Canadian Fishing Trip

We just returned from a trip to Lake Saganaga at the end of the Gunflint Trail. The trip was excellent. We stayed at a "resort" on a Canadian island about twenty minutes by boat from the public landing. The forest fires had mostly settled down by the time of our arrival. The accommodations were quite rustic- no electricity, except a few hours here and there from a generator. We had gas lights and a gas refrigerator, but no indoor toilets. I quickly learned it was better to water the trees or use the dock in the middle of the night rather than use the "outhouse." I had no complaints about the fishing- lake trout, walleye, and northern.

The lake was pristine. The water is drinkable far from shore, away from the duck and goose "droppings." The shoreline is completely undeveloped, except for the few cabins on the Canadian side. In rethinking it, I think all the cabins were actually on islands. The islands also appeared to be immune from forest fires.

I was amazed at how few people we encountered. It was certainly not like being at a "summer home" in the lakes region of Minnesota. We joined a couple of friends who are police from St. Paul. They have been vacationing at the lake many times. They introduced us to some of the locals summering there. Very few people live there all year, although I believe the folks who ran the "resort" lived there. The woman actually grew up there, and apparently took a boat or snowmobile to the landing, then had an hour and a half bus ride to school as a child. One couple we met worked at the research station on antarctica four months during our winter- the arctic summer. They had support jobs, since the researchers are usually only there a few days to a few weeks. They actually owned their own island in the lake, complete with a well-furnished cabin with a few guest cabins.

I don't know if there are some latent misanthropic tendencies in my psyche, but it was nice to be unreachable for a few days. I didn't mind skipping the showers, or having no cell phone- or any phones for that matter, no TV, no email, no internet, no cable, no radio, no vehicles except boats. People leave very small footprints in that environment. It was surprising how the place is maybe only five and a half hours outside the Twin Cities. It seemed quite close to be that "remote." We will definitely return.