2021 FISHING While our Master Angler and Century Club stats column may have slumped due to the lower volume of fishermen in the past two seasons, the quality of some of our boated specimens has been tremendous. Amidst the tumult of the past two seasons, one silver-lining was that our fishery got an unforeseen chance to proliferate and fatten up with unfettered and unpressured ease. That is, unless you happen to be the preferred quarry of third-generation Aikens Lake stalwart guide-in-training Martin Turenne. This strapping young man took the helm of his rig and boated some truly impressive fish. It was touching and cathartic to watch him take his grandparents, his cousins, his siblings and his little Trudel buddies out on the lake and Well, here we are in the fall of 2021, resting up after an absolute whirlwind finale to the season. As we’ll explain later, the six weeks from mid-August to late September was the best end to a season we’ve ever experienced. That said, we are not here to sugar coat it… 2021 proved to be another challenging year in the tourism industry, and for Aikens specifically. But once again the incredible “Aikens family” which consists of our guests, our staff, our volunteers, our partners and our suppliers all contributed in their own way to make the eventual success of 2021 a truly incredible story. It all started in early May. For the 2nd year in a row, we flew up to Aikens with the uncertainty of closed borders. This spring, there was an additional layer of uncertainty in the form of Provincial Health Restrictions and the start of the 3rd wave in Manitoba. “Onward into the fog”… as they say. The Trudel and Turenne families flew in on May 7th with all the kids and dogs in tow. This year, we brought a little extra help as well – if last year taught us anything it’s that we are not getting any younger and it takes more than just us to get things ready! Marcel and Kik helped us get the camp out of its slumber, then they returned home and it was just the two families again for a couple of weeks. As the kids get older, they can take on more responsibilities and it was great to have Annika and Marty pitch in more than ever. Their quad skills as we unload planes and move supplies around have become top-notch! Natasha, Oscar, and even Arthur also got in on the action and were able to stock wood boxes, fetch tools, and get things put into the right places. What a blessing it was to spend that family time with the kids. And once again, the kids caught the first trophy fish of the year. Marty took Natasha out to The Falls during “recess” in their virtual school, and they landed only one fish… a 44” monster pike, Natasha’s first trophy pike! With news that the US border closure was extended yet another month, we delayed the start of our season from May 21 to May 27th. But we still had Canadian guests coming in, so we flew in one planeload of staff on the 26th in anticipation of the first guests the following morning… but by then the 3rd wave was hitting Manitoba hard and the most restrictive health orders were unveiled that very afternoon. No guests would be arriving the following morning. We were essentially closed until the province could ride this one out. It was a strange feeling being in our little Eden while the rest of the province was under strict lockdowns. The few staff on-site were pretty thankful to have just snuck in before the announcements, and we spent the time getting more cabins and boats ready for prime time. We might even have gone out fishing once or twice – no one tell the boss, okay? Finally, on June 11th the restrictions were eased once again, and we got ready to host our first guests on June 12th. For a month we hosted groups of Canadians, although the restrictions meant that instead of having 25-30 guests in camp, we could only realistically host 8-12 at a time. Without an open dining room or bar, we were delivering food to cabins and serving happy hour drinks outdoors from our “happy cart”… the golf cart was converted to a portable bar. We are so grateful for the guests’ understanding and appreciation of 2021 YEAR our efforts. We tried our best to offer up as much of the Aikens Experience as possible, and the smiles on their faces showed us the efforts hit home. People were happy to be at Aikens, soaking in the wilderness and escaping reality for a few days at a time. Things loosened up more in July, and we were really starting to ramp up until another unforeseen roadblock hit - a travel ban for the provincial park. This was the 2nd government mandated shutdown of the season, ouch! Manitoba experienced an incredibly dry summer with critically low water levels. Once the forest fires sparked up and grew in the spring there was no stopping them. We are situated in Atikaki Provincial Park, and on July 19th, just hours after news that the US border was reopening in mid-August, we got the update that the park was going to be closing at 8:00 am the following morning until further notice. Our guests in camp were allowed to finish their trips, but once those trips had wrapped up we flew all guests and staff out except a small “fire crew” that was kept on-site. The next 3.5 weeks were a daily routine of setting up sprinklers and water pumps, clearing brush around all the buildings, and rescheduling/canceling trips for a completely different reason than we had experienced before. There were some days where the smoke was so bad we couldn’t see the other side of the Back Bay. We prayed for rain and kept daily tabs on weather forecasts, forest fire updates, and conditions. A small fire sparked up near the Lost Lake Outpost (the flames got to within 50 ft of the cabin) but the province in review One must choose to find opportunit
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