Fly-in Fishing and Enjoying God's Creation

 

 I recently had the opportunity to join a couple of men from my church on a fly-in fishing trip. I am not someone who has ever been able to spare the finances to take such a trip, and while I enjoy fishing, it is not a passion or even a hobby for me. So in my mind, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity for me, especially since virtually all of the costs were already covered. I just had to supply my portion of the food that we would eat and my own fishing license. The one catch was that this was a work week; that is, the men that invited me to go are related to the owner of the outpost cabin and they go up and do some work on the cabin and the site once or twice a year in exchange for free use of and flights to the cabin. The planned project for this year was to build a shed.

As things turned out, we did not build a shed. I think the materials did not come together in time, so instead, we did some repairs and maintenance on boat motors, a propane fridge and some general clean-up and repairs around the site.

I had some experiences that I have never had before and I learned some things about boats, boat motors and fishing. I also got a reprieve from my regular routine for ten days since we were there for eight days plus one day of travel each to the float plane dock and back. All in all, I had a really good time and I got to know these men from my church better.

What really struck me was the isolation. This lake has the fishing outpost cabin on it and one trapper's cabin. 

That's it.

There are no ranger stations, no public docks, no grocery stores, no safety measures and no warning signs. The lake covers about 470 acres, so it isn't exactly small, but the only way to get there is by plane or boat, and to get there by boat requires multiple portages. For those of you who don't know what a portage is, it is the necessity to exit a boat and haul everything, including the boat, across land due to the waterway becoming un-passable by boat due to obstacles like shallow water, rocks and rapids or a waterfall, among other reasons. For this reason, unless the trapper happens to be around, there is nobody around you on the entire lake except for those that you travelled with. When that float plane takes off, leaving you behind on the dock, you are very alone. There is absolutely no internet and no cell phone service. The only link to the outside world is a satellite phone that costs $5 per minute to use.

That type of isolation that leaves you alone to deal with whatever nature has to throw at you is something that I have never experienced to that extent before. I have been camping many times and I have done some fishing at out of the way, backwoods fishing holes too, but everything was accessible by road to some degree and anybody could show up at any time. That was not the case here. Unless that plane showed up, you knew that there was nobody else there.

These men have been to this cabin 25 times in the last twenty years. They have some stories about the wildlife that they have encountered and the weather that they have experienced up there. We had a couple of days of strong wind while we were there. The lake was too rough to go out on with the little 14' aluminum boats, so we stayed on shore, but the looks on the faces of those men when the wind would whip up and shake and sway the trees was one of legitimate concern because of the things that they have seen in the past. And if a lightning storm would move in, they could not enjoy that either due to a lightning strike to a tree about 15' from the cabin while they were sitting in the cabin, which split the tree, sent wooden shrapnel in all directions and had the men in the cabin running around and checking if one of the propane tanks had exploded before they found the tree that got turned into toothpicks. I'm not sure that going there is necessarily restful for these men anymore, but I found it restful. In general, weather does not frighten me.

That being said, it is somewhat awe inspiring to see a lake go from almost mirror smooth to rough enough to send us racing for shore in just an hour. We went out one morning to see what fish we could find and the water was almost completely calm with barely a breath of wind. We crossed the lake to try a certain area and worked our way into a river. While we were in the shelter of the river, the wind was picking up on the lake, and by the time that we returned to the lake, we had no choice but to aim for the cabin. Later, the wind kept growing stronger and the waves pushed one of the boats off the crib that it was landed in and swamped all three boats. These men have never seen that before.

To see the power of God in nature on such a small and shallow body of water; to see the forces at work on the shore when the water is stirred by just a wind on the surface of the water is a reminder of just how small we really are on this world and in this universe. Yet God is above it all and He has all of it in His hand. He is in control of everything, so that while these men had fears of nature based on their past experiences, I never felt fear of the weather. Rather, I was repeatedly drawn to the water's edge to watch the raw power of nature and to simultaneously enjoy the beauty of nature as well.

I have not taken so many pictures and videos in such a short time frame in my life. The beauty and serenity of that place is so unlike anything that I have experienced before, and the isolation feeds it. I went for a few walks while I was up there, and it occurred to me that it was entirely possible that no other person had walked where I was walking for a year, a few years, maybe even a decade or more. I suspect that it might be hubris to think that no man has ever walked where I was walking, but given the expanse of this country and the isolation up there, I suppose that there may be a very slight possibility that that was the case, but I would not wager on it.

While I was up there, it occurred to me that while many people travel to the cabin with the express intention of fishing, there is no guarantee that they will stop and enjoy the nature that they are surrounded by or that they will give God the credit for the beauty that surrounds them while they are there. This is something that saddens me. I love God so much that I couldn't help but praise Him for the beauty of His creation, yet so many people never give it or Him a first thought, never mind a second one.

I lost count of the number of times that I thanked God for the opportunity to go on that trip. I guess the men that I went with were impressed with what I accomplished while we were there, because they have apparently discussed between them the possibility of bringing me with them again. I am glad that I was able to impress them, but I am not counting on the opportunity to go there again. In my mind, that was still a once in a lifetime opportunity for me.