Making it to the Burntwood Lake Lodge on Thursday was the plan from the beginning. I figured we'd fly in and leave Snow Lake by ten o'clock to begin our sixteen hour drive and spend the night in Winnipeg. Yeah it'd be nice to have two days. As always there was a job with a six o'clock starting time waiting on Monday. Having a whole weekend at home to clean gear and rest up would make life a lot easier.
Yes we did make pan bread though calling it bannock would've been an insult to the old timers. What we had was a couple of bags of premix I bought on line from up north in Minnesota. Would've been nice had it gone as slick as advertised. My first attempt was German as all get-out. Why not? After all, I'm half German and have a compulsive need to follow directions. Usually that's a good way to go. What the heck, the same people who the stuff together must've actually checked to see if it'd pan bake like they claimed it would by following what they wrote on the bag. Well, my first shot sure did stick to the pan, almost like the pan was supposed to be part of the bread. However, it did eat good in a kind of torn, chunked out, slightly burned on the bottom way. Second time around Allan gave the bread a shot. The difference in his method had to do with butter, lots and lots of butter. Man oh man, he floated the dough on a sea of yellow. As a result it didn't stick to the pan and there was no need to add anything to the bread but our greasy lips and teeth. Lord was it good.
Come Thursday morning we dug into the dirty clothes bag, chose our relatively best with the idea we not stink too badly, and set off under a calm overcast with intentions of paddling into the lodge by eight a.m. Once in sight of the buildings we straightened it up to set a strong rhythm and as straight a line as I could muster. Yup, should anyone be watching the idea was to fool 'em good. Seemed to be a party going on as we approached. The dock where the big Norseman float plane was moored was crowded with sports surrounding Larry. Hoping to show off and show the world we knew what we were doing, our landing was nothing short of spectacular. We smoked straight at the poled shore like true north woods maniacs. Just before we'd have smacked head on into the wood I buried a paddle, spun us a full ninety degrees, and we gently touched ashore. As it was we were the only ones to see it. Seems the crowd was more interested in what Larry had to say. I could understand that as it appeared no one was leaving for a while. The Canadian Aviation officials had temporarily shut Gogal Air down till all Larry's paperwork was checked. He assured us he'd be back in the early afternoon to cart all his customers to Snow Lake. Not knowing what else to do we pulled our canoe and gear onto the lawn and headed uphill to the main building with high hopes there was some food left in the kitchen.
Turned out there was, a full breakfast with eggs, toast, fried potatoes, ham, and juice. Yeah there was enough on each plate for two people. Oddly, as I sat wiping the dregs up with my toast I was still hungry. Made me think we burned a lot of calories in the canoe. Might even explain why our pants always fit looser at the end of a two week paddle. When I asked for the bill we were told Larry had said everything was on the house till he returned, even a boat and motor should we want. Looked like our plans were thrown off kilter but what the heck, the lodge was just short of spectacular and the food wonderful. Not bad at all.
Come lunch they fed us again. We passed time by checking out the photo albums and came to learn the Gogals had hauled all their thousands of board feet of building material by air. I guess strapping our canoe to a pontoon when leaving Snow Lake was nothing at all. Two o'clock rolled around with the news Larry wasn't returning today. Can't say I was disappointed. We were given beers during cocktail hour, showers 'cause we were well past ripe, dinner, and a room, all on the house. Tomorrow would be a misery of driving but there was nothing we could do about it but take it easy and enjoy the hospitality.
Mostly we spent a lot of time talking with the guides. Each of them took turns hoisting our kevlar canoe like they'd never seen one before. Could be they hadn't. All thought it was light as a feather and I began to fear they'd play catch with it. Come evening we were again offered a boat and motor but instead walked down to the dock to spend our hours waiting for the sun to go down. When push came to shove that's what we did best. Fishing was great but we'd had enough of that. Instead we talked of next year's trip, that is if there'd be one. Allan was done with school and on the job as a graphic designer. As far as trips went, this might be the end. As it turned out it wasn't but we didn't know that at the time. Al's future was wide open and coming up on him fast as could be, mine was growing shorter as I slowly moved toward retirement.
Larry did show up early the next morning saying something about not having crossed his T's and dotted his I's. Come the wee hours of Saturday morning we rolled into the garage, another trip of a lifetime in our past.
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