History of the trip:

On January 6th, 2001 Mike and I presented dad with one of his (and our) trips of a lifetime.  A fly-in fishing trip to Canada.

After researching the various places on the web, we booked our trip with Thunderhook Camps.  Cathy and Jerry Schoon were wonderful in assisting us with our planning.  The trip was scheduled between June 8th and the 15th.  7 days of nothing but fishing for the biggest fish around.

Mike flew in a few days before the 6th and we went to Cabela's for last minute shopping.  You have to have that backup gear.  Mike bought a really nice rod and really and I picked up another rod as well.

We left the morning of the 7th and drove towards the U.P..   While driving thru the Canadian side of St. Saint Marie, we noticed a strange noise coming from dad's van.  We took it straight to the Ford dealership but it was late and the part wasn't available.  Being the dedicated fisherman that we are, we rented another van so that we wouldn't lose any time.  The dealership would fix dad's in the meantime.

After driving through the night and playing dodge with the moose and spotting a few bear, we finally arrived in Armstrong, Ontario.  Boy were we excited.  We spotted a few float planes flying overhead.  The morning ops had just begun.

We packed the Beaver and I jumped into the co-pilot seat while Mike and dad sat in the back.  Our pilot handed me the headset with mike and turned some 50's tunes.  We taxied away from the dock and the next thing I know we are increasing speed.  The plane gets on step and the pilot cranks it to the right to help the plane take off.  Smooth.  Flying over many lake I look down and notice a moose with her calf swimming across one of the many lakes.

We land and unpack.  We are the first customers of the season at the lake.  A couple was leaving that had been working on the cabin in preparation for the season.  They showed us some of the many spots on the map where fishing looked good.

That afternoon we jump into the boat and went fishing.