If there’s one thing that I wish I did more of over the summer, its take photos. Despite having to buy more storage for my phone midsummer, I still scroll through my camera roll and know I only caught a fraction of all the things my friends Taya, Logan, Nick and I experienced on and off work. Here is a timeline of some photos and videos since May to show some of what we did and saw over the summer.
May 17: The first spot the four of us fished at was Winagami lake. I caught three little pike that evening making for a good start to the season.
May 22: On this weekend I drove a couple hours north of town to a remote lake. The morning was nothing but clear skies and glassy water, but when I got to the farthest end of the lake that changed. A storm rolled in, so I got off the water and took cover in the bush to wait it out. It was all good until the wind started howling, at which time hunkering under the trees became just as dangerous as paddling on the water. The best bet was to sit on the boggy shore until the wind died down, which it eventually did and there was not a single ripple on the water during the paddle back.
June 4: In the spring months I tried to fill a bear tag but had no luck. Finding any bear sign was tough, never mind an actual bear. Most of the bear dens we found doing layout were flooded, which could explain why there weren’t many bears around. As per usual hunting wasn’t all for nothing even if I didn’t fill a tag. I still saw lots of other game, found some sheds, and found a spot to pick saskatoons.
June 13: This was the best day of fishing I had all summer. Nick and I caught lots of fish all evening, but the last hour was the best. I threw my line right on the edge of the shoreline, and in a second, I had a fighter on the end of my line. When I brought it into the boat it was a real nice pike. Not long after I went to deeper water and caught a 68” walleye, the next cast bested that with a 71” walleye. In that one evening I caught my biggest pike and walleye to date.
July 5: We were starting to layout a new compartment, so some days were spent doing access. Finding access means lots of quadding, clearing trail and taking different cutlines until we can get into every block. Lots of our blocks were over an hour away by quad followed by a lengthy dead walk.
July 8: This day ranked in my top three layout days. I spent the morning streaming this large permanent river, which I didn’t get to do very often. While working I watched grayling rise to the surface of the water and saw so much elk sign it made me giddy.
July 13: There were some days we had to do something aside from layout, such as the few days we spent picking scentless chamomile at one of our stockpiles. Scentless chamomile is an invasive species, so we had to pick it to prevent it from spreading. With two days of rigours picking, we removed 36 garbage bags of chamomile from the stockpile.
July 29: As much as I love being in the bush looking at the standing aspen, the log yard is always a cool place to be. One of my favourite sights is watching loaded log trucks roll through town, drop logs off at the yard, then seeing shipping trucks leave the mill with stacks of OSB.
August 3: After laying out roads and log decks for a day, my supervisor Dylan showed us some logging and road building equipment. He explained the purpose of the bunchers, skidders, processors and how they worked. It was very interesting seeing what progress the contractors had made on the road since the previous week we were there.
August 9: In one block we were laying out, there was tonnes of deer sign everywhere and I had bumped multiple deer that morning. I was crossing my fingers all day that I would find a shed, then over the radio Taya enthusiastically told me Logan had found a nice deadhead. I couldn’t let him be the only one with a shed, so I kept my eyes peeled and sure enough one eventually appeared at my feet. Logan wasn’t too happy when he saw mine was bigger.
August 14: The Simonette river never disappoints. The water is crystal clear and the perfect temperature for a swim. It’s a great after work stop or good place to spend a weekend. If we are in that area it’s also hard not to shop at Trapper Gords, or get some doughnuts at the Crooked Creek General Store.
These are only a handful of photos from over the summer. With only a week left I’ll be doing my best to taking a lot more. I already know when winter rolls around and I’m back to school, I’ll be scrolling fondly through my camera roll to remember the best summer I have ever had.
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