Canada has more fresh water than any other country in the world, and with the coming of spring, hundreds of fishing lodges across the country gear up for opening day. Some rent cabins for motel-room rates. Others offer swanky packages for a thousand dollars a night. Whatever the cost, all the lodges have one thing in common: no Canadians.
For whatever reason, Canadians don't seem to go to fishing resorts. At any cocktail party, you can find people who are knowledgeable about Paris or Dublin, but you would be hard-pressed to find someone who knows the difference between a boho and a coho. This is a matter of some perplexity to foreigners. As one English woman once asked me as she threw hand-tied flies for char on an idyllic Arctic river, “Why would anyone trudge around some hot, crowded European city when they can do this?”
Perhaps many Canadians regard fishing as a sort of hoser pursuit, requiring heavy indulgence in beer, back bacon and smokes. That stereotype is no longer valid, if it ever was. Excellent food, tasteful accommodation and environmentally hip guides are now the norm at fishing lodges. Women make up a good portion of the market, and it's beginning to dawn on Canadians that they are missing out on a part of their heritage that the rest of the world has known about for some time. So whether you're after a high-end boutique experience or a rustic cabin in the northern woods, it's time to go out and get some sun on your face and a fish on the line. Here are some of the best places in Canada to do it:
Wilson's Camp
Feel like fishing? At Nimmo Bay Resort on Vancouver Island, helicopters drop anglers off. Feel like relaxing? Slip into the lodge’s hot tub simmering near a waterfall (NIMMO BAY RESORT)
Miramichi River, N.B.
For 150 years, foreign anglers have been making pilgrimages to the great Atlantic salmon camps of Eastern Canada. Some of the best are private enclaves. The Restigouche Club, for example, is a private club founded by American automotive tycoon William Dodge, the Vanderbilts and eminent architect Stanford White, a noted ladies' man who enjoyed many trips on the Restigouche River until a man whose wife he had seduced shot him at a party. Perhaps the greatest of the public salmon lodges is Wilson's Camp, on the Miramichi River in New Brunswick.
The Wilsons have been guiding anglers since 1855. Keith Wilson, the camp's current owner, says Atlantic salmon fishing is no longer an old boys' bastion. “I'm getting about 40 per cent more ladies than 10 years ago,” he says. “Women are quicker than men at learning to fly-fish. They don't overpower the fly rod and they don't mind asking for lessons.”
Two years ago, Wilson addressed the changing market by building a four-star lodge that blends old and new — an intimate dining room with a fireplace, leather furniture and a panoramic view of the river, appointed with old photos and memorabilia of the early days of the camp.
He says meals consist of delicious home-cooked fare such as “Wilson's smoked salmon” and the lodge's trademark fiddlehead soup, prepared with fiddleheads picked from the riverbank. “It's all low-fat, healthy food now. The roast turkey is a big favourite.”
He says female anglers tend to be less obsessive about fishing than men, so he keeps bicycles and canoes handy for those who want to explore the valley, which has few signs of human development except for a hiking trail along the river.
Twenty years ago, Atlantic salmon were so rare that it might take a week's work to catch one. Nowadays, thanks to the Atlantic Salmon Federation and committed locals such as Wilson, commercial nets in the North Atlantic have been bought out and wild salmon are returning to Eastern Canada. Guests at Wilson's can expect to catch a couple of high-leaping salmon a day, most of which are released. “It's up to the individual,” he says, “but no one at this camp has killed a salmon in three years.”
For more information, call 1-877-365-7962 or visit www.wilsonscamps.nb.ca. A shuttle van picks up guests at Fredericton airport for the one-hour drive to camp. Rates for three days, all inclusive, start at $2,100 a person.
Snowshoe Island Outpost Camp
Kenora, Ont.
Fly-in fishing lodges usually operate by the “American Plan,” which means guests are attended by a small army of waitresses, boat boys and fishing guides. Because of the enormous operating costs, American Plan lodges are expensive, and many guests are corporate types on work-related getaways. A more affordable option is renting an outpost camp. If you don't mind doing your own cooking and driving your own boat, you can fly to an outpost camp and have a wilderness lake all to yourself.
From Kenora, Ont., you can climb on a float plane and take off for Snowshoe Island Outpost, which is about 30 minutes to the north. If you've never ridden a bush plane into the rugged Ontario wilderness, the flight alone is worth the trip. The outpost camp is a log and timber cabin on the lakeshore, handcrafted by a local woodsman and bush pilot named Dave Schneider. “It's the perfect situation for people who appreciate independence and solitude,” Schneider says. “Families love it, old friends, people who don't spend enough time together.”
The affable Schneider flies in periodically to see how everyone is doing and drop off any groceries his guests may have forgotten. Once guests get out on the water, they discover that the fishing, as Schneider puts it, “is stupid.” Lake maps show hot spots where a hefty walleye or pike might chase the lure on every third or fourth cast. Wildlife such as eagles, loons, bears and moose are common sights. And because you're running your own show, you can break for lunch, take a swim or catch a nap whenever you feel like it. Sometimes the best part of the day occurs back at the cabin, when the sun descends, the drinks are poured and the air fills with the aroma of frying onions, corn and big slabs of fresh walleye.
For more information, call 807-224-3474 or visit snowshoeislandoutpost.com. Rates for three days, including float plane trip from Kenora, are $650 a person. Kenora can be reached either by driving from Winnipeg (two hours) or by flying directly via Bearskin Air. (Anglers bring sleeping bags, fishing tackle and groceries, and the camp provides cooking equipment, boats, life jackets and other essentials.) Nimmo Bay Resort
Nimmo Bay, Vancouver Island
In some cases, the most interesting object at a fishing lodge is the owner. Craig Murray, the owner of British Columbia's Nimmo Bay Resort, attended Upper Canada College but walked away from a white-collar career and moved to Vancouver Island, where he ended up doing stimulating work such as driving the Zamboni at the Port McNeill arena. In his mid-30s, in desperation, he built a floating house and towed it to a secluded spot called Nimmo Bay, where he and his wife, Deborah, lived year-round, foraging from the ocean and breaking ice in the morning to take their kids to the reserve school 11 kilometres away. “It was a tough time,” Murray says. “They trusted that I was going to think of something.”
One day, their pilot friend Peter Barratt dropped in to see them in his helicopter. He and Murray flew into the mountains and landed on a river bar that had never seen a white man's footprint. “We caught two big steelhead in 20 minutes,” Murray says. “And I thought, ‘Eureka, this is it.' “ Scraping together some cash, Murray built a lodge. Twenty years have passed, and it's now world-famous, the only heli-fishing resort in Canada. The cabins are nestled into the rain forest, and when the tide comes in, the ocean floods the planked boardwalks, where overhanging cedars and heavy moss create a hushed atmosphere. A waterfall tumbles down into the grotto where the hot tub simmers. In the morning, anglers board their personal helicopters and fly out through some of the most breathtaking terrain on the planet and spend the day on virtually inaccessible rivers, sometimes sharing the best fishing spots with grizzly bears.
At noon, each group's helicopter levitates them to a nearby mountaintop for a gourmet picnic of exotic cheeses, fruit, smoked delicacies and glacier-chilled wine. Evenings are spent around a bonfire, watching the sun set on the coastal mountains. Dinners are like family affairs, the lodge being small enough (18 beds) that within a day or two, you know every guest by first name. Michelle Pfeiffer and her kids have fished there. (According to Murray, “She's just a regular mom.”) So have many noted entrepreneurs, executives and TV celebrities. A recent episode of Boston Legal was set at Nimmo Bay Resort, and William Shatner called it “the best fishing lodge in the world.”
For more information, call 1-800-837-4354 or visit www.nimmobay.com . Via Pacific Coastal Airlines, fly to Port Hardy, and catch the Nimmo Bay helicopter. Rates for three days of heli-fishing are $5,995 a person.
Special to The Globe and Mail
