Pickle Lk Fly-in Job
In July we did a fly-in job out of Pickle Lake, a small town about as north as you can drive with its motto "The Last Frontier". It took 5 1/2 hours of driving, mostly north, to reach NorthStar's base at the airport. With six of us: Katarina, Ruth, Veronique, myself, (sisters), and Ryan and Jeremy, the trainees, plus all of our gear and two canoes, we had quite a heavy load. Luckily the turbo otter can handle that.
The water level was really low this year, which meant we had to land a long way from our destination. We had planned on one boat with a motor and one canoe. At this point, we were wishing we had three canoes. We were rather overloaded with gear and people.
Four of us started staking, while Katarina and Veronique were to set up camp. At least that was the plan. They were going to try to paddle or portage into the next lake. The "river" ended up being a rocky creek. So they portaged everything around and brought the canoes up the river. There was no trail for a portage and we had not planned on a long hike. We had a huge cooler and lots of luxurious - in other words, heavy - food.
By the time we finished staking, Katarina and Veronique had just finished lugging all our gear over the "portage". So we had a late supper.
Right away we ran into problems. Jeremy was quite sick and shouldn't have worked at all. He still worked the first two days. The river we were supposed to use for access had many sections that were too rocky to canoe and had to be portaged. This was quite disconcerting for Ruth, Ryan, and Jeremy, when they just wanted to get started staking. Luckily, we had radios and we were able to change our plan partway through the day.
One thing that was great, was the bush. It was mostly black spruce swamp with some jack pine stands. This meant we could get a lot done in a day. We had planned on it taking us five days, but soon realized we could finish in four days.
Our third day of work, was a brutally long day for Ryan and I. I guess I bit off more than I could chew, because we finished the day around 5:00p.m. and still had to walk out 3 kilometres. We arrived at the river in the middle of a torrent of rain. I sent Ryan to get the canoe while I did the last post.
Partway up the river he was trying to yell something to me. Of course, I couldn't hear through the downpour of rain. Every five minutes I would hear more questions yelled in desperation. Finally, he sounded like he was in trouble and I set off towards him, wading through a mucky mass of weeds and mud up to my chest. It was at this point he rounded the bend in the river, intact in the canoe. He said he was fine, it was just his voice was gone from the long day of work.
It was now 6:30p.m. and we still had a long ways to paddle and portage. I was so exhausted that things started to hit me funny and despite the circumstances, we were both laughing and making the best of it.
We arrived back at camp at 8:30p.m. utterly exhausted. Katarina chided me for working so long, telling me I should know better. She was right of course, I paid for that long day, as the next day I was in no shape to work hard.
Partway up the river he was trying to yell something to me. Of course, I couldn't hear through the downpour of rain. Every five minutes I would hear more questions yelled in desperation. Finally, he sounded like he was in trouble and I set off towards him, wading through a mucky mass of weeds and mud up to my chest. It was at this point he rounded the bend in the river, intact in the canoe. He said he was fine, it was just his voice was gone from the long day of work.
It was now 6:30p.m. and we still had a long ways to paddle and portage. I was so exhausted that things started to hit me funny and despite the circumstances, we were both laughing and making the best of it.
We arrived back at camp at 8:30p.m. utterly exhausted. Katarina chided me for working so long, telling me I should know better. She was right of course, I paid for that long day, as the next day I was in no shape to work hard.
Our last day, Katarina and Jeremy started to pack up camp while Ryan and I finished off the last few lengths close to camp.
Meanwhile, Ruth and Veronique had the longest day imaginable. They had to walk seven kilometres up a powerline, just to start work. When they got there, the tie-on lines were hard to find and not as shown on the map. Veronique's GPS quit working, so they had to do everything together.
In order to go completely around the claim, they had to swim a 200 metre section of the lake. They built a makeshift raft to put their cruiser vests and axes on. Even so, by the time they reached the other shore, the raft fell apart, Veronique lost one of her boots, and both girls were exhausted, coughing and swallowing some water.
Meanwhile, Ruth and Veronique had the longest day imaginable. They had to walk seven kilometres up a powerline, just to start work. When they got there, the tie-on lines were hard to find and not as shown on the map. Veronique's GPS quit working, so they had to do everything together.
In order to go completely around the claim, they had to swim a 200 metre section of the lake. They built a makeshift raft to put their cruiser vests and axes on. Even so, by the time they reached the other shore, the raft fell apart, Veronique lost one of her boots, and both girls were exhausted, coughing and swallowing some water.
Katarina, Jeremy, Ryan, and I packed up camp and portaged everything into our pick-up lake. Even with a lighter load the portage was still a pain. Paddling down the lake seemed to take forever in the boat. It took twice the effort to keep up with the canoe. Before we reached our pick-up spot, the plane flew over us, dipping his wings to say hello. He checked for Ruth and Veronique, but they weren't done yet. When the plane landed, we realized it was Bernie, the owner of Northstar Air. He greeted us with a big smile and soon we had the plane loaded, minus the canoes. We left the canoes as we had too much weight to pick up Ruth and Veronique.
Bernie looked at Ruth and Veronique's pick-up lake with some skepticism. The lake wasn't very long and was mostly a big weedbed. However, there was one channel of darker water and after doing several circles, Bernie landed. It was fun watching him back the plane in to the rock the girls were waiting on. Taking off, it was a little close clearing the trees on the lake edge and it was obvious Bernie was a skilled pilot.
Back at the base, it didn't take long to transfer all the gear from the plane to the pick-up truck box. Bernie must have sensed our exhausted state, because he offered that we could all stay at his place that night and have a hot tub. Katarina and I looked at each other and didn't even think of protesting. "Sure, that would be so nice," we both said with big smiles. Bernie didn't hesitate and called his wife, Lynn, to warn her she would be having six guests.
Katarina and I had a swim in Pickle Lake and were surprised at how nice the sandy bottom was. It was such a beautiful evening with the sun on the waves. After a relaxing hot tub, we were given a large glass of red wine. Lynn made a huge, delicious dinner. There was two types of fish, pork chops, three types of vegetables, and salads.
Thank you both so much for your hospitality.
Thank you both so much for your hospitality.
The group before leaving in the morning, with Pickle Lake in the background.
The End.
The End.
