May 5th, 2005: I took the 185 on floats to Joint Lake yesterday and saw no ice on any lakes until about 50 miles south of Bolton Lake! Kitchi Lake has no ice, Bolton has more open water than we did May 25th last year, Joint Lake is open in the river and along the shore of the main lake, and Aswap is mostly open except in the larger sections. Everything will be on time as this week the weather is great and what’s left of the ice is very rotten. Conservatively, I’d say by the middle of next week we’ll be free of ice everywhere.

The guys are making excellent progress on the cabin at Joint Lake. I motivated them with a 20 piece bucket of KFC, so the work will be finished by next week. There’s still plenty of space and the cabin looks great! We’ll have to return with the plumber and the rest of the supplies for the season before the guests arrive, but not having to worry about ice or a wet airstrip will make opening a lot easier this year. Brian is at Bolton packing the airstrip and the mechanics are flying up tomorrow. Our new generator, quads and furniture will be flying up in about 10 days.

Here are some pictures of the cabin at Joint: