keith Langergraber. Is that Darwin Jones, another cousin, roasting the marshmallow? Only my parents can say for sure.

Wait. I think that's our Ford station wagon in the background, at left. We didn't have that until at least 1979, which would make me a little too old to be either of the boys in this picture. Is one of them Sean? Is that Sean with the marshmallow? Can I not even recognize my own brother? 

Yorkton Follies

Here's another photo of our early 1970s trip to Good Spirit Lake near Yorkton, Saskatchewan. It's funny how I didn't mind getting dirty as a child, but I'm sure fussy about it now. 

The Dirt on Good Spirit Lake

Here I am sometime in the early 1970s playing in the dirt at Good Spirit Lake near Yorkton, Saskatchewan. 

The Forest Gate

There's nothing particularly interesting about this photo except the slender branch-less tree that bisects the frame. Well, that and I appear to be holding a wand of some kind. I selected the area to the right of the branch and added a few filters to make it look as though that side of the picture represented a portal or gateway to another dimension. Some experiments, needless to say, are more successful than others.

Chilling in Tubes

Here's the next in a series of oddly-posed campground photos. This one's a little more normal than the others, but note the can of Garbage Can-dy on the picnic table. I'm actually starting to wonder if these photos were taken in Leaf Rapids, though - it's possible that this is Alberta, shortly after our move to Black Gold Country.

Tent Trailer Time Capsule

When we lived in northern Manitoba camping served as our main leisure activity. But before we enjoyed the relative luxury of the camper that used to perch atop our old yellow Ford crew cab, we explored the wilderness with our tent trailer. I don't remember much about the tent trailer except for a few hazy images of the interior and the way it seemed to take forever to open up when Mom or Dad turned the unfolding crank.

This photo really captures the 1970s: Dad's wearing plaid pants, there are Rothman's cigarettes tucked in his shirt pocket (it seems like practically everyone smoked back then), and the milk carton is rainbow-coloured. I'm also amused by the way I'm standing at attention in the background, waiting for Dad's photo op to end, unaware that I, too, am being captured in the frame.

The Bushmasters

On the Victoria Day long weekend of 1974, the Woods of Leaf Rapids (Mom, Dad, me and Dad's cousin Hugh, his wife Diane and their children William and Carol Ann) decided to drive down the ramshackle trail that led to the Suwannee River for a weekend of camping. It was our first trip to what eventually became the Suwannee River campground, and it was a memorable one.

In these days there wasn't actually a formal campground yet, nor a proper road, just a trail carved through the trees. As we approached the river, we ran into a formidable obstacle: the trail had been washed out. There was no way our cars could get through.

Fortunately, living in the north had honed everyone's survival skills (or at least our "I still want to go camping" skills). Everyone climbed out of our cars and we ventured into the forest for deadfall, collecting tree trunks and logs and then lining them up across the washed out section of trail to create our own makeshift bridge. Being only five years old I wasn't much help, but I vividly remember stomping around in the mud and tossing a few sticks onto the growing pile.

I don't remember how long it took us to build our bridge, but as a child it seemed like a very long time indeed. But eventually Dad and Hugh declared the deed done and we re-entered our cars. Would the bridge hold, or would the old, dead wood split and splinter, sending our cars sinking into the quagmire? I stood up on the seat and pressed my hands to the window, eyes wide, watching as Hugh and Diane's Datsun bumped and bounced along the bridge, flattening the logs into the hungry mud. But at last they made it to the other side, and it was our turn to cross the sticky chasm.

Our vehicle was larger and heavier than the Datsun, and I watched wide eyed, bones rattling as our wheels jounced and wobbled on the span. It felt as though we were sinking, but I wasn't afraid; this was a great adventure. Perhaps the bridge would collapse and we'd slowly sink into the earth, saved only by the intervention of our cousins, hauling us out through the Plymouth's windows at the last possible second!

It didn't happen that way. In a matter of seconds we, too, had safely crossed, and minutes later we were at the campsite - really just a few clearings for vehicles and a rather disgusting outhouse.

After all that work, of course, it began to snow. The tent trailer had no heater and we spent three chilly days shivering in our sleeping blankets. (Late May, of course, is far too early to start camping in northern Manitoba if you expect a snow-free experience.)

But though we had to BBQ with our mittens on, it was still a pretty good weekend. In later years the people of Leaf Rapids would build a real campground, with proper washrooms, picnic tables and fire pits, only to abandon these facilities in the late 90s as the town slowly withered. Nature has long since reclaimed the site, so visitors attempting to visit the original Suwanee campground today (there is today another, much smaller campground at another spot on the river) might very well have to do what we did back then - engineer your own means of making your way down to the river.

But you might find the destination well worth the journey.

Signposts of an Earlier Era

Back when we lived in northern Manitoba, our crew cab, camper and motorboat allowed us to take full advantage of the few recreational opportunities available on the edge of nowhere: fishing and camping. I'm fascinated by the little details in this photo that hint at the era: the stubby beer bottles, the huge Ford truck, the brown and beige colours of the truck and camper, my "XXI Olympic" shirt, the package of Rothman's cigarettes. I wish the photo were sharp enough to reveal what I'm holding up in front of my face. And if I'm not mistaken there's a toy machine gun on the picnic table in the background.

Return to the Edge of Nowhere, Part VII

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
Why did I feel such an urge to travel thousands of kilometres just to see a virtual ghost town one last time? Because the journey before left me unfulfilled. Though I'd shown Sylvia a place that had dominated my childhood and thus shaped my personality, I'd failed to find the path down into the sinkhole, an ugly name for a magical place, that thickly forested, moss-covered valley that my vivid imagination transformed into an exotic pathway to other worlds.

In the time between my journey to Leaf Rapids with Sylvia and this journey with Sean, more memories had snapped into place, giving me a map to the sinkhole and to my past. This time, I knew I'd find it.

If we survived the bugs...


Well, survive we did. Once we set up the tent we braved the insects long enough to shoot a few photos:

The Suwanee River, just a few kilometres south of Leaf Rapids.

The bug bunker.

Fish butchery.

 There was a brief gap in the swarms that allowed us to perform a couple of rocket launches:

After this childish amusement, we were driven into the tent. Sean's air mattress deflated again, and the next morning we drove to Turnbull Lake, just on the outskirts of Leaf Rapids:

Sean has his revenge against his traitorous air mattress.

 Minutes later, Sean and I would return to the edge of nowhere.