Honor thy friend

An Outdoorsman’s Journal

Hello friends, Before I get into this week’s column, I have a request. My neighbors say they will back me up and feed calves for me when I travel each week. I am looking for 3, 150-to-250-pound calves either beef or beef/dairy cross, thank you!

So as many of you may know I started writing while working and living in the Canadian bush at Chimo Lodge and Outposts. I started this column in 1989 and my good friends Pete and Elizabeth Hagedorn, the owners of Chimo get a visit from me each April for Pete’s birthday.

Saturday, April 1 High 33, Low 21

The Chevy Hotel would add another 1,400 miles to her speedometer, there was 40 inches of ice in northwest Ontario, and I love coming up here in April. Life is much different than we know it in Wisconsin, but kind of the same. You can add 60 days to winter and subtract 20 degrees from the daily high and low compared to Stevens Point. I have many friends here that I met in the ‘80s and ‘90s and the main pastimes are skidooing, which in Wisconsin is snowmobiling, hockey, which even men my age play (early 60s), curling and, of course, ice fishing.

I would spend three full days at Pete’s and Elizabeth’s and ice fish each day. One of my very good friends is Doug Vandusen, who is also 61 and has raised four very happy and successful boys who live near their dad. They are now young men and are avid moose hunters at their fly-in moose camp and also have a deer camp near Dryden. These kids are tough with both common sense and get-out-there-and-do-it attitudes.

Today, Pete, Doug and I would go for a 30-minute ride for a day of fishing. The ride covered several miles of Canadian bush in Doug’s Yamaha 800 UTV on tracks. Doug is a true bushman and has learned through years of experience that UTVs on wheels do not go far in slush or snow, so this year he made the financial plunge and purchased tracks.

Our goal was to have a good time with the king of this group, which was actually three days of fun and adventure. The lake we fished was loaded with small northern pike. We caught and released at least 65 that were less than 3 pounds. We were after walleyes and our plan was to have a fish fry that evening. Elizabeth Hagedorn is 91, the boss of this operation, and wanted fish for supper.

Let me tell ya friends, this was day two and catching walleyes was not coming easy. For some reason this winter, across the entire northland, I have heard of a slow bite when it comes to ice fishing success and that is the same story I was hearing north of the border.

Naturally we had an electric chainsaw. I want one. Doug, who makes his own moose and venison brats, cooked lunch and I do not think I have ever eaten a better brat. We were supposed to be home around 6 p.m. for the fish fry and figured we would leave at 4:30 because we had many miles to travel. Yours truly would have three very pretty walleyes to fillet in the 19-inch range who surrendered their lives to Queen Elizabeth. Human error kind of played into the day as Doug’s watch had quit and for a very long time we thought it was 3:55. At 5:55 we realized our problem and got the heck out of Dodge as quick as we could. A great fish fry was had by the king, queen and the young, charming and very handsome prince.

Short history! When I worked for Pete in the bush, I did not want to go to town and I was alone a lot of the time. I was camp manager but also was flown to outposts by bush plane and I built docks, decks and cut wood. Pete and I were an incredible team and there was a period of time that I was his only employee. We worked each day until it was dark and that is late in the Canadian bush. I would cook supper and each of us would have two bottles of Labatt’s.

I learned to call moose from Pete simply because we were in the bush. In the early evening when the wind let go, we would sit on the shoreline and say the word orrrrrrr in a very long drawn out way. What a thrill it was to see a bull or a cow appear on a shoreline looking for a friend.

I started by saying I began writing from the Canadian bush. This column was called North of the Border, I was 27 and in another month it will be 34 years old.

Happy 85th Pete! Sunset