Water and Place

Aqua Harley

Drawing on one of your photographs, tell us about a body of  water you are familiar with. Has it offered you a new perspective on place? Amisk Lake and Denare Beach

In late August 1985 we moved from Calgary to Creighton, Saskatchewan, a “suburb” of Flin Flon, Manitoba.  After unpacking and vacationing in the local area for a couple of weeks, it was obvious I would need a boat to really get the lay of the land. So I decided it was time to venture to the local Federal Government office to apply for my UI cheques, (called Employment Insurance today) so I could start saving.

To be honest, I really didn’t intend to look for a job, this now being Indian Summer, the most beautiful time of the year in the North. When asked my skills, I said I had extensive training and experience in painting and decorating.  This was true, actually, having had the opportunity to work in multi-million dollar houses and with interior designers on restaurant projects in Calgary. I knew what I was doing, and humbly, was excellent at it.

The government agent looked at me with disbelief.  “I just had a guy in here less than an hour ago looking for a painter.  Can I give him your address?”  Less than 30 minutes later I meet Jean Poirier, a Quebecois contractor and former restaurateur from La Ronge.  He had the Saskatchewan Government contract to build senior housing units for Creighton and Denare Beach, and many other small, northern Saskatchewan communities. This was the start of a excellent professional and personal friendship.

I was happy with the painting contract.  It was three blocks from home, and Denare Beach just 12 miles away. I was independent, spending my mornings listening to “Captain Canada” Peter Gwozski, and the afternoons listening to mixed tapes. Jean supplied me with the best equipment, winter was coming so I wouldn’t be bored, and most importantly, I was going to have the funds to buy a new boat, motor, and trailer in the spring.  Then I could join the UI Fishing Team the next summer!

Come June 1986 I paid cash for a new fishing rig.  By now I knew my neighbours, who like me, had arrived from afar about the same time. They were Canadian military personnel here to oversee the training of the local reserves.  Wayne, Ray, and I had so much fun that summer and the next.  It is arguably the most joyous time I have had in Life, being out on the water, alone exploring and 4 or 5 times a week fishing with them.

Amisk Lake was ours, the best walleye lake in an area full of great lakes. From home it was a 30 minute drive to the provincial campground and boat launch just outside the hamlet of Denare Beach.  Amisk is a huge lake.  Think a rectangle 28 miles north to south and 12 miles east to west. The upper half is Canadian Shield, smooth ancient rock islands. Often we would cross the lake diagonally to the far side where the Sturgeon-Weir River entered, then travelling up the river to the falls. The fishing was excellent at its base, especially in the autumn.

There was history here, as there is throughout the the North. In June 1775, famous names Alexander Henry the elder, Peter Pond, Joseph Frobisher, and Thomas Frobisher crossed the lake. From the new Hudson's Bay Company post at Cumberland Lake, Henry and the two Frobishers went north up the Sturgeon-Weir.  In 1776, the HBC built a trading post on the lake. Later in 1819 and 1827, Sir John Franklin made two overland Arctic trips through Amisk Lake.

In the photo, I am holding my map of the lake. I got to play explorer too, getting to know our main routes to our secret fishing spots, while always looking for new ones. I often wonder how I would have fared as a professional fishing guide. Safety of clients is paramount to a guide so I couldn’t image taking the risk an accident by travelling without my electric depth finder or my map. I loved the smell of 2 stroke exhaust.  It’s the smell of Victory.

Here is what I learned about Amisk and about place: The Lake can be beautiful muse with a siren call.  One summer dawn, as we travelled down a narrow channel, the lake was still but the sky was riot of dragon flies.  The Lake often radiated Nature’s beauty. It can be a joyful mirror, reflecting back the sunset and the long, slow darkening dusk.  I often found it was meditating watching the boat’s wake being the only movement on the its surface, even at 11 pm when it was beginning to get too dark to safely travel.

The Lake can be an angry, even violent foe.  The southern lake is open with little to break the fierce thunderstorms and gale winds that quickly arise during hot summer days, especially when humid eastern air meets the dry, cooler air from the west.  This happened to me once.  I thought the boat was going to flip in the heavy surf and I feared for my mortal safety, at the very least my two passengers would be stranded, or worst, a washed a few miles from shore.

The Lake held its secrets under her surface.  We call them reefs,  but they were actually submerged islands.  On numerous occasions in a matter of yards the water depth would go from 100 feet to three.  Many boaters had stories of damaged props and outboards.  Once a group of Americans hit a reef and the outboard broke at its mounting bracket and while still running ended up in the boat. The pilot’s leg was badly mangled by the spinning prop.

The Lake was a destination for people to fish and explore. Thus Amisk Lake was the place of laughter, of friendship, of guys just having genuine fun. It was freedom; freedom from worries, freedom to learn, freedom to be curious.  It was shore lunches of fried walleye and potatoes, it was pulling into a sheltered bay to picnic, or sunbathe, to watch beavers, or a lone bear walking along the shore.

It’s with sadness when I heard yesterday that parts of Denare Beach was destroyed by the massive forest fire that is also threatening Creighton and Flin Flon.  I wonder if the building I worked on survived.  I am sadden to hear that the entire northern half of the lake, the beautiful rocky isles has been completely burnt.  Amisk Lake was a destination, but for many of its residents, and for me, it’s a place of fond and joyous memories.