Ice Fishing Season Open

HAPPY NEW YEAR! We’re in the depths of winter – long nights, short days, cold temps. Although it has been a relatively mild winter so far (thank you!) Finally this month the Eagle Lake sled dog races are able to receive my full attention. Until January arrived I was able to do only what was necessary to keep the race planning train rolling along. With the race less than three weeks away, it gets my full attention! Most mornings and evenings are spent tying up loose ends, trouble shooting, and problem solving.

January is also the month we chose to move in to cabin 1. We gambled last winter and kept the lodge open. High gas prices, snow throughout New England, and a sour economy kept snowmobilers closer to home. We spent a fortune heating the lodge for just Wayne and me. We won’t make that mistake twice! Wayne arranged for DirecTV, phone, and internet service to change over to the cabin, which meant our “moving day” would be the 9th! Wayne took the propane heater out of cabin 1 and replaced it with the old lodge woodstove on the 5th. Wayne had to work all weekend which left our big move to me! I started early Saturday morning by cleaning the lodge. Then I moved our food, cleaned the lodge refrigerator, moved our clothes and bathroom stuff, our winter clothes, some furniture, and personal stuff to make the cabin look like “home”. I called Gracie and Alli (our German shorthaired pointers) over to their new home (although they’d been curious all day about my many trips back and forth between the lodge and cabin!) and grabbed the cat and just before Wayne got home I had us settled! We treated ourselves to a pizza for dinner to celebrate moving day!

We shut the lodge down on the 10th and BRRR it’s cold in there! Since the phone and internet hook up was scheduled for the 12th, until then I would have to return calls and emails from the frosty lodge! This was a challenge the week before the race with many calls coming in and going out. I was so happy on the 12th to come home from work and place calls and emails from the cozy and warm cabin!

With volunteers in place and all our planning done, co-director John Kaleta and I were anxious for race day. Roy Roalf and Buck had worked for weeks putting in the 50 mile sled dog trail to Moose Point Camps. Conditions were very good this year, and the forecast was for comfortable temps. Our driver’s meeting was held Friday night at the American Legion. We handed out bibs and instructed mushers where to be and when on Saturday. I had to run back to Fort Kent to finish our sponsor sign with my boss, Steve Daigle, on Friday night after the meeting. The sign was done at 11:00 p.m and would be needed for the race in less than 12 hours – we cut it pretty close!

Visit http://www.eaglelakesleddograces.com/ to read all about our race. After a last minute trail reroute (due to local “politics”) we had to send teams up Old Main Street and Convent Road (plowed!) but once they hit the trail about 1 ½ miles out it was smooth sailing on excellent snow and a firm trail - as long as temps stayed below 20 degrees. Mid-day highs approaching 30 degrees softened the trail a bit and slowed teams but all the 30 mile mushers finished before dark (Rico Portalatin (MA) won the 30). All 100 mile mushers were in to the check point by 6:30 p.m. for their mandatory 4 hour lay-over (so I took a break from my duties helping Eagle Lake Fire Chief Shawn Madore staff race headquarters and “central communications” to run home and say “hi” to Wayne – I hadn’t seen him much in the past few days). Teams began departing the Moose Point check point around 8:30 p.m. Sylvain Robillard (Quebec) won the 100 mile race finishing just before 2 a.m. We had all the 100 mile teams at the finish line by 6:30 a.m. It had been a long weekend and I had one more hurdle to jump – get through the awards presentations at 11:00 and the 2010 Eagle Lake Sled Dog Races would be behind us for another year…John and I presented checks totaling more than $5000 (sponsored by Irving Woodlands, LLC) to 100 mile finishers, and more than $2000 to 30 mile finishers. After saying “so long” to our mushing friends for another year I headed home to tie up loose ends (paper work, press releases, and fielding calls from those wanting finishing results) and then took a nap!

Both Wayne and I were back to our “real jobs” Monday morning. Check out our new web site for PaperSignsInk (the print shop I work at). If you need business cards, brochures, posters, or any other printed materials, our prices can’t be beat! http://www.papersignsink.com/

Winter set in the week of the 23rd when temps plunged to -4 on Tuesday but then warmed to 32 degrees with freezing drizzle on the 25th. Wayne shoveled roofs on the 26th in anticipation of a full house for the weekend. With the heat-loss through our cabin roofs, any snow up there melts and can build ice dams if we don’t keep ahead of the shoveling, Brandon Cox and friends were the first of our ice fishers to arrive on the 27th. His father, Steve Cox and friends and Scott McNichol and more friends arrived on the 28th. Scott brought a load of fresh scallops to the delight of many in town! I think half of Eagle Lake was feasting on scallops over the weekend!

We got about 8” of snow on the 28th. Although not a big “snow event” it is a welcome addition to the three feet of snow we have and helps keep the snowmobile trails in great shape.

The big draw for our weekend ice fishermen was the annual Long Lake Ice Fishing Derby. The two-day event had 566 entrants, including our guests, and Wayne. Wayne had never fished the derby but made time this year for it, setting his ice shack on Friday so he could hit the lake before sunrise on Saturday for the best spot on the lake for brook trout. He was out of camp by 4 a.m. and had all his tilts set up by 5. I drove the snowmobile out to check on his progress on Saturday afternoon. He had landed several brook trout in the 1 – 1 ½ lb. range, keeping a 1 lb 14 oz. fish. He was back at it Sunday hoping to best his nearly 2 lb. brook trout caught the day before. Typically, it is a 4 pound plus fish that wins the brook trout class in the derby. After fishing from sunrise to late afternoon, Wayne pulled his tilts and was home Sunday by 3:30. We called over to derby head quarters at the Long Lake Sporting Club. The winning brookie at that time was 2 lbs 4 oz and third place was 1 lb 11 oz. Wayne’s Saturday catch could be good enough for third place! He and friend Grant Shook took the fish over for weigh-in and as the final minutes ticked by, Wayne’s fish held up and earned him third place honors and a $275 check; not a bad pay for two days of ice fishing!

So we ended January celebrating Wayne’s “trophy trout” and look forward to getting back out on the lake to ice fish next month. We’re also hoping we can find an afternoon to go snowmobiling. The trails are in GREAT shape (so we’re told!) so we want to get out and enjoy some of the best riding in the northeast! If you haven’t planned your winter “get away” yet, give us a call. February and March offer some great riding and ice fishing!

Christmas Traditions: old & new

December marks the start of our “down time”. I worked at the print shop on the 1st while Wayne used his day “off” to shut down the last of our open cabins. It involved turning off water and draining lines, gathering up laundry, and cleaning so the cabins would be ready to reopen when needed.

We set up our Christmas tree on the 2nd; and strung 500 tiny white lights among its branches. Selecting ornaments of white and “gold” from our large collection, the 7 foot tree offered a warm glow in the dining room once we finished decorating it. I used the remaining ornaments to decorate garlands over each of our dining and living room windows. Each window had a unique theme based on the ornaments used…”Sweet Treats” (Nana’s handmade ornaments collected over the years), “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” (a collection of hand carved and hand crafted Santa ornaments), “Woodland Critters” (loons, bears, moose ornaments), Fishing (hand carved fish, fly boxes, and bobbers), “Relaxing by the Woodstove” (a collection of miniature book ornaments), etc. I added a few colorful glass balls to create a festive and shiny look to the garlands. Adding white lights and strings of red and gold wooden beads to the garlands around the dining room entry ways, red pillar candles on end and coffee tables, red table cloths, gold paper mache reindeer with white and gold ribbon around their necks set on the dining room tables and the old log lodge looked very festive and ready to open for our Christmas dinner parties!

We'd gotten so caught up in trapping season that muzzle loader season for deer passed right by. Wayne never got that elusive buck still running the ridges in Pennington.

We hosted Christmas dinner parties for Ricky Saucier and his staff (and celebrated Ricky's birthday too!), Dr. Daigle and staff, Chopper One (Ray Blair) and his logging crew, and the Roy family. Our guests love Wayne’s cooking (rosemary roast pork loin, sirloin steaks on the grill with his "secret" rub, Aroostook herb roasted potatoes, maple glazed carrots and my famous apple crisp are favoites) and the rustic holiday atmosphere of our log lodge. They linger long after dessert has been served and share the spirit of Christmas.

We learned a new "game" during the Chopper One party. If ever asked to play this game, beware…Ray “initiates” rookie members of his logging crew by inviting them to participate in an age-old wood cutter’s tradition. It is based on a competition among loggers where they attempt to chop a log in the exact same spot with each swing of the ax. Since they are professionals, and to make the competition more of a challenge, competitors are blindfolded, asked to remove their shoes and socks to compete as the natives would, and kneel on a pillow. Once the blindfold is in place and as the competitor is assisted with lining up his ax, his socks are placed across the log (unbeknownst to the chopper). He is instructed to make his first chop – which of course falls across his socks! He is encouraged to make the second chop as close to the first as he can, and again the sock is chopped! This goes on for several chops, and his socks become shredded! His skills with an ax are praised and onlookers cheer at his remarkable expertise. His socks are removed from the log and returned to their resting place with his shoes before the blindfold is removed, then he is told he can put his shoes back on. Of course, he reaches for his socks first and discovers they are chopped to bits as the onlookers roar with laughter! We watched Ray conduct this initiation competition after Christmas dinner and I’ll have to say, his rookie was a very good sport, even after exclaiming, “Hey, those are my best socks!” as he inspected what he’d done with the ax!

We continued trapping fisher and pine marten through December. Our catches increased as snow piled up and temperatures dropped. I caught my first fisher on the 5th in a trap I set myself. Many of our other catches were from traps I’d set with Sandy. There was a sense of deep satisfaction in checking traps I’d set myself and finding a fisher or marten. When we’re not serving dinners, we use the lodge as our “trapper camp” for skinning. We share the evenings with Jerry and Sandy skinning, stretching, and drying our marten and fisher.

I celebrated my birthday on the 13th. Sandy and I struck off to check our traps that morning. We’d gotten about a foot of snow during the week so the woods roads were tough to drive over. The snow had compacted from driving over it the previous day and cold temperatures overnight hardened the edges of our tire tracks. Each time my tires would “bump” against the edges of the track it would grab the truck and pull it left and right making it tricky to negotiate hills and turns. We pulled two traps on a branch road and rather than drive further in to turn around, I decided to back out the 300 yards to the main haul road over our existing tracks. Backing out was going extremely well, until we were about 75 yards from the main haul road. All at once the truck pulled to the left, out of our existing track and toward the high shoulder of the road. Hoping the 4-wheel drive and increased speed would provide the momentum needed to drive the truck back toward the middle of the road I continued backing up…until the left front tire got too close to the shoulder. All at once the front end of the truck slipped right off the edge and we stopped perfectly perpendicular to the road, facing down a 45 degree, five foot embankment! I took a deep breath, summoned all my strength just to open the door at that crazy angle, and climbed out to inspect the “damage”. It appeared, miraculously, that the truck was sitting on all four wheels and not resting on its frame and that no rocks or logs had broken anything. There was hope of getting it out. With a vehicle in that predicament, there was only ONE person I could think of who might possibly get us out without calling in the heavy equipment…Ron Toussaint (whose truck fell in Eagle Lake while he was plowing three years ago – Ron recovered his truck using a self-designed system and no one got wet!) Sandy had a cell phone and we got service (which is unusual in most places we travel in the back country!) We tracked down Ron and his son Travis at church. They agreed to get Travis’ truck and a chain, and head in. Their ETA, sometime after 2 p.m. It was 11 a.m. by then. Rather than waste time, Sandy and I hiked down the road, pulled a few other traps, hiked back to the truck, gathered fire wood, and built a fire well away from the long shadows cast by the trees so we could enjoy a little of the sun's warmth along with the heat from our fire It was a very quiet and relaxing couple of hours – just what I needed after so many hectic months! We enjoyed the little fire’s warmth under a darkening sky while savoring our cold sandwiches.

Trav and Ron arrived around 2:30. Ron stepped out of Travis’ truck in to my tire tracks that were etched in to a foot of snow wearing his Sunday church shoes and black leather jacket! He assessed the situation and declared it was unlikely they could pull my truck up such a severe angle to get it back on the road. He suggested a skidder, or bulldozer… My heart sank. But being one to never give up without a fight, Ron instructed Travis on how to pack out the road, angle his truck, and attach the chain. They would at least “try”. It was soon apparent that pulling the truck up the embankment was not an option. Rather, they hooked on to my front end to pull the truck DOWN to the bottom of the embankment and parallel to the road before trying to pull it out. I got in, put the truck in 4-low, and buckled up for a rough ride! For all I knew the truck would end up on its side! I had already told Ron and Trav they would not be held liable for any damage! Trav repositioned his truck, attached the chain to my front tow hooks and started hammering. Ron coordinated our efforts and with all of us working together Trav pulled my truck in to position. Ron re-rigged the chain and Trav changed the pull angle. Trav’s truck banged and lurched forward, my truck shuddered and dug. We lurched forward, inches at a time, but it wasn’t looking good. We had one last chance before the shoulder angle and stumps and rocks would prevent our progress. Trav gave it all he had and so did I – his old Ford pulling my old Chevy – both in 4-low, and suddenly my truck made a big lurch forward. We both held our feet to the floor and our trucks dug and churned forward.... One last lurch and I don’t know how exactly, but Trav and Ron had pulled my truck back up on to the road AND both trucks were still drivable! As darkness set in, Sandy and I pulled a few more traps off that haul road – we were done in there and headed home, thanks to Ron and Trav!

We met Jerry and Wayne at the lodge. Wayne made a nice dinner for all of us and Sandy gave me a pretty pink birthday cake. We spent the rest of the evening skinning and stretching marten and fisher in between me taking birthday calls – thank you all who called and made my birthday special!

Below zero temps mid-month allowed the lake to “make ice” as slushy spots started to freeze. Although we doubted whether or not the ice will be safe enough on January 1, to start putting ice shacks out.

The weekend of the 22nd we continued pulling traps. Both Wayne and I worked on the 24th. Before leaving work I made all my trapping partners their Christmas gift - a collage of trapping photos I’d taken and mounted on foam core. I met Wayne, Jerry and Sandy at the lodge and we exchanged gifts. Sandy made us a beautiful quilt for our bed. Tyler Gagnon joined us in the evening as we feasted on fresh Maine shrimp, drank, and had a merry Christmas eve!

Christmas day Wayne worked but the rest of us checked and pulled more traps. Two storms left us with about 2 feet of light, fluffy,snow on top of the 18” already on the ground. Going was slow on our snowmobiles, breaking trail all the way. We spent more time digging our sleds out of the “fluff” than we did checking and pulling traps. We pulled everything except those along the soon-to-be-groomed snowmobile trail. Back at the lodge in the evening we called our families to wish then all a Merry Christmas. Wayne gave me two new ice fishing traps, Ed and Julie sent an assortment of gifts from Minnesota (conservation booklets, framed loon photo, and framed otter photo, fleece ear flaps to be worn with a ball cap – clever!) Mom and dad sent us warm socks, gloves, a candle and $. We enjoyed the peace of the lodge when only Wayne and I are at home, cozied up by the fire.

Jerry and Sandy continued pulling traps while we were at work and had them all out of the woods by the 30th. We’d had a good season – 50 marten, 8 fisher, and 28 beaver (plus a muskrat, about a dozen weasels, and a couple of raccoons).

With the butt end of 2009 in our sights, we invited over Steve, Shondelle, Chris and Alli Daigle, and Jessie and Heather Jandreau to celebrate with us, and to thank them for chipping in to buy us a cord of firewood to go with the other four cords we’ll have delivered next week. I stopped at Paradis on the way home to pick up some snacks and Heather brought snacks and a birthday cake for Shon. We ate and ate, and drank, and played cards all the way to 2010! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

And as 2009 came to a close, Wayne and I reflected on the memories we made with our family, many friends (new and old), and our guests. May 2010 be a year of good health, peace, and prosperity!

Trapping with the Professor

The long days of summer are behind us, we set our clocks back last night. It's hunting and trapping season! Since we can't hunt on Sunday and our first party of deer hunters won't arrive until the 7th we used the day off to tidy the lodge and rake the grounds before snow arrives. Five truck loads later we had cleaned up all the leaves from around the lodge, along the driveway and in the ditches. I got the lodge windows washed and it looks as if there's no glass in them with all the dust and dog nose prints wiped away! We'll let the remaining leaves blow away... We continue working our other jobs trying to keep up with the ever-increasing costs of doing business. Propane, electricity, taxes, and insurance all continue to go up yet there is also increasing demand from the tourism market for "affordable" lodging. We have to keep the cost of lodging down in order to retain our current client base and attract new visitors. This juggling act makes it impossible to operate "in the black". Thus, our jobs away from the lodge allow us to remain open. We've watched as one local sporting camp closed last year, unable to keep up with their mortgage payments and another is facing a similar fate. We will do all that we can to keep Fish River Lodge going - "failure is not an option". We got a dusting of snow on the 6th and Wayne got to hunt on the 7th - there's a big buck on one of the beech ridges in Pennington; Wayne is determined to find him. I started trapping with Jerry and Sandy Whitcomb. I've nicknamed Jerry "The Professor" - he is my trapping instructor, teaching me the skills I need to successfully to trap beaver, pine marten, and fisher. Trapping is something I've wanted to do for as long as I can remember but, growing up on the coast, the only trapping I knew how to do was for lobster! Wayne and I met back at the lodge at noon on the 7th so we could get groceries for our first deer hunting party - Jeff Wagner, and Tony & Joe Fiala (PA). Jerry and Sandy checked our first beaver set as they came out of the woods at dark - we'd caught one! After a day of instruction from The Professor, I worked in tandem with Sandy on the 8th as we set our 120 and 16o conibears...one of us would attach a "box" to a tree while the other set the trap and wired on bait. Once the box was in place the trap would be set in the box and safety latches removed. As we became more proficient as a team we could get in, set, and get out before The Professor - quite a feat for a tam containing a rookie! Sandy was always watching to make sure I was setting the traps correctly and safely. We both were mindful of following the complex Maine trapping laws. We put out 35 marten/fisher traps and another 15 beaver traps. I caught my first beaver - a 48 lb. "super"! After serving dinner I got my first beaver skinning lesson from "master skinner" Sandy - she can skin a beaver in under 20 minutes while it took me almost an hour to do my first! The larger beavers will be sold on the fur market. The smaller ones we will make in to decorative wall hangings, stretched on willow hoops. Joe and Jeff bought our first wall hangings as we were skinning!

The days are long when deer hunters are in camp. Up early (3:30 a.m.) to start breakfast and set out lunches, clean up in time to go to work or check traps, home to bake and prepare and serve dinner, clean up and skin, then bed time. We continued working, feeding our hunters, and trapping right through the week and had our schedules down to a science by the time the Bombara family along with Charlie Sayers and his buddies Smitty and Bob arrived for the third week of deer. A tradition at Fish River Lodge is for Gloria Curtis and Diane Chouinard to join our hunters for dinner mid-week. They bring dessert (this year apple dumplings - yum!) and catch up on the year that passed and reminisce about the good old days of deer hunting with Gloria's husband Nick at Crooked Tree Lodge and Chubby Ricciardi at the Michaud Camps. It is a visit we look forward to every year. As the week came to a close is was evident the declining northern Maine deer herd presents a challenge to our hunters, yet we appreciate their willingness to return and share in the nostalgia of Aroostook County big buck hunting. On the 23rd, after checking traps all day, I headed in to a new beaver flowage to take my final exam. Jerry left it entirely up to me to "read" the flowage and set my traps. It was a small and tricky flowage to set, at first look. I almost missed the culvert, an obvious place to set a trap, because all our beaver trapping was being done off logging roads and although there are culverts under those roads, I'd not yet encountered one in a beaver flowage! I set three 330s (one at the culvert, two in a channel to the beaver lodge and feed bed, and a 220 where the water was shallow. Only time would tell if I could trap a beaver on my own. It was dark when we got home to serve the dinner Wayne had prepared. Next day (Monday) I had to go to work. The flowage I'd set was about an hour's drive away so Jerry and Sandy "graded my exam" while I was at work...I got home to learn I'd caught TWO beavers! They pulled my traps since I'd taken two large beavers from the small flowage. The Professor wrote me a note (my "diploma") giving me an "A". Who would have thought, a month ago I'd never trapped but I'd learned enough in three weeks to set a flowage myself and pull two beavers out in less than 18 hours! We checked our traps before heading south on the 25th to spend Thanksgiving with Miranda, Tyler, Acadia, and Nellie in their new log home in Bowdoin, ME. I got to spend some quality time with my grand daughters Acadia (7) and Nellie (7 wks). We visited with Aunts and Uncles, Nana Pat and dear friend Mary Demers and her daughter Tess. Mary and Tess invited Acadia and I to meet their Morgan horse "Velvet" We were invited to ride but 50 m.p.h. winds that day and torrential rain the night before created conditions unsuitable for riding. But we certainly enjoyed cleaning the mud off Velvet to reveal the beautiful mare she is! We got back to Eagle Lake on the 29th. Another deer season and Thanksgiving had come and gone. I learned how to trap - the highlight of November for me! No deer were tagged at Fish River lodge during the regular firearms season so we'll have to see what muzzle loader season brings next week... And the trapper in me is excited to see what December brings - the best month to trap marten and fisher, and more beavers!