Travel to Great Bear Lake to discover how small our worries are
Great Bear Lake sits in the boreal forest of Canada. It is the largest lake entirely in Canada, the fourth-largest in North America and the eighth-largest in the world. The lake is in the Northwest Territories, just south of the Arctic Circle. Satudene is its native name, which originated from the Chipewyan word that means "grizzly bear water people." Its name is befitting.
There is only one way in and one way out of Great Bear Lake and that is by charter plane. This is truly the far north and only a hop, skip and jump on a DC-3 trail-dragger to Tree River and a little further to the Arctic Ocean. This is the place where you can literally stumble onto caribou, moose, grizzly bears, muskox and even century-old teepees.
The area around Great Bear is home to impossible-to-describe beauty only understood once you’ve seen it. Here vast arctic landscapes meet untamed waters of the lake and its tributaries. This is where I took one of my daughters for her 16th birthday. In retrospect it was a birthday present for both of us.
There is no crystal water more clear than this. You can see lake trout dozens of feet down. Some are 50 pounds of pure fighting weight.
It does not get dark here from the first of July to the end of August. Knowing when to quit fishing and go to bed is difficult at best. The lake is never fully unfrozen — only out from the shore a distance depending on how much the ice melted as a result of the weather that year.
And if that’s not enough fishing, Tree River is a plane ride a little further north and is wild with Char swimming upriver to spawn and the bear eating them — just like in the movies. This is every-cast-catch-a-Char fishing with a 20-pound fish being a small one.
It is here that we had some of the most raw experiences of our lives.
We were the first people for the year into a bare bones campsite. All that had been left from the year before were a couple rough wood platforms with canvas tents stored under them. There was a platform for an outhouse, the board for it with several holes in it strewn nearby. As we descended in the DC-3, the pilot flew close to the tundra to discourage the bears which were all over the platforms and doing their business.
After several passes, the pilot dropped the plane directly on the tundra, and we all scurried out. It was a quick stop and the pilot revved up the engine and was gone. Dead silence. There were only a handful of us, a cook and another person whose job it was to set up the tents on the platforms, once the bear scat was pushed off to the side. No one was there to show us the way. No English-speaking guides. Eventually two native men carrying rifles found us and pointed us in the right direction.
While we fished in the river, the native men watched over us like guardian angels. They were clear without speaking a word that we were not to keep any of the Char we were catching as the fish smell would attract the bears, and we wanted to avoid becoming bear bait.
With sunlight day and night, we lost track of time. That is until I looked up and saw both native men seemingly pointing their rifles at me. One took one of his hands and motioned to me to remain still. I am glad I took that advice, because it wasn’t long until I felt a rather strong push in the middle of my back and noticed a potent aroma. A musk ox had taken an interest in me. Apparently, if I was not its first human, it may have thought I smelled better than it did. Fortunately, I was too frightened to move and the ox went about its business — whatever that was.
Eventually we had to relieve ourselves and there was nothing relaxing about that ordeal. I kept thinking that while being this vulnerable I could be a bear’s lunch, and that would have been quite embarrassing.
Yet, over the years, I have done all that I can to master the delicate dance between man, fish and other wildlife. I have discovered that success lies not only in skill but in the bonds forged with our surroundings.
My mind is etched with the tales of countless battles with worthy fish, gently cradling them after each battle. There are still elusive giants out there looking to do battle.
I recommend to both those who catch fish and those who don’t that you consider traveling to the far north, fishing rod, rifle or camera in hand. It is a life-changing experience that would be etched in your mind for as long as you live.
It will be a reminder of the delicate balance between human endeavor and the untamed forces of nature — a testament to the resilience of the wild and how small our concerns are when compared to the power of nature.
Bill Gindlesperger is a central Pennsylvanian, Dickinson College graduate, Pennsylvania System Of Higher Education (PASSHE) Governor, Shippensburg University Trustee, and Chairman of eLynxx Solutions. The firm provides enterprise-level cloud-software for communicating, specifying, approving, procuring, producing, reporting and activities necessary to obtaining direct mail, packaging, promo, marketing and all other printing. He is a board member, campaign advisor, successful entrepreneur, published author and commentator. He can be reached at Bill.Gindlesperger@eLynxx.com.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Trip to Northwest Territories reveals the power of nature
