Reel Excitement in the Yukon Territory

Float Plane, Cook House, Four Cabins and the Equipment Shed

At auction was a B.C. Canada fly-in fishing trip for four people.  The room was full of sheep hunters who had no interest in the deep.  As the opening bid fell lower and lower, my casting arm crept up higher and higher until it was finally seen by the auctioneer who, with a wink, slammed down his gavel with a resounding, “Sold! to the only bidder.”  ME

After wrangling my mom

to come with me, I set about finding my next victim.

I mentioned the trip to my fellow Airstream adventurer, Steve, who wrangled his long time fishing and hunting buddy, Ken, to join him.   (A big thank you to Ken’s wife!)  We all flew from the midwest to Vancouver B.C., up to Whitehorse in the Yukon, and then drove seven hours to meet a chopper headed to our final destination, Dease Lake.  My mom and I shared one cabin and the guys shared another.  We nicknamed ourselves “The Core Four” and our daily mission was to bag The Trifecta–at least one of three varieties of game fish:  a rainbow trout, a dolly varden, and a grayling each time we went out.

I’m afraid of grizzly bears…

and there was no shortage of those brown devils in the vast wilderness that was our fishing camp.  Sleeping with a heavy shovel next to my bedroll was a comfort.  In July the sun barely sets north of Alaska, giving us 21 hours of daylight to fill.  By 1 a.m.  we were hanging shirts and bags over the windows so even our one room cabins got some shut-eye.

One day a  joker sneaked up on us and dared to slap his big, flat tail on the water, next to the bow of the boat, which made changing my Depends a necessity.  I’m still mad at him.  The pelted plague.  A bucktoothed rascal.  An Angry Beaver.  We weren’t even throwing our lures at his lodge this time.   Collectively, we spotted a moose swimming, a lone wolf, lots of loons surfacing and calling, otters at play, ducks we can’t identify, a ruffed grouse, and a caribou skull and moose antler– the only remains of both killed by wolves.  One lucky snowshoe hare, with his brown summer jacket on, scampered past the front door of the cook house before Daniel, our First Nation guide, could skin him and put him in a pot.

Drinking water was hauled up in buckets from the lake and poured directly into pitchers and cups.  It was crystal clear and so good and cold!  Our only modern appliance was a propane range. The five second rule morphed into the five minute rule in camp.  Grub was as rough as the terrain but after a hard day of cranking and reeling, it was all good.  We played 9 rounds of “golf” and lots of cribbage when we weren’t in a boat.  Golf is  a card game that doesn’t require a nine iron or a club throw.  Without electricity, grooming was done “old school” using a table basin, a tea kettle (if we wanted hot water) and the same towel for a week.  Did I mention the outhouse?  Let’s not.

After aggravating fish for five days on Dease Lake, we stayed on a few extra nights in Whitehorse, a surprisingly upscale, wanna-be town where I scored an ivory necklace made from fossilized wooly mammoth tusks–a must have for any girl.  We were all set to venture out on a 150km cruise on the scenic Alaska Hwy to Skagway.  Along the way we saw a bear, several moose, and stumbled upon a wildlife preserve.  The best part about Skagway was getting there; the town itself is a tourist trap for cruise ships.  To be fair, there were some amazing bronze sculptures, carved caribou antlers, and Inuit artwork but one had to strike gold in order to make a purchase.  I was hoping for an authentic and historic Klondike gold mining town and seaport but discovered a micro-mini Wisconsin Dells filled with the same trash and trinkets in each store window.  On the upside, it rained a lot.

Back in Whitehorse, we found a coffee spot called “Baked” that not only serves 172 different kinds of java, juice, and jams but they excel in baking raspberry chocolate scones–voted Best in Show by the Core Four.   One morning we sipped and sat, imagining what our catch and release fish were telling their buddies.  Wide eyed, one might exclaim, “You guys aren’t going to believe this, but I was abducted by aliens!  They had a silver metal ship and I was lifted up through the water into the sky…it was so bright…I couldn’t breathe.  They were giants who probed and prodded in my mouth while sounds came out of theirs.   OMG are they ugly!”

Photo credit for some of the pics goes to Steve.  Thanks for sharing!

This Reader’s Digest

It wasn’t until my oldest son had graduated from college that I began to read books.  Prior to that time, I majored in ladies magazines and kept up my annual subscription to the Reader’s Digest.   In truth, most of my reading was done in spurts and accomplished upon a porcelain throne.

When I would visit my English major in collegel, I saw his bookshelves doubled over, spilling with the classics, poetry, biographies, ancient history, some dog-eared textbooks, New York Times best sellers, philosophy, and books about humanity.   Standing there and flipping through them was like shopping in someone’s closet.

One Christmas he gave me a small package tied with a ribbon.  It was a book:  “The Life of Pi”.  At bedtime that winter I read a few chapters and drifted off to sleep, waking in the morning having survived the night on a life raft with a Bengal Tiger and wondering how had I survived forty years without books?  It was then that I made a commitment to myself to get an education.

My time is valuable and I’m halfway “home” so no Nora Roberts romance trash for me, but rather selections and authors that have stood the test of time:  Steinbeck, Capote, Hemingway, Melville, Faulkner, Clemens, McMurtry, Dickens, Roth, Cooper, and my favorite (insert drum roll) Cormac McCarthy.   His book,  “Blood Meridian” took me a month to read and is honestly at the top of my comprehension ability.   When the movie “Seabiscuit” came out in theaters, it was the first time in my life I could critique a movie vs. the book.    One day I asked, “John, what is the best book I could possibly read?”   Without hesitation my son replied, “The Grapes of Wrath” because it is perhaps the finest example of American literature there is.”   My Johnny was right.   I couldn’t put it down and cried like a baby at the end.

My favorite book of the past decade has been, “Peace Like a River” by Leif Enger and it gets its own paragraph here.

One of my biggest disappointments has been how Reader’s Digest has changed over the years.  When they changed the front cover from table of contents to pictures with titles, I dropped my subscription.   I do, however, have a sampling of RD magazines on my bookshelves from the 1920′s through 1980′s where the future was predicted with amazing accuracy.  One article described how your banker had to call the hospital and vouch that you had funds to pay for the blood used in a life saving transfusion for your child.  No money, no blood – 1928.

This reader’s plate is full of books to digest where I can fall asleep under a sheepskin blanket in a covered wagon in 1835 or drop down a rabbit hole and meet the queen of hearts.  There are sword fights ahead of me, seas to sail, ninjas, and (of course) a Chuck Norris biography.   Time travel is possible between the hard covers of books, where pterodactyls fly, babies grow up on Mars, and the Titanic floats.  With the time I have left, I’ll be riding camels in the dessert, panning for Gold in the Yukon, and embracing biographies.

The Perfect Crime?

One summer several seasons ago, my husband and I were engaged in a “discussion” where He was talking and I wasn’t listening.  Capital intended.  Somewhere in the exchange He made a remark which catapulted me into a two year crimespree.  I blame Him.

It all began with a silly, simple thing like me wanting to go fishing.  It is what I love to do.  To do it properly one needs a boat, some gear, a dog who is your co-pilot, and an overcast June afternoon with a cold pop in a cup holder and some bug spray on board.  I had everything but the boat.    That’s when the discussing turned into cussing and a non-typical threat; a gauntlet thrown down by Him:

He said, “You may NEVER have a boat because we don’t have room for it.”

Really? Do we not live on a farm?

I’ve excelled at getting what I want throughout our 30 year marriage…capitalizing on the tricks we wives perfect over the years.  Most of the time John finds it amusing and challenging, so it all works out in the end.   This was a man who has always given me everything in this life I’ve ever really wanted and I guess he just underestimated how badly I wanted to fish and how far I would go to land one.  To me, His words were like nails on a chalkboard or a wedgie on my dreams.  In desperation and on vacation, I turned to a life of crime.  I couldn’t stop myself.  I am a weakling.

In hindsight, the guilt almost outweighed my visions of reeling

in a splashing four pound smallie.  (almost)

A land-lover, He was back home making the bacon and I was in da U.P. camping on the shores of the Michigamme Reservoir with my parents, my brother and his grown children.  We had all been sharing my dad’s Bass Tracker and admittedly, it was crowded.  Being the fun girl that I think I am, I buzzed into town just to see if anyone was giving any old boats away on the side of the road.

I could justify something on the cheap side –but I knew I could never bring it home.

Just then I spotted an older aluminum boat with an Evinrude 115  resting on top of a  trailer whose durability was suspect.  The whole thing jumped off the side of the road and screamed, “Pick me!”   After kicking some tires and talking turkey, she was all mine.  I tried to stop myself; I really did.  Then I named her Mabel.  Trusty ‘Ol Mabel.  I stopped in town and found some letters at the hardware store, so her name could be properly displayed.  She and I had a rip roaring time for two summers in a row out on that lake.  We filled her live well and I dove off the bow into the cool water a couple of times.  When winter came, I stashed her at a storage facility.  A little thrill ran up my leg as the time went by and He was none the wiser.

Everyone in my family was sworn to secrecy.  No pictures of Mabel.  No mention of her blue gunwales or how she was strong enough to pull skiiers.  They said they couldn’t lie, but wouldn’t inform (knowing this is how I operate).  My husband, John, was on a need to know basis and he didn’t need to know.

We were in Chicago at my parent’s house during the spring that my father died.  The house felt empty and the backyard didn’t look right.  That’s when John looked in the yard and asked my brother, “Where is Gramp’s boat?”  Without thinking, my brother replied, “It is up north in storage with Kelly’s.”

John’s eyes literally bugged out of his head as he grew

a big Grinch smile–he had me. 

I was a goner.

Oh, I’ve paid for my crime since then and the story of Trusty ‘Ol Mabel is told and retold so much that I’ve become a legend in my own mind.  This story had a happy ending (hehehe) because John was a good sport; the surprises in life keep marriage aglow and if I wasn’t naughty, he wouldn’t stay interested.  All has been forgiven and eventually Mabel was less trusty than crusty and she went on the auction block.   Guilt.  Yepper… this was over the top but I would do it again.

Mission Improbable

The doorbell rang and the delivery fairy dropped off a heavy, flat box that was supposed to be a nightstand.  No where on the order form did it say “assembly required.”   Allrighty then.

In an unprecedented move, I decided to sit down and read the whole “destruction” manual before beginning any hands on assembly.

All these flat pieces of wood are supposed to end up as a three dimensional, fully functional nightstand with two drawers and a shelf.  Final determination:  This project may require alcohol.

The booklet indicated that assembly should take 30 minutes, tops.   Then I saw it.

The parts bag.

Just kill me now.

I had a meat tenderizer for a hammer and no power tools.  After two hours of dinking around,  I discovered that I was better at banging than screwing.  After a lot of ups and downs, it eventually came together.   All I needed was a cigarette.

(Wait, I don’t smoke.) 

Somewhere in China there is a guy who is laughing at me.

Now…if I could just get this stupid lamp put together!

Roosevelt’s Cowboys

“Sinewy, hardy, self-reliant, the cowboy’s life forces men to be both daring and adventurous, and the passing over their heads of a few years leaves printed on their faces certain lines which tell of dangers quietly fronted and hardships uncomplainingly endured.

They are far from being as lawless as they are described; though they sometimes cut strange antics when, after many months of lonely life, they come into a frontier town in which drinking and gambling are the only recognized forms of amusement, and where pleasure and vice are considered synonymous terms. On the round-ups, or when a number get together, there is much boisterous, often foul-mouthed mirth; but they are rather silent, self-contained men when with strangers, and are frank and hospitable to a degree.

The Texans are perhaps the best at the actual cowboy work. They are absolutely fearless riders and understand well the habits of the half wild cattle, being unequaled in those most trying times when, for instance, the cattle are stampeded by a thunderstorm at night, while in the use of the rope they are only excelled by the Mexicans. On the other hand, they are prone to drink, and when drunk, to shoot.”

–1885, Theodore Roosevelt’s “Hunting Trips of a Ranchman”

 I could listen to this song 100 times straight and never tire of the lyrics. 

Fine Wine

Uncle Sam –as in Sam Wal-Mart– is teaming up in 2013 with Ernest & Julio Gallo Winery of California to produce full bodied wines at a $2-$5 price point.   Wine connoisseurs may not be inclined to put a bottle of the Wal-Mart brand reds or whites into their shopping carts but, “There is a market for inexpensive wine,” said Kathy Micken, professor of Marketing at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan.  Branding will be very important so Walmart asked its customers to go online and vote for the most attractive name.

The top picks in order of popularity were:

10.  Chateau Traileur Parc

9.   White Trashfindel

8.   Big Red Gulp

7.   World Championship Riesling

6.   NASCARbernet

5.   Chef Boyardeaux

4.   Peanut Noir

3.   I Can’t Believe it’s not Vinegar

2.   Grape Expectations

1.   Nasti Spumante

The beauty of Wal-Mart wine is that it can be served with either white meat (opossum) or red meat (squirrel).