Brad Dokken: Getting a camp ready after 2 1/2 -year shutdown is a major undertaking
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Jun. 10—FORT FRANCES, Ont. — Imagine, if you will, a cabin sitting empty for 2 1/2 years in the Ontario wilderness, boats pulled up on shore but partially swamped by unprecedented spring flooding in the border country and a permanent dock lifted off its crib by those same floodwaters.
That's the scenario Brett Lessard of International Falls, Minnesota, encountered last month when he finally traveled across the Canadian border at Fort Frances to the outpost camp he operates on Otukamamoan Lake, or Trout Lake, as it's more commonly called.
Lessard's dad, the renowned Bob Lessard, a former Minnesota state senator and longtime hunting and fishing advocate who just turned 91, has owned property on Otukamamoan Lake for decades and built the current camp in the late 1980s.
The camp is about a 20-minute floatplane ride north of Fort Frances, and Otukamamoan Lake flows into the Ontario side of Rainy Lake via the Trout River. The lake, with its rootbeer-colored waters, is a haven for walleyes, lake trout, smallmouth bass and northern pike.
Brett Lessard could have gone into camp last summer and perhaps salvaged a few weeks of the season — Canada opened its border to nonessential travel Aug. 9, 2021 — but he couldn't get himself to make the trip.
Too depressing, he said, and getting the camp ready for visitors wouldn't have resulted in enough bookings to make it worth the effort.
This year, a busy June and a full season are ahead, but spring has brought challenges that no one could have anticipated last year, when drought ravaged the region.
This year, flooding — bad flooding — is the problem.
As Lessard and other camp owners who were shut down while the Canadian border was closed during the pandemic have discovered, a lot can go wrong when a remote cabin is uninhabited for 2 1/2 years.
And so it was that four of us — Jason Laumb of Grand Forks, Peter Howard of Stillwater, Minnesota, Dean Christensen of International Falls and myself — joined Lessard on Trout Lake over the Memorial Day weekend for a few days of fishing and moral support while he got the camp ready for visitors.
The tasks facing Lessard were numerous. Inside, the cabin needed extensive cleaning that included vacuuming and shampooing the carpets — Lessard rented a Rug Doctor at the Safeway grocery store in Fort Frances and had it flown into camp. Floors needed washing and ceiling fans had to be dusted and wiped down. Dishes put away for the season in October 2019 — the last time the cabin had human occupants — had to be washed and cupboards wiped down.
Mice, which have a knack for getting inside through even the tiniest openings — I once watched a mouse squeeze through a closed patio door, much to my amazement — had a heyday during the shutdown and signs of their "activities" were everywhere.
On a positive note, the roof, the solar electricity, the backup generator and the plumbing all survived the shutdown just fine.
Outside, the to-do list facing Lessard was perhaps even more daunting. The riding mower needed a fair bit of encouragement and tinkering before it finally started, boats and motors required attention and, in some cases, parts that will have to be flown in later.
Meanwhile, Lessard secured the dock damaged by the ongoing flooding as best as he could until water levels drop and a new dock can be built.
As if a pandemic isn't bad enough for resort and camp owners on both sides of the border, this spring's extensive flooding in the border country has taken the hardship to a new level.
Through it all, the fishing we experienced on Trout Lake was as fantastic as ever, and it was great to hop in a floatplane at Rusty Myers Flying Service in Fort Frances for the first time since the pandemic and wet a line in relatively untouched water. The weather was far from ideal, but we caught walleyes — beautiful, blackish-gold walleyes — aplenty jigging below a set of rapids that was running even faster than usual, along with the occasional chunky smallmouth bass and, of course, northern pike.
The lake trout, which head for the depths once water temperatures hit the low 50s, were still shallow, and we landed a few fish off the dock. Using cutbait, Lessard would run the line by boat a couple hundred feet off the dock. Back at the dock, he would wrap the line around a can filled with water and set the rod down with the bail open on the reel. When a trout hit, it would peel off line, tip the can and we'd race to the dock to grab the rod and start reeling.
We missed more lake trout than we caught, but it sure was fun to look up and see that a can was down.
Evening meals included fresh walleye, lake trout linguine and grilled lake trout.
The trip ended on a memorable note when our departure, which originally was scheduled for Tuesday, May 31, was delayed by a day because of bad weather that prevented the floatplane from flying in to pick us up. The wind howled and rain came down in sheets all day as we watched the weather from inside the cabin, doing our best to keep ourselves amused and occupied.
A satellite communicator kept us in touch with the outside world so we knew the plane wouldn't be coming, and we were able to let others know about our delay. It was a fortunate piece of gear to have along, since Lessard didn't yet have his satellite internet up and running.
In the history of the camp dating back more than three decades, Lessard says there have been only four times when guests have been stuck in camp an extra day because of bad weather.
Ironically, Laumb and I have been there for two of them.
We can't wait to go back.
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