How it all started
From my youth I have loved nature and almost always preferred my own company. My wife was more socially inclined and never had any real camping experience. Soon after our marriage, because of I work as a clergyman and our family are constantly in the public eye, she also recognized the need for real solitude. We decided to celebrate our first wedding anniversary by going to Bare Lake in British Columbia, Canada.

My best friend, who in infancy had been bitten by the "fishing bug " and never recovered, selected the location. We could not afford the lodge, nor were we interested in the type of services which the lodge provided: motel-like beds, clean linen, communal meals, prepared for us in modern kitchens and served to us by waiters, fine china, loud socializing, our fish cleaned and prepared for us, etc. So we requested and received permission to camp at the north end of the lake. This was a first for my wife. Upon hearing that we will be living in tents in the wilderness my father in law called and asked us not to go. In a very East European manner he explained the dangers of hungry wolf packs, and man-eating bears. We calmed him as well as we could, and took off for Kamloops. Lots of mistakes where made on that first trip into the Canadian wilderness. My friend –for reasons, which remain a mystery informed us that "it never rains in Canada "; subsequently neither he nor his wife brought any rain gear. That proved to be fun!…We ourselves brought only a small pup-tent to sleep in for three weeks, neither my wife nor I knew anything about fly fishing and preferred to cast hardware or dunk worms; we brought meat with us which soon spoiled (there are no freezers in the wilderness), and stank up the forest when we tried to fry it. There where other mistakes. But we both fell in love with Canada, its magnificent forest, its wildlife, and its fishing; we were hooked. After that first trip almost a quarter of a century ago, with very few exceptions, we spent our vacations in the forests of British Columbia, camping at selected lakes, hiking, fishing, taking pictures, boating, tracking, climbing mountains and fording streams.

One summer, when our two daughters where eight and nine years of age, we went on an approximately 200 mile trip (100 mile as the crow flies), traveling in an 18 feet long canoe, traversing four lakes and three rivers, which twist and wind through spectacular forests and meadows. Our daughters were raised to love and respect nature as a beautiful, living, breathing, vibrant work of art, who ’s Creator was God Himself. Being God ’s creation ourselves, we are invited by The Creator to have "hands on "participation in His Creation.
Anyone who does not appreciate nature is dangerously blind and foolish. Anything and anyone who destroys nature is immoral, sinful, and evil. What helped this upbringing is our Russian background. In our native fairy tales, the forest plays a huge role. Although frightening to the novice, it provides food and shelter to the experienced. The wolf is always "the good guy ", who helps those who are in trouble, even the trees help those, who treat the forest with love and respect. With age fairy tales gave way to lives of Russian spiritual heroes, who almost always strove to get away into the northern taiga and who always were at one with nature. As a result, we have two teenage daughters who loving nothing more than to spend their vacations in the wilderness of Canada. The dream of some day being able to afford a life in the wilderness has not left them.

Four things fascinate and attract us most about being in the Canadian wilderness: its raw, virgin forests, the silence and solitude, its ability to help reaffirm family bonds, and the incredible, acrobatic fighting ability of the Kamloops rainbow trout. After a while my wife suggested that we go even further north, to an area of Canada, which is so remote and frontier-like, that it is referred to as a "Territory", rather than a civilized "Province".

During the annual International Sportsman ’s Exposition in 1999 we started looking for places either in the Northwest Territory or the Yukon Territory. We quickly realized that prices being what they are; there is no way that our family of four could enjoy a four-week vacation in a typical wilderness lodge. Most remote lodges start at $2500 per person, per week. For a family of four this equals to $10, 000 a week. Thus, for our family a four-week stay would cost a whopping $40, 000! When lodge operators heard that there were four of us and that we were looking for a place to spend four weeks, they realized that we would not be interested in their vacation packages and quickly lost interest in us. All the lodges were interested in selling their usual one week fishing trip packages to individual fishermen, to groups where each pays his way or much less frequently to couples. None where interested in flying us out to a remote lake, and dropping us off for a four-week stay by ourselves.

Noticing the "Yukon "sign at the Tincup Lake booth we looked in to them also. We found their prices to be lower and their people to be relaxed, friendly, not at all pushy or obnoxious which is not something that can be said about many other exhibitors. We were impressed by how deeply moved they were by the beauty of the Yukon. And we were fascinated by the care, which they took to preserve this natural beauty. Tincup Lake is 8 miles long; yet, it has only the one lodge, and there are never more than 8 guests staying at that lodge at any one time. Unfortunately, they also had no ready made trip package to satisfy our search. As usual, we left our telephone and address, and continued to search the Exposition. We found nothing. That evening I received a call from Jose (pronounced "Djo Zay") Janssen from the Tincup Lake booth.

"Larry and I talked it over, and we think we might have the trip which you are looking for. Could you come to our booth tomorrow to talk about a possible trip to the Yukon?"
I cancelled all appointments for the next day, and returned to the Exposition. Larry Nagy, the owner of the lodge, and Jose Janssen, who helps with the business side of running the lodge were there to greet me. They explained that not too far from their lodge they have lease rights to another place: Dogpack Lake. This lake is nestled in beautiful mountains, with a river coming in on the north end, and out on the south end; it is totally remote; there would be only two tent cabins for us to use, and the lake is full of fish. Since we would not be using the services of the lodge except for the flights in and out, plus the boats, the motors, the gas, and the tents, the price would be appropriately affordable. It was made clear that nobody had ever requested to stay a month at Dogpack Lake. Our situation was unusual and experimental; it was certainly not the rule. Needless to say, clients from Tincup Lake may be flown into Dogpack Lake at any time for a day of fishing.

To Larry and Jose I must have sounded like a very bothersome mosquito myself. But I was so excited that many questions were asked more than once. The family discussed the offer. Neither Tincup Lake, nor Dogpack Lake has Kamloops trout, but they do have fish we had never caught before: large Lake Trout, Arctic Grayling, and Whitefish. At Tincup the Lake Trout can weigh over 30 lbs. with the occasional 40+ lbs monsters. The Arctic Grayling start at 19 inches. The Whitefish may reach 10+lbs; they are notoriously leader shy, difficult to hook, fight like crazy, and are not easy to bring in. And of course there is the unique wildlife. Unanimously we decided to accept Larry and Jose ’s offer.

On a Sunday afternoon in mid June, soon after iceout at Tincup Lake, we flew into the city of Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon Territory, and were met by Larry Nagy’s brother, Ernie. We bought food for a month, and purchased a bottle of 18-year old Wisers Whiskey to help celebrate our escape from the concrete jungle and stress factory of the Silicon Valley in California. Everything was loaded into a truck, and we embarked on a four-hour drive along beautiful Alaska Highway toward a "metropolis "known as Mile 1118 (we never saw more than 15 people who seemed to live and/or work there). Along the way Ernie pointed out many interesting places, including an elk reserve, a buffalo herd, glacial formations, and various streams and lakes. He related many stories and legends associated with the Yukon in general and Tincup Lake in particular. We found Ernie to be extraordinarily warm, knowledge able, and totally in love with the wilderness. We stopped at the town of Haines Junction for a lunch of delicious smoked Lake trout.

At Mile 1118 there is a little lake behind the service station. A Helio floatplane, piloted by Larry Nagy, lands on the lake, picks up Lodge guests, and flies them to Tincup Lake Lodge. The day we arrived the weather made flying impossible, so we spent the night at one of the simple, rustic cabins at Mile 1118. The next day the floatplane flew in. Because of our four weeks worth of supplies, it took two trips to fly us into Dogpack Lake. The first trip carried Ernie Nagy, myself, and our baggage. The short flight provides spectacular scenery, including mountain sheep and moose, lakes and rivers, valleys and mountains.

We stopped at the lodge at Tincup Lake to drop off Ernie, and I was frankly delighted to see Larry and Jose again. They made me feel like we were old friends, meeting again after a parting, which had lasted too long. The lodge is incredible. Immaculately clean and neat, it has a completely equipped modern kitchen, a cozy living/dinning room with a corner bar, and a wood burning stove. The whole building is made of light cedar wood and creates the impression that it was finished only yesterday. There are two duplex guest cabins, built with the same wood, just as clean, just as cozy. As you enter each cabin, you find snow white bathrobes, soft slippers, two double beds in each room, a wood burning stove, some shelves, a desk with chairs, and two clean raincoats, which double as floatation devices. All roofs in the lodge complex are painted red. Besides the main lodge and cabins, there is a well equipped work/storage shed, laundry room, generator shed, staff quarters, a pier, boats, canoes, kayaks, a Jacuzzi, and a fantastic Russian/ Finnish style steam sauna with a trail leading into the ice-cold lake for the brave. After a short visit, we climbed back into the plane and a quick flight landed us on Dogpack Lake. By the time the plane returned with the rest of the family, I was into my third Arctic Graying! The water was literally boiling with fish in this lake. One of the two tent cabins on Dogpack Lake is used as a kitchendining facility. It has an excellent propane stove, a long work table for preparing food and storing utensils, some metal storage boxes under this table, a cozy eating table for four, and a wooden bed, which we used as a "couch ". The other tent is the bedroom, with beds, a coffee table with chairs a wood stove, and some shelves along the walls.

For us this was love at first sight. In keeping with our tradition, we watched the floatplane take off and disappear around the mountains and waited for all remnants of the engine noise to disappear also. Then we continued to stand perfectly still in the beautiful silence of the taiga. Slowly the fish resumed slurping insects off the lake surface, an eagle called to its mate, the wind came gently down the mountain and rustled the forest, a merganser dove into the water, looking for a meal. And then the mosquitoes flew in with Dogpack 8 their own high-pitched noise also looking for a meal looking for us.
It took us the rest of the day to unpack, put away the food, make hangers for clothes, built a primitive rod and reel rack, build an equally simple hanger for the food utensils, and otherwise settle in.
The first order of business was to slowly circumnavigate the lake and get a general idea of what was around us. We kept our eyes open for fish rises, for animals and their tracks, for incoming streams, for interesting mountains to climb and meadows to explore. It was difficult to fall asleep that first night, because the sun literally does not set in the early summer, it is light as day all night long; our excited minds argued with our tired bodies.

The first two weeks the grayling were still extremely hungry after the lean winter and the strain of breeding; they attacked almost anything. Since aquatic insects, mostly various caddis fly, small Chironomid, and mosquito larva were moving toward the shallows to hatch, the grayling had also moved into the shallows and were feeding voraciously. The water was crystal clear, fish were quite visible, and we would usually select the fish we wanted to catch and cast to it. Frequently grayling could be reached with a simple roll cast from shore. At other times it was easy and pleasant wading to get to the fish. The size of Dogpack Lake grayling is indeed surprising:19-20 inches was average, and larger ones are not uncommon. This is significantly larger than the grayling I had caught in Alaska. We never did figure out where all the small grayling were; probably they were hiding out from the Lake trout in the rivers and streams. They fought well, jumping into the air and making zigzag runs along the shore. The occasional grayling would head for the deep water. Nothing larger than a fiveweight rod with a seven-foot leader and a 5 X tippet is needed to have a sporting time with these delightful fish. A size 16 TDC or Pheasant Tail Nymph were my favorite wet flies, while a size 14 flying ant pattern or various caddis imitations where my most frequent choices for dry fly fishing for the grayling.

The graylings ’stomach contents were very basic: a tossed salad of various pupae and larva, plus whatever terrestrial insects they could find. A special favorite seemed to be ants, which had been blown into the water by the breeze. The larger grayling had ingested occasional small fish and snails. Grayling meat is white and firm. If filleted correctly they have few bones and are delicious to eat fried, grilled or steamed. After the first two weeks the grayling became less willing to come to the surface. But they were just as numerous in deeper water. A longer leader, a strike indicator with a nymph at the business end, and a very slow retrieve worked well.

Lake trout were not as easy to reach with flies. They were much deeper and were more choosy. But in the early morning hours they would come closer to the shore and it was possible to cast a fly to them. One of the best methods was to use a 15-18 foot leader and a strike indicator. A well tied Pheasant Tail, Hair ’s Ear, or even an AP nymph with only minimum action and lots of pauses would get strikes. Carrot nymphs and Brian Chan ’s Red Butt Chironomid also worked very well. However, the best fly for lake trout was the Woolly Bugger on a sink tip line, retrieved slowly, with pauses and twitches. When trout grabbed the fly during the retrieve, the take was very strong and decisive. At other times the trout took the wooly bugger on the sink. Such takes were always careful, hesitant, as if the trout was mouthing the fly.

Lake trout have unique ways of fighting. Frequently, when initially hooked, they provide only token resistance until they see you or the boat. Then all politeness goes out the window and a real fight begins. Although they rarely become airborne, lake trout do make very strong runs and demonstrate commendable strength. More than once they broke a brand new 5 lbs tippet. Once they are brought closer to the boat or float tube, lakers change tactics. Frequently they begin indescribable gyrations around a fixed point somewhere within their heads. As a result they either wind themselves up completely with coils from the leader, or they pull the fly out of their mouth and get away. I have seen lakers pull treble hooks out of their mouths using this method. Another method, implemented by the trout when brought toward shore, is to dive nose first into weeds or sand and thus rub the fly out of their mouth.

Although I prefer fly fishing and consider other methods of fishing to be less sporting and less fun, we nevertheless did try trolling and casting for fish. A depth indicator frequently found very large lakers 20 or more meters below the surface far too deep for effective fly fishing. Lake trout have a similar preference to that of Pacific Salmon. They grab best when the spoon is twisting wildly. I once dragged an excellent Rebel lure replica of a small fish for two hours up and down the lake without so much as a bite. I switched sizes and colors and continued trolling Rebel lures. Still nothing happened. But as soon as I changed to an enormous Crocodile Spoon, which makes exaggerated twists and spins, and commenced trolling along the same section of the lake, trout immediately grabbed the lure. I have no idea what the trout take these lures to be they certainly don ’t look like anything edible that I can recognize.

Ernie Nagy believes that these shiny, twisting lures somehow make the trout angry. They follow them from behind, snapping at their tails which, of course, are not tales, but large barbless hooks. One method used during trolling, which Ernie taught me, was to raise the rod and thus pull the lure in, and then to drop the rod tip, thus forcing the lure to fall back. Frequently it falls back right into the face of a following trout, which automatically grabs it and gets hooked. Closer to shore, to my surprise, large plastic worms with wiggly tails also attracted trout. However, the trout would bite the tail off and not get caught until I began attaching cheater hooks. That solved the problem. Although because of the white nights, there was no visible difference in the amount of light day or night; I found that larger trout would bite more between 5:00 and 7:00 a. m. than at any other time.

Trout feed heavily on snails, nymphs, shrimp (scuds), and smaller fish. Since they have only about 3 1/2 months to eat and store necessary fat for the coming 8 1/2 months of lean winter, they eat prolifically, utilizing any available protein; they are even willing to scavenge. Thus, large lakers can be caught on the bottom by baiting a hook with fish guts or pieces of meat left after cleaning fish. Not surprising, the larger trout are usually found in deeper water. Lake trout are slightly different to clean than rainbow trout. They have very sharp teeth and sharp growths on their gills. The meat may be lighter or darker, depending on what the particular fish has been feeding on. If fried with the skin left on, the meat tends to curl up in the frying pan. But if the skin is taken off, then this does not happen.

Living in the wilderness and at times experiencing rather cold evenings and nights, we learned that fish heads, tails, and fins are great for fish soup, which, in turn, is a very pleasant way in which to warm up on a cold evening. We also learned that anointing the fish inside and out with vegetable oil (preferably olive oil), sprinkling it with liberal amounts of lemon pepper, wrapping it in aluminum foil, and dropping it into hot coals after a campfire provides a delicious, warm finger food with easily detachable bones.

Since we spent four weeks in the wilderness, fishing was by far not our only pass time. The day would frequently start with myself getting up sometime around 5:00 in the morning, putting on the coffee pot, and going out fishing or rowing for an hour or two. This was the time that I saw the most animals. One animal, which became a regular friend, was the bald eagle. Early one morning, soon after we arrived at Dogpack Lake, I released a grayling. Tired from the fight, it rested on the surface, rather than immediately heading for deeper water. That was it’s undoing, the eagle swooped down and picked it up. After that the eagle would wait every morning, looking for a hand out. If I did not show up by 6:00 a.m., the eagle would fly to a tree close to our tents and sometimes even call for breakfast. Fish carelessly left near the camp sight before being cleaned, where also taken by the eagle. Usually everybody was still asleep when I returned and had a second cup of coffee. After breakfast our activities would begin.

We climbed some of the surrounding mountains and frequently went walking along well-used moose trails; numerous times we hiked to a small lake, which had an equally small island. Since this lake has no name on the map, so we named it "Island Lake ". In order to get to this lake it was necessary to take off our boots and ford an ice-cold, small, almost waist deep river with a rather strong current. There are no fish in Island Lake it is too shallow for fish, being no more than 1 1/2 meters deep at its lowest point. Thus, in the sever Yukon winters this whole lake turns into a solid piece of ice and any fish would be killed. However, we saw more wildlife on Island Lake than anywhere else. Mostly moose come to feed at its shores, but tracks indicated that the wolf, the bear, the fox, and the badger also visit this lake. One fun activity is to make Plaster of Paris casts of various animal and bird tracks. Back at home they are cleaned up, put into frames, and hung in the family room along with other choice photographs as a constant reminder of the wilderness.

During one of our visits my wife and youngest daughter decided to explore the shores of Island Lake. This is a leisurely 30-minute walk along the shore of this small body of water. When they returned to where they had started and noticed their own footsteps in the moist ground they could hardly believe what they were seeing a wolf had calmly followed my daughter, obviously deliberately putting his paws directly into tracks left by her boots. Canadian Gray Wolves are the stealthiest of all animals and are extremely difficult to see unless they choose to be seen. We never saw him, although he was walking behind my daughter and wife! There are also many shore birds and ducks, which frequent the lake. One shore bird would never fails to raise a loud alarm call as soon as any large animal approached. It would scream at us also, as we approached and then crossed over to the island. But as soon as we settled down on the island, the bird would cease its alarm call. Once, while my girls were quietly drawing on the island and I was reading, the bird began to call in alarm again. We looked up and saw a gorgeous lynx walking out from the forest. Because we wear olive drab clothing in the forest, and because the wind was coming toward us, the lynx was not aware of our presence. Carefully it smelled the air and observed the lake. Then slowly and majestically it walked out to the lake ’s edge, took a long drink, and lay down on the warm sand. After a while it got up and calmly walked up a hill, finally disappearing into the forest. We felt awed and privileged to have seen this rare and stealthy animal. This was only the second time that we had seen lynx.

Another time, while hiking toward this lake, the same shore bird again began its alarm call. That was surprising, because we were still quite a distance away from the lake and the bird could not have seen us. But as we walked around one of the hills we ran into a young grizzly bear, coming in the opposite direction. That explained the bird ’s alarm call! Surprised, both the bear and our party stopped some twenty meters from each other. The bear stood up on its hind legs, almost as if to count how many of us where blocking his path, then turned around and galloped back up the moose trail. I suppose that four of us were more than he wanted to challenge! Because there are many grizzly bears in the area, we never went hiking into the taiga without a fully loaded 7 mm rifle in our hands.

Carrying this heavy canon was extremely uncomfortable, but it was a wise safety precaution and it did give us a sense of security. Thank God we never had to even point the rifle at any bear. We did, however, have one very close encounter with a grizzly. It happened at 10:30 p. m. We were already in our sleeping bags and my wife and oldest daughter were already asleep. Suddenly there was the sound of heavy hoofs running right through our camp. It sounded very much like a moose. Carelessly, without taking the rifle, I got up and went outside to see what was going on; my youngest daughter joined me. We could see no moose, but some 50 meters away we saw the largest bear I had ever seen in my life, slowly walking away from our camp. It was so huge that at first I thought there were two bears side by side. The large male grizzly stopped, slowly sniffed the air, then turned around and came directly toward us. We dove back into the tent, woke up my wife and other daughter, I grabbed the rifle, pushed the safety off, and with adrenaline pumping, waited for the bear to rip open our tent or to begin demolishing the second tent with all our food. I waited for about 15 minutes; nothing happened. Carefully I walked out the tent and checked for the bear. He was nowhere to be seen. The next morning the tracks told us what had happened. The bear had been chasing a moose, but the moose escaped by running through our camp and into a swampy area west of our tents. Although a grizzly can outrun a racehorse, a moose, because of its tall legs, can swim and go through swamps faster than any grizzly. When the moose entered our camp and then ran off into the swampy area, the bear did not follow. It turned and headed across the meadow toward a small ridge. Then it changed its mind, and came back. The bear had come to within 15 meters of our camp. Following an old moose trail the huge grizzly made a right turn and walked off into the forest. By walking past our camp, so close to our tents, yet never touching them, the bear gave us a clear signal. It was very much aware of our presence and of the presence of our food. But this was not an American park bear, which are so used to people, that they have lost much of their natural fear of humans and frequently do not hesitate to check our pocket contents, our cars, and our freezers for a free meal. What we saw was an unusually large wilderness male grizzly, which, despite being obviously aware of our food cache, had no desire to tangle with human beings. Its message was clear: it was willing to tolerate our presence in its territory and leave us alone as long as we left it alone. We subsequently saw this bear ’s tracks many times, but the grizzly never bothered us.

Once, while up on a high mountain, my wife and daughters ran into the only animal more dangerous than a grizzly a cow moose with a calf. This cow faced its intruders, spread its front legs and looked directly at then. Again the message was clear: protecting its calf, it would not permit my wife and children to cross the high alpine meadow and reach the path leading down the mountain. This forced them to make a long detour and a very difficult descent down a mountainside covered with thick alder and aspen. At Larry Nagy’s invitation my oldest daughter and I undertook a hike to Tincup Lake. We went around the south end, following a river. What we thought would be a four-hour hike took us seven and a half hours just to get to their lake. There we got into a canoe, which Ernie had left for us, and rowed another three or four miles. A strong wind was blowing in our faces, and the lake was frothing with white caps. Although we are experienced in canoeing, rowing against this wind was very difficult. Twice we stopped to rest and eat a chewy bar for energy. Only when we were some 100 yards from the lodge did Ernie spot us through a telescope and towed us in with one of the lodge boats. We were exhausted, and no wonder the wind was so strong that none of the guests had gone out fishing that day.

Larry flew into Dogpack Lake and brought my wife and other daughter to join us at Tincup Lodge. We had a great supper together and an unforgettably wonderful evening full of laughs, jokes, and sharing tales of wilderness experiences. In the morning, after breakfast, Ernie took us by boat to the south end and we hiked back to Dogpack Lake. During the hike the sky turned dark with ominous clouds, the winds picked up, and it started to rain. Because we were in the forest, the wind did not bother us and we waited out the rain under a big tree. When we got back to Dogpack Lake, we could hardly believe our eyes: the whole lake was the color of coffee with milk and there were many freshly broken branches and fallen trees all around. One tree fell within feet of our tent. Inside the tent everything, which had been stored on the shelves was strewn on the floor. As we subsequently found out, a hurricane-like storm had suddenly hit both lakes. Back at Tincup Lake the heavy boats where tossed seven feet up the shore. Fortu Dogpack 18 nately, Larry had flown off on business, otherwise his Helio floatplane would have been trashed. We went boating, took tons of pictures, and gathered and dried as many of the local flowers as we could. We found that with each week there were new flowers to be found, with bursts of new colors and shapes. One week a meadow would be yellow and white with flowers. The next week the Fire Weed bloomed, and the meadows turned reddish purple.

My wife is a professional artist and both my daughters love to draw. Thus, they spent much time drawing from nature as well as creating very amusing cartoons of some of the daily life in the wilderness. When they made their daily entries into their diaries, they frequently peppered them with cartoons and caricatures Almost every night we had a visitor the porcupine. It would crawl under the wooden floor of the tent cabin and begin noisily gnawing on the plywood. This would continue for hours. Sometimes two or three would come and create a ruckus, fighting and arguing for hours. We tried to think of a way to chase the porcupines away without hurting them. I tried bribing him with carrots, but he would only smell the carrot, click his sharp incisors, and insulted me by trying to urinate on me! Finally we all agreed that we had had enough; I came outside, leaned under the tent cabin, and sprayed him with bear spray. The porcupine left, but the pepper spray somehow came up through the cracks in the floor and choked us the whole nightlong. For about four days we had peace and quiet at night, but then the porcupine came back. We admitted defeat and left him alone.

However, after the big storm we pulled some of the fallen trees up along side the tent and prevented the porcupine from crawling under our tent. The porcupine then started chewing on the other tent floor, but that did not bother us as much. It rains frequently in the Yukon. Once it rained for four days and four nights without stopping. On such rainy days we relaxed by playing cards, drawing, or reading. We all brought books of both a classical and a spiritual nature, and almost every day we would dedicate at least an hour to reading. The idea was to use this wonderful wilderness to feed the intellect as well as the soul. When it rained, we would read that much more. I also used the rainy periods as an opportunity to hone my weak fly tying skills, teaching myself how to tie various fly patters, and to refill my fly box. Frank Amato’s book Flies of the Northwest proved to be an excellent manual. It also gave me an opportunity to experiment with new materials and create new variations of old flies, based on what I was learning in the Yukon.

We also had family discussions about life in general, about how we handle some of our personal problems, how we react to life ’s difficulties, how we can further improve our thoughts, our reactions, our relationship with each other and with our own selves. We would use this opportunity to reexamine our goals and reset our hierarchy of values. We thus let the wilderness heal the scars of living in 21-st century western "civilization". There was never a bored moment or any regret at being there. What we did regret was having to leave Dogpack Lake and the Yukon. According to our family tradition, we cleaned up our site at Dogpack Lake, making sure that there are as few signs of our stay as possible, and that our camp site is cleaner than when we first found it. We sat in sad silence during the drive back to Whitehorse.
Upon coming home we made a pact to return if at all possible to the Dogpack and Tincup Lakes. Early the next year Jose called and said she was driving to our area in order to again represent Tincup Lake Lodge at the International Sportsmen ’s Exposition. We invited her to stay at our home. Seeing Jose was simply great and it gave us the opportunity to return the warm hospitality, which she had shown us in the Yukon. Some friends and I helped her set up the booth and my daughters and I helped man the booth during the show. Toward the end of the show Larry flew down and we had an opportunity to discuss our second trip. Jose told us that Ernie had surgery and would not be able to come to Tincup this year. She invited my daughters to stay and help out at the lodge. It was too good to pass up and they, of course, agreed.

Returning to Tincup and Dogpack Lakes this year was coming home for us. This time we traveled lighter, bringing less food and eliminating unnecessary clothes and other equipment. My wife bought two new camera lenses and took many roles of pictures. We initially spent some time at Tincup Lake, where one of the guides, Ron Chambers, and I went looking for pike. It turned out to be too late for their breeding season, but we found some large trout and landed a number of lakers in the 15-20 pound class. We learned something interesting: contrary to popular opinion, lake trout do feed off the surface! The fish that were feeding in the middle of the lake were not grayling, but lakers! This was something totally new for me. The larger fish continued to hug the bottom. Again, the fly of Dogpack 20 choice was the Woolly Bugger with a few variations. I had added a few Flashabou strings to the marabou tail. With the perpetual darkness of the deep these strands of Flashabou are supposed to catch and reflect what little light there may be at such depths. Also I heavily weighted the fly, and tied on bead chain eyes not only for the purpose of sinking the fly quicker and deeper, but also because this seemed to make the fly more attractive. The Tincup Woolly, as we named this fly, calls for an extra long hook shank the longer the better so that the marabou can be tied half way up the hook. The hook curve and the marabou tail ends are about equal with each other. This method prevents short strikes a frequent problem when fishing for lakers in deeper water. Ron and I noticed that this fly was very attractive to the large lake trout. Over and over again it would get strikes and fish when other flies and lures failed. We both watched as time and again trout would come dashing out of the deep or the cover to carelessly inhale the fly. I observed as a 15+ lbs trout made a bee-line run of about 15 yards just to take the Tincup Woolly. Each time they would completely inhale the fly, turn and head back to where they came from; there were no hesitations. One fish was so large that it took out almost all of my 200 meter backing in its initial run, before going into gyrations and spitting out the fly. Thanks to Ron I had one of the greatest fishing days of my life. There are huge fish in that lake!

This year there were some changes at Dogpack Lake. The grayling were no longer as eager to feed from the surface. But the trout were much more abundant and more willing to take flies. It was fun trying to land a large laker on a size 18 fly with a 7 X tippet. Some trout were so much darker; they almost appeared to be a different species. It had been an unusually wet spring and the mosquitoes were thicker than ever. This, of course, provided for better fishing the stomach contents of both the grayling and the trout was filled mainly with mosquito and midge larva, as well as small snails. This in turn clearly indicating which fly to tie up and cast in. The TDC and the YDC, along with a black AP nymph became favorite patters. This year I took a 3 weight, four-piece backpacker ’s Elk Horn rod for the grayling, and was extremely pleased with this equipment. It provided for a much sportier play and was much easier to cast.

One of the eagles was a bit wearier of us this year, but the larger female seemed to remember us and took many of our fish. Two juvenile eagles also appeared at both Lakes. The bear came to watch us land and also to check out our boats for leftover fish. Bear tracks came right up to our campsite, but again, we had no trouble with them. We saw more moose with calves this year and there were more mountain sheep to be seen with the optics. One night a moose grazed right in the middle of our campsite. A wolf was sighted at Tincup Lake, but the wolves did not howl for us. We did not see any lynx this year, but a moose came so close to us at Island Lake, that a few feet more and we could have touched it. The weather was quite a bit cooler and wetter, twice we had hail and once we even thought we had a bit of snow all this in July! Wading rivers in freezing weather was quite an experience.

A number of times Larry flew in guests to Dogpack Lake and left them with us for the day. One such party of guests was Hans van Klinken and his delightful wife Ina. Introducing Hans, Larry said that he was one of the officers of the European Grayling Society and was hoping to catch some grayling and whitefish. I greeted him with the words "Welcome to Paradise ". And a grayling fisherman ’s Paradise it was. Hans later said that never before had Dogpack 22 large grayling attacked his streamers. But the whitefish proved illusive and difficult to catch. Hans is an innovative fly tier and his unique, immaculately neat patterns worked better than anything I had. He was kind enough to give me a set of his flies; but I have no intention of using them. They should be framed and hanging in a museum of art. Almost everything Hans uses for fishing and fly tying he made himself. Even his whip finisher and his bobbin are the work of his hands. A true professional fisherman, Hans enjoys spreading the fly fishing gospel and watching people excel at this exciting, yet peaceful, rhythmic sport.

Ina van Klinken is not only an accomplished fly fisherwoman herself, but also is the main photographer. While we were getting ready to fish, a bear chased a young moose into the lake about 200 meters away. As the moose swam to the other shore, Ina and I jumped into the boat and caught up with the animal. Trying not to scare the animal too much we circled around the moose and Ina took many pictures. Because she is able to combine an active love for the outdoors with gentleness and femininity, my whole family quickly came to consider Ina one of our favorite people.

One day Larry flew in and took my wife and me pike fishing in Brooks Arm. We caught many pike, mostly on flies. My wife caught the largest, approximately a 10 pounder. Pike fillets, when carved out correctly, have no bones and are delicious to eat. For two days we ate pike and could not get enough of this delicacy. About a week later Larry and Jose took some time off from the lodge and also went fishing for pike at Brooks Arm. Jose caught a huge pike that must have been well over 35 pounds. This fish is slated to be mounted and placed on the wall of the main Tincup Lake Lodge building. Some lake trout over 30 lbs were caught this year immediately outside the lodge, where a small river runs into the lake. During the last week of our stay our two daughters moved to Tincup Lake Lodge and worked there under Jose ’s supervision. Jose is an accomplished gourmet artist in her own right, featured in West European cuisine magazines. The girls learned much from Jose and developed a new, more mature appreciation for the task of running a lodge successfully. After my wife and I left, our daughters stayed another 10 days, helping out at the lodge, before flying back to California. They had never met anyone with so much laughter, enthusiasm, and professional skills. Larry’s idea of opening up the lodge for winter sports recreation, such as ice fishing, cross country skiing, or dog sledding wets our appetite. There is endless potential here. With his love for the outdoors and his knowhow, the sky is the limit in what will be done at this location, all the while leaving it as pristine, wild, and isolated as it is today. We all wish we could have stay longer.

Much longer.

Forever.