If you’ve read any of the material I have been plastered this site with over the past year or so, you will have likely figured out that I have taken up retirement on a full time basis.

While it was a long time coming, as I suppose most retirements are, it has certainly been well worth the wait...

Heading back to the lodge after yet another day of remarkable Pike fishing on the Whitefish River, my fishing partner and I decided this was not the time to turn our backs to the wind, so we spun our seats around so we could watch the splendor of Great Bear Lake unfold in front of us as our boat cut a path across the glass like surface of the water.

And in the Beginning… it was just too long!

This year’s trip started off with a bang as I walked up to the Air Canada check-in counter in Toronto in preparation to boarding my flight to Edmonton.

And So it Begins....

To be precise, the adventure began on July 10 when six of us gathered in Edmonton in preparation for heading off to Yellowknife and then to the main lodge on Great Bear.

Together with yours truly our group consisted of Art Ross, Ken Gold, Derek Ballantyne, Rodney Harback and his nephew Kevin, which gave us a cumulative total of well over 100 years of fishing experience on Great Bear  - so there could be no excuses in the event we did not catch a truckload of big fish.

 I have been somewhat remiss in keeping up my Great Bear Lake trip journal over the past 2 or 3 years.  What follows is my attempt to get back on track, and, create a record of the various experiences and events that take place during our annual sojourn to the land of the midnight sun.