CARETAKER’S BLOG VOLUME IV
5 Star Gangler’s North Seal River Lodge in winter’s grasp
Hi everyone. For those who don’t know me, my name is Ryan Yaskiw. This is my sixth season with Ganglers, and fourth winter care-taking shift. I choose to do the mid winter relief portion for both the challenges of existing up here during this time-frame, and the extreme solitude and isolation the job offers. Anyone who has met me here in the summer and fall will know how fondly I speak of the opportunity to come care-take, and I was beyond excited when Ken said there would be a shift for me this winter.
After some weather related delays I flew to the main lodge to replace Ben January 17th. This year our turnover transportation was a helicopter. While this made the flight substantially longer, it also offered an opportunity to wildlife watch a bit more. Five moose and a handful of caribou were spotted during the flight in. Once we landed Ben and I exchanged gear in the heli, did a quick orientation, then he was off to get his burger in Thompson.
I was all alone when the helicopter flew out of my line of sight, and have now been alone now for 26 days. The first few days were spent settling in. This wasn’t a big deal as those days were also the coldest. As Ben mentioned, our solar battery bank failed. I brought up a couple of my mobile power banks as a means to provide power more efficiently. Over the first three days I set the systems up, and then monitored them. I’ve been able to dial the systems in and cut our fuel consumption down by 2/3rds and double the time electricity is available. This is a huge win considering our resources aren’t limitless.
The weather warmed up, and I was able to start enjoying my daily sanity walks after packing the trails down with the snowmobile. This went well up until the last 10 days where 20 inches of soft snow fell on top of the already existing 24 inches. This has made my hiking trails almost impassable, and an attempt to repack them yesterday went ill when the snowmobile got extremely stuck twice. Exercise is very important for the mind when a person is isolated, so I haven’t given up on the trails yet. I have a plan to pack the two challenging portions of the trails by foot so the snowmobile has something firm to stay on top of.
A person can’t stay up here without going fishing, and I’ve done a fair bit since it warmed. As usual, the mid winter cold water presents challenges, and the bite has been very hit or miss. I have had one good day, landing half a dozen hard fighting lake trout. One particular fish didn’t make it back into the lake, and became the best feed of lake trout I’ve ever had. The fish cut very orange, a sign that it was going to have a great flavour. Butter, garlic, honey, lemon and red wine were combined in a frying pan along with the fish, and the left over juices were reduced to make one of the best sauces I’ve created. Shore lunch is great, and I’m sure I’ll have a couple up here in the coming weeks. But this lake trout was beyond anything I’ve ever had fish wise.
Wildlife encounters this year has been few, with two sets of caribou tracks being the only sign of big game until three days ago. I had arrived at my fishing spot, and looked on my backtrack while setting up. I spotted something moving across the lake, and after pulling out my binoculars found it to be a black wolf. I just happened to have my drone with me, and quickly launched it to hopefully get closer than I would have using the snowmobile. I was able to close the 1.5 miles and get within 200 yards of him before the drone hit a distance limit, which was fine by me as I didn’t want to overly disturb the wolf anyways. He paced side to side a bit as he slowly walked away, aware of the drone but not overly concerned. I returned the drone to me, and got to fishing. An hour later I spotted three caribou on the lake 2 miles north, the first sightings since arriving. Then I was graced with the rest of the wolf pack as I packed up. The pack crossed the trail back home, so I took advantage of that and tried to get close using the snowmobile. These wolves clearly knew something was amiss, and all five of them bolted away as soon as I was within a mile. I was able to get low quality footage of them when I first noticed them at least.
As usual I’ll take things as they come in the coming days and weeks. I came up with my DSLR and long lens, and would love to get some still images of caribou or wolves. Ptarmigan season is still open, and I’d love to get one or two for a meal. There’s flocks around, just never when I have my .22 it seems. And of course, I’ll have to capture some Aurora photos on the warmer clear nights. Part of me hopes the next four weeks brings no visitors, but I would love to see some of the friends I’ve made the prior three years also.
That’s all for now, looking forward to sharing my adventures in the next update.
