May 4th, 2008: I’ve just returned from some more freight hauling into the lodge, now all the motors, new life jackets, new boat seats, beer, pop, water, wine, beans, corn, moose head, lumber for Aswap, carpets for the cabins, tackle, Bolton Lake clothing, and miscellaneous items for the season have been flown in. Now we just have to wait for Calm Air to put their bulk fuel tanks back into the Hawker so that we can do our fuel haul. Unfortunately we’re ready for them, but they’re waiting for other camps to order fuel so that they’re not just putting the tanks in for us because it takes 16 man hours to do the job. Hopefully the price of fuel doesn’t jump another 20 cents per liter (80 cents per gallon) before we get the job started.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the weather up north has not been conducive to melting, we’ve barely made it over the freezing point during the day and it gets to an average of -10 Celsius at night so we haven’t done much melting over the past couple of weeks. The forecast is not looking good either, it’s snowing right now and temperatures are still barely getting over the freezing point. My new predicted ice out is May 21st assuming we start to get some better temperatures to melt that ice. On the bright side when we’re drilling holes in the ice the bottom foot of ice has water soaked into it which is a sign that it’s deteriorating from the bottom up.
If you booked your airline ticket well in advance you should be able to still bring 2 pieces of luggage and a rod case but there have been changes to the airlines policies on baggage allowances so be prepared to pay a bit more to bring in extra gear. I’m planning to have more rods and reels available for rental in order to help out with those who don’t want the hassle and cost of bringing their own gear.