An Outdoorsman’s Journal: The Peter Hagedorn story

Hello friends, I met Peter Hagedorn in 1982 while on vacation with my dad and brothers to one of his fly-in locations, Schultz Lake, in northwest Ontario, Canada. In 1988, I became his camp manager at Chimo Lodge and the following year I began writing this column while camp manager.

Last week, I spent five days at Pete and Elisabeth Hagedorn’s home in Red Lake for his 87th birthday and made the decision it was time to do a column on this incredible man’s history.

Pete was born in Berlin, Germany, on April 2, 1938, the same year that World War II started. Peter is quiet about those years but when he speaks of it, he includes memories of nightly bombings in Berlin, his home being blown up while his family was in the basement, and his father being taken prisoner and being released by the British in 1948.

Like most youth in Germany in that era, Peter became an apprentice at the age of 15 and his trade would be to become a printer.

At the age of 19, adventure won over for Peter and he took a ship to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and thus his life in Canada would begin. Canada needed laborers and Peter had three options: farm work, logger with a Swede saw and horses, or a miner — in this case a gold miner. Pete chose mining and soon found out it was very hard work, good money, and he loved it. He worked at the Pickeral Crow Mine in Ontario and ending up at the Madsen Mine near Red Lake.

In 1973, Peter applied with the ministry to build a fly-in camp on Roderick Lake, which is about 50 air miles northwest of Red Lake. In 1974, Peter and his family, Elisabeth and daughter Berget and Josie, started building their first cabin (Pete and Elisabeth have been married

63 years) and opened what would become Chimo Lodge in 1975 (“Chimo”is Inuit for friendship). Over the next three years, Pete built a total of five cabins at Roderick and began his outpost operation, which in the end would be 10 locations and 11 cabins. During the winter of 1978, Pete also obtained his pilot’s license and purchased a PA-12. In 1983, Pete upgraded to a Cessna 180 NPO, November Papa Oscar, a plane that I would fly in hundreds of times. In 1988, I was offered a job as camp manager of Chimo Lodge. I took it, and thus a solid relationship with the Hagedorn family and this business would begin. The following year, 1989, while sitting in a bear stand as camp manager at Chimo, I handwrote my first column for the Poynette Press and never looked back. I would go full-time as a writer after that, but for the next 15 years spend at least a year of my life helping the Hagedorns, with my main skills being dropping trees, making lumber, and building.

In 1995, Pete purchased a Norseman and thus “Chimo Air” was born. In other words, instead of paying to fly his guests, Pete would fly them himself. Between 1995 and 2013, Pete developed the largest float plane business in the Red Lake area, owning two 180s, two Norsemen, a Twin Beech, and three Otters. On one of the Otters, Pete paid $800,000 and had a turbine engine put in it.

I have to add that Pete was always ahead of the game, the first with solar lights and appliances and always the least expensive on his prices so parents could afford to bring their children.

When Pete turned 80, he was still a full-time bush pilot and major business owner, but it was time to hand over the reins, and all of Chimo Lodge and Outposts was sold to my very good friend Chris LeBlanc, who has maintained this incredible man’s high standards to this day.

One hell of a man, that Peter Hagedorn! Sunset

Mark Walters