It started out as a free fishing trip, going along with mom and dad to a remote place I had never heard of before. And for me, it has turned into a journey to find out as much as I can about one of the most interesting and hostile place on earth. And through I only spent a physical week there, my journeys through books and imagination has taken me to Greenland and Alaska, down many a river and over much ice.

And it started with the suggestion of a legend of the north, Charlie Taylor. Charlie is a great story himself, but I don't know him well enough to even start telling it. A guide who has seen much of the wild north, Charlie suggested Nueltin Lake as a great place for my parents to spend their 20th wedding anniversary. He had been a guide there for a while, and now owns his own camp on Hudson Bay.

I came along as a guest of the lodge, as a large business group had made a last minute cancellation. With the charter and supplies already paid and forfeited by the group, the lodge was bringing up family and friends for a visit. Now I am afraid that I may not have been the most gracious guest at the time (being a 13 year old who was convinced I already had all the answers), but I am forever grateful to Gary and Lois Gurke for opening this window to the north for me.
August, 1989
The journey started at an odd hour of the day, as many do. We left our house in Minneapolis well before the early summer sunrise. The goal for the day was to drive to Winnipeg, Manitoba. To my young mind, the trip over the interstate was unremarkable. I think I slept most of the way. I do remember having the realization in North Dakota that this is where sugar came from - that this was the land of the sugar beet.

We arrived in the early afternoon in Winnipeg, and checked into a busy Holiday Inn. The hotel was packed with refugees from some of the worst forest fires in quite some time. The smoke lingered faintly from their journey away from the blazes. We arranged to liaise with the lodges local man that evening, and set out for the Winnipeg Zoo.

We had never seen panda bears before, and there were two on loan from China at the Winnipeg Zoo. We had fun looking at them lounge around their pen, and went to find some quick dinner. Again, my memory is a little sketchy. I remember we met the local lodge man in the hotel bar.

And the next morning we were on a double decker bus on the way to the airport. The bus driver remarked on how sturdy was his bus, the entire Winnipeg Blue Bomber football team couldn't rock it over from the upper deck. A few blocks later, he took a turn a little too tight and we swayed at a rather uncomfortable angle. Somebody remarked on the driver being able to do more than the entire Blue Bomber squad.

At the airport, we walked out on the tarmac to the chartered plane, a Hawker-Sidley 347. The twin prop craft was already loaded with supplies for the lodge. I now saw why we were limited to 20 kilos of baggage. In a way a lodge in this part of the world is a bit like a space station - every supply and need must be carefully considered and planned for. The only way in during the summer is by plane (although I guess you could do it by canoe, but it would take a few days longer!), The only other route is overland in the dead dark of winter when all the lakes and muskeg are frozen.