April 14, 2021 – Sadly, No New Information

Hi All,

We are quickly approaching May and the start of our season, and as the title suggests, we still don’t know what to expect for this summer. It seems all decisions are still being made one month at a time without any information given about a long range plan or what to expect over the summer. All we know for sure is that the border is closed until April 21, with the possibility of another 30 day extension. Additionally, on April 8, Ontario went into another province wide stay at home order closing all but essential businesses for 28 days. Nothing has been announced officially but I would guess with our current situation that we will see the border closed for a couple more months, at the very least. We are remaining hopeful that we will see it open sometime this summer, but it is impossible to tell.

I have been receiving emails inquiring about the status of the border almost daily, and as happy as I am to touch base with everyone we unfortunately don’t have access to any insider information as outfitters. I really only know as much as you can learn from a quick Google search of the border closure. Of course I am more than happy to answer any questions anyone may have, and it is really nice to chat with guests who we haven’t been able to see in over a year, I sadly don’t have much to offer in terms of answers. If you are looking for info on the border closure the best thing I can suggest is to just give it a quick Google every once in a while, and we will be sure to update our blog the second we learn anything valuable.

We also have not heard anything about whether or not proof of vaccination will be required to cross the border. If I had to take a complete guess, I would expect it to be required, at least in the beginning. If you are planning on coming up for your reservation (assuming an open border) I would recommend getting the vaccination as soon as possible just to be safe. I wouldn’t think that proof of vaccination would be required forever, but I imagine the border will open incrementally, and will include certain restrictions to start. Again, this is just a guess and not based on any official announcements.

Well enough of the depressing and serious stuff. Things around here have been really good, despite being back in another lockdown. Lindsay and I had been keeping busy with ice fishing and a couple of trips down to our hunting cabin in Barwick to start doing some more work on the property in anticipation of this deer season. We have started cutting a few new shooting lanes and moving a few stands around now that we have spent a year there and are learning about the deer’s behavior a bit.

It started warming up considerably in March, and we lost pretty much all of our snow and ice in early April. We had lower than normal snowfall this year and the water levels seem to be very low everywhere so we are hoping for some rain to help bring them up a bit and to help prevent forest fires this season, as we did not get the normal amount of spring run off. That wish has been granted for the past week or so as we have gotten some rain almost daily, and yesterday and today it turned to a small amount of heavy wet snow that I wouldn’t expect to be here for more than a day or two.

Lindsay and I tried to get into camp last week and were met by relatively good amounts of snow on some of the shadier corners of the road, so we decided to not risk getting stuck and turned around. It seems there is always a little more snow up there and it always takes about a week or two longer to melt than it does in Ignace. I imagine with all of this rain we have gotten that all of the snow will be gone up, but the road will likely be muddy and we will let it dry out a bit before attempting to go back for fear of making ruts.

Otherwise we are spending our spring getting ready to get out in a boat in a couple of the lakes around town we like to fish and don’t get the chance to once we get busy at camp. We have a few lakes around stocked with Brook Trout, and one near Dryden stocked with Rainbow Trout. They aren’t very big but are fun to catch and are delicious to eat. We are also hoping to get to Thunder Bay to do some spring Rainbow fishing and Smelt dipping in the streams flowing into Superior, if this current lockdown ends.

Well I think that is all, I hope everyone is doing well and staying healthy. We hope to be able to see everyone this summer!

Ryan