Whenever Canada beckons me to go fishing, hunting, camping and canoeing, I pack my gear and go. Forty years ago I first visited our northern neighbor with my parents and brothers on a family vacation to Ontario's Basswood Lake. Answering the call dozens of times since, I have now traveled to both territories and every province except Prince Edward Island. Whenever I cross that border, my pulse quickens with excitement. Canada has never failed to surprise and delight. Gangler's Reindeer Lake Lodge
Everything in Canada seems enormous. Consider Reindeer Lake, which straddles both northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan and, according to some experts in the Canadian government, is the world's purest body of water. The size of Lake Michigan, 2-million acre Reindeer Lake is 210 miles long, 60 miles wide and more than 700 feet deep. Ninety-four tributaries sweep into it; 5,500 islands dot its cobalt expanse. As guests last July of Gangler's Reindeer Lake Lodge, fishing partner Joe Zikewich and I made a "grand slam" without flying out from the plush resort, an option to be sure but an unneccessary one.
We battled and caught northern pike to 19 pounds, lake trout to 20 pounds, walleyes to 4 pounds and arctic grayling to 20 inches--about 2 1/2 pounds. All are still swimming, the result of the lodge's wise decision to apply no-kill regulations. Joe, who is a better angler than I, added a fifth species to Reindeer's fabled four. He caught a two- pound whitefish on a dry fly in the middle of the afternoon one day while our Cree guide, John Clarke, cleaned up after preparing another stomach-stretching shore lunch.
Fish hooked too deeply to be saved are converted into protein to enable anglers to fish hard after lunch. The temptation to nap is strong until you remember you are in Shangri-La for only a week. By the way, if you've never had a shore lunch of golden-brown fillets, onions, baked beans and potatoes while bald eagles soar overhead and loons quaver, you have missed one of the sporting life's most indelible pleasures.
All in all we caught 350 fish, according to Clarke, who keeps track of these things. Our stunning experiences were at best typical, and with the exception of Joe's whitefish on a fly, we set no lodge records. The biggest lake trout to date from Reindeer Lake is a 52-incher that weighed 50 1/4 pounds. The largest pike was released after taping 53 3/4 inches long and 28 inches around. The 50 pound (estimated) northern would have easily smashed the North American record, a New York fish caught in 1940, by nearly four pounds. Top Reindeer Lake Lodge grayling to date is 3 1/2 pounds. The best walleye is 13 pounds.
We caught much smaller walleyes but plenty of them. As soon as I determined their average size at 2 to 2 1/2 pounds, I switched to ultralight spinning gear--a whip-thin crappie rod and tiny open-face reel spooled with four-pound test monofilament. Casting from the boat one morning while our guide drifted us parallel to the rocky shore, I caught 23 consecutive walleyes on the same lure, a small gold and red spoon. I was sure number 24 was a snag--until the snag sped off and we gave chase! Imagine my thrill when 20 grueling minutes later I eased the hook from the tooth- studded maw of an 18 pound northern pike and eased the whipped fish over the boat side.
A word about boats: Most of the lodges I've fished in Canada are underpowered when it comes to boats and motors. Not so at Gangler's. The boats are wide, sturdy 18-foot-long Alumarine models with 55 h.p. Mercury outboards. Fast enough to outrace a storm, the boats handle six-foot seas with ease. Standard amenities include pedestal seats, casting platforms, electric trolling motors, rod holders and depth finders. It is not uncommon for the guides to run 30 miles one way to go fishing. This practice spreads out the pressure, and you rarely see other boats. An exception is lunchtime when the highly gregarious Cree somehow find each other in that maze of look-alike islands.
One cloudless, windless afternoon when we were trolling for lake trout, I looked about me and was startled when I could not see shore. Used to that experience on the Great Lakes, I had never witnessed it on a Canadian inland lake. The fishing was a bit slow that day, the normally eager trout in transition from topwater spring haunts to their deep-water summer habitat. John Clarke broke the silence. "Want to catch some grayling?" he asked. "I know a good place not far from here. The conditions are just right."
Twenty minutes later we cruised quietly past boulder- strewn islands, the riprap blocks of stone in a curving line like the vertebra of some half-submerged sea monster. I felt like a flyspeck in the immensity of it all--the azure sky, the tropical-like heat bearing down, the solitude and silence broken here and there by a screaming gull.
We studied the calm surface for emerging mayflies. Then I saw it--the telltale ring of a nymphing grayling, dorsal waving like a tipped-over windsurfer's sail. I sent a small dry fly in that direction and the sail turned and the strike was both sudden and decisive.
Grayling live only in the planet's coldest, cleanest water. Fascinating yet fragile fish, their upper backs and flanks sport a blue, green and purple irridescence. The key is not to play them to exhaustion. Two minutes out of the water and the colors fade before your eyes and the grayling dies. So fast releases are imperative. Joe and I savored each of the half-dozen we caught apiece.
Each day we targeted a different species. Northern pike are a particular attraction for Joe and me, and we never fished the same weedy bay or island channel twice. Our guide found the pike in wind-sheltered coves, especially in neck- down areas fringed with bulrushes. Hot lure colors were green and yellow and orange and yellow. Many big-pike seekers bring flyfishing gear to Reindeer for the ultimate thrill. The average fish is eight to 10 pounds, but there are incredible numbers of 20- to 30-pound giants in Reindeer Lake.
The days pass all too quickly during the fishing trip of a lifetime. Each morning guests are awakened at 6:45 with fresh, hot coffee delivered to the modern, shower-equipped cabins. Breakfast is at 7:15; boats, with two anglers per guide, leave the dock at eight o'clock and return at five. When you enter your cabin, arms weary from fighting fish all day, what you really want is a cold drink. Ice and hors d'oeuvres are waiting. Supper is at seven, and you can fish all evening if you can stand the pace.
At Reindeer Lake, Joe and I could stand the pace. About the Lodge
"Ours is a service business," says Wayne Gangler, 54, who along with wife Gerry and sons Chris and Ken, own and operate Gangler's Reindeer Lake Lodge. "A sales rep years ago for General Electric and Black & Decker, I also loved to fish. After visiting several lodges, I knew I could do a better job."
The Ganglers do a better job with minute attention to detail. Wayne is not an absentee host, and he supervises an aggressive maintenance program that keeps equipment in top- flight condition. Food and accommodations are first-rate. The help is experienced, cheerful and eager to please. Trips are Saturday to Saturday and limited to 28 anglers each week. Clients must fly to Winnipeg, then the Ganglers take over with commuter flights on a twin-engine Otter. The price is $2,595. For more details, contact Gangler's Lodges, 1568 E. Wedgewood Lane, Hernando, FL 34442 (904) 637-2244. Knee Lake Resort
When I first visited Knee Lake northeast of Winnipeg in east-central Manitoba in 1990, I figured I had gotten a peak into heaven. That was the first full year that million- dollar Knee Lake Resort went into business and quickly became the talk of the fishing world. My goal was to catch a 20- pound northern pike and get it mounted. I caught the pike, all right, but settled for a replica of it because lodge owners were among the first to invoke no-kill, in my opinion, regulations that were long overdue in Canada.
One hundred fifty other pike of 20 or more pounds each were also taken from Knee Lake that year. Fishing since has improved. According to lodge records, in 1993 the lake served up 1,342 master angler northerns (fish 41 inches long or longer). No-kill (along with the use of barbless hooks, now a provincial law) means that when you go to a remote Canadian lake for the trip of a lifetime, the fishing will be as good now as it was then.
Like Reindeer Lake, 45-mile-long Knee Lake breeds big northerns. Our technique during my June visit was to drift with the wind and throw huge bucktail spinners (Lindy-Little Joe Hot Shots and Mepps Giant Killers in bright colors) and big spoons (Eppinger Huskie Devles in five-of-diamonds pattern and Lindy Gators in yellow and orange) to weed pockets, drop-offs, drowned timber and boulders.
The ice had just gone out of the lake, and post-spawn females (always the bigger pike) were ravenous. We spotted them with our polarized sunglasses lying in the marsh-fringed shallow bays. The way to hook up with these fierce predators is to make a stealthy approach and toss hardware on target. Twenty-pound-test mono with a nine-inch steel leader is standard, along with a poker-stiff rod and heavy-duty baitcasting reel with finger drag. Many of the smaller pike we caught had been mugged by bigger fish, or so the slash marks indicated. Our best day was 110 northerns from three to 23 pounds.
Painkiller Bay was most productive for us, especially one fog-shrouded morning when our Cree guide cut the engine and drifted silently into gloomy mist. On my first cast, a 15-pound mad-as-hell northern lanced my lure. Pike of 12 to 16 pounds are always the best fighters, and this one scrapped like a bronc with a burr under the saddle.
Later in the summer, the northerns head for deeper water. Trolling tactics and depth finders come into play then. The lake teems with walleyes, too, mostly in the 2 to 3 pound range. An angler could easily catch 100 per day if that is all he wanted to do. They're fun to catch and fine to eat, but northern pike are Knee Lake's big draw.
If you can't nail a 20 pounder here, then the fishing gods are decidedly upset with you. About the Lodge
Manager Phil Reid goes all out to give 54 weekly guests a quality and memorable experience from the only lodge on Knee Lake. American Plan hospitality includes plush cabins with showers and Franklin stoves, home-cooked meals, shore lunches and one guide/two fishermen per 16 1/2 or 18 foot boat powered by 20- and 25-h.p. outboards.
Week-long trips (Sunday to Sunday or Thursday to Thursday) in 1994 cost $2,295 from Winnipeg (a 4,000-foot- long airstrip is available for visitors with their own aircraft). Midweek and weekender trips, plus discounted fishermen specials, are also available. Contact Knee Lake Resort, Inc., 1791 Dublin Ave., Ste. 3, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3H 1A9 (800) 563-7151 or (204) 632-6098. Diana Lake Lodge
Last August, one month after returning from Reindeer Lake, I packed my bags for a trip to the Ungava Bay region of northern Quebec. Joe Stefanski, who has successfully operated Quebec's Ternay Lake Lodge for several years, had just opened Diana Lake Lodge about 900 miles due north of Montreal. Having never seen this area where the treeline ends and tundra begins, I desperately wanted to go. I packed a rifle for hunting caribou and fishing gear for catching the spawning arctic char, brook trout and lake trout that would be ascending the Diana River from Ungava Bay, a lower lobe of Hudson Bay.
When Joe mentioned the possibility of ptarmigan hunting, I decided to bring a 28 gauge over/under and my year-old English setter Sherlock. What better opportunity to train a young dog than on young birds that would hold for him and the gun?
In a word, my trip was outstanding. Sherlock got plenty of repetitions, which advanced him well down the road toward becoming a good gun dog. My friends and I caught blood-red brook trout to 3 pounds, feisty char to 5 pounds, and lunker lakers to 10 pounds. Bigger fish show up later, I'm told, in September. We photographed musk oxen, which are closed to hunting. Caribou from the Leaf River herd were just starting to migrate into the area toward the end of our week-long adventure. I managed to down a handsome bull and was able to bring back the meat, head and cape.
American Plan accommodations lacked the plushness of Gangler's Reindeer Lake Lodge or Knee Lake Resort. Still, we wanted for nothing. Our wall tents were heated and boasted electric lights. The communal shower water was hot, the food bounteous and tasty. Because the lodge is brand-new, outfitter Stefanski has work to do, guides to hire and additional arrangements to make. But I'm going back at the first opportunity.
Booking dates are typically August 20 to September 30. Bookings are from Saturday to Friday, and 1994 rates were $1,995 for fishing and $2,495 to $3,500 for hunting, depending on the guide-to-hunter ratio. A round-trip commercial airline ticket from Montreal to Kuujjuaq runs about $420. Once you get to Kuujjuaq--a frontier town of 1,200 people that used to be called Fort Chimo--Stefanski takes over with charter aircraft for the 30-mile flight to the lodge.
A fun combination is to hunt birds in the morning, fish in the afternoon, and post high ground in evening for caribou. For more details, contact Joe Stefanski, High Arctic Adventures, 8 Gibbs Rd., Jaffrey, NH 03452 (800) 662- 6404 or (603) 532-6607).
Trips like these three make me want to go back to Canada every chance I get. A word about customs: always bring a passport, birth certificate or voter registration card. In order to clear Canadian customs with your dog, bring a rabies certificate dated not longer ago than one year. Handguns are illegal; be sure to register all other firearms with U.S. Customs before crossing the border.