Pat and I had stayed at the Skitchene lake camp a couple of times, before I got hooked up with Sam. This was another roadless camp, where one had to hike in five miles, while THE duffel was packed in by a mule. Actually the name on the map was Dagger Lake, but Skitchene sounded more sophisticated, I guess.
Every year it seemed to rain harder, the price seemed to get higher, and the amenities seemed to get worse. We finally quit them altogether when they started charging world class prices for a classless, and mostly clueless British Columbia fishing camp.
But we had heard rumors of new management, and Sam really wanted to try them out, so off we went. Pat, however, had enough sense to pass on this one.
We finally got to the trailhead, after the normal misadventures with BC Forest Service roads, which you have heard enough about already.
The new owners had improved things somewhat, in that now both you and duffel rode the five miles in a wagon pulled by a two mule team. The mule’s names, improbably, were Black and Decker.
Black and DeckerArriving at camp, we found some improvements had been made. A remodel of the lodge, and a couple of new cabins. We had elected to stay in the upstairs rooms in the lodge, trading privacy for convenience, and a real flush toilet down the hall.
The other guests were the usual motley collection one might expect. Richard, a retired geologist who had fished all over the world, and was one of the owners. Jimmie, who was Mark the camp manager’s ten year old nephew, and was actually a guest, rather than an indentured servant, a family consisting of Grandpa, Father, and son, again about 10 years of age, but more on them later, and a couple of other unremarkable people.
The rooms were OK, the food was good, and the wine, while nothing to write home about, was better than Ragnar’s, and best of all, was complimentary.
Jimmie (the ten year old nephew) was a really good kid but not much of a fisherman. I kind of bonded with him, and we spent considerable time out on the lake. The kid learned fast, and after a couple of days his fishing skills had improved substantially. This pleased Jimmie, no end as well as his uncle Mark (the camp manager) to the point where complimentary beer, in copious quantities, flowed for both Sam and me.
The family I mentioned earlier was really kind of funny. Like in weird funny. Grandpa went around barking orders like a drill sergeant, which we could see that the son resented. The grandson, not really knowing what to make of his, just kind of chilled out. Anyway, we finally figured out that grandpa was not a sergeant, but a genuine retired senior army officer, the son was an ex army officer, who apparently had gone back to civilian life, which of course had upset the dad, and grandson who was just trying to be a kid. It looked like the dad had set up this fishing trip with the idea patching things up, and getting everyone back in the fold, but it just wasn’t working out.
Sam, got himself a bit worked up over this, and finally told the dad one morning to get the ramrod out of his ass, relax and let everyone have some fun. Nobody, of course had talked to this guy like this for a long time, and he was totally taken aback. But not being completely stupid, he conceded, at least to himself, that Sam had a point. So everything loosened up. Grandpa and son started hiking off to remote lakes to fish, and Sam took grandson under his wing. The whole atmosphere in camp kind of improved and we were informal heroes. It didn’t hurt anything either, when I pulled in a trout that turned out to be the lodge record for the year.
The Lodge Record TroutI did have one interesting experience though. Since Sam and I were the only upstairs lodgers, we did get a bit informal about our dress. And one midnight, when I was heading down the hall, buck naked, in the pitch dark, looking for the bathroom, I felt something like a wet dishrag hit my bottom. Needless to say, this startled me, and in looking and feeling around, I found that I had been cold nosed by a good sized dog. I later found out that the camp manager’s girlfriend, had hiked in during the night with her dog, and taken up residence in the room next to us. It would probably have been more fun to have been run into by her, but that was not to be.
So, it was finally time to leave. The boys said their sad good byes, and Mark, since the wrangler was not to be found, harnessed Black and Decker to the wagon, and drove us out himself. The mules, though, did not seem to be into it, and despite curses and threats from our self appointed “skinner”, Mark, things just were not working out. Sam surveyed all this for a few minutes, and then suggested that Mark stop the team. Sam then got out, inspected the harness, and announced that the problem was that the thingamijig that held the whatsis to the gizmo had been put on upside down, and the mules were, in effect, pulling against themselves. Sam righted things in a couple of minutes, explained what he had done, climbed back on the wagon and away we went, right as rain. The mules seemed to be relieved but Mark was a bit pissed when I observed that the dude guest had to show the big shot manager how to properly harness a team.
