Ursula, Sam, and Archie

Archie goes fishing

Well, in the words of my mother, life is never dull. Through sheer endurance, Claire and I finished the August golder water sampling yesterday so that I have time for one last kick at the can at Louie Lake.

Louie Lake is my nemesis. I need charr from this lake. I set nets in exactly the same place as last year, on exactly the same date. Nothing. Maril and I angled. Nothing. Electrofished. Nothing. We kick netted for FOUR HOURS and did not catch a SINGLE mysid. NOT ONE.

So, I have renamed Louie Lake. It is now the futile lake of death. And I am giving it one last effort.

Today we flew out there and I asked the pilot to fly around and look for thel bear that is usually fishing in the rapids. We had even brought out a 2000 dollar SLR digital camera from one of the site supers in camp in case we could get good shots. We located the bear and started chasing him a few miles north. He always comes back, but it buys us time to get the boat out of the cargo net and in the water. Speaking of which, LRB (leaky red boat) becomes the *escape pod* when bears are around. Escape pods are important.

In any case, the bear was relocated slightly north of Louie Lake and our pilot (Wayniac on this day) went to land us.

Wayniac: “Is that another bear? That’s two more bears!!”

Claire: “Do you think we could get a little closer for a picture?”

Wayniac: “First I want to herd them all up and move them together.”

[Yes, that’s right. There are now so many bears that we are talking about herding them. HERDING BEARS? Give me a break. Are you serious?]

Heidi: “Perhaps we should let camp know that you’re going to be late getting back?”

So, we radio camp and tell them that the heli is going to be late returning.

Response: “Oh, that actually works out really well for us. We need the helipad for another machine.”

Claire: “SAY WHAT?” (off the radio). “Who says that?”

Heidi: “Yup, that’s right. Let’s take stock. There are 3 bears, 2 girls, 1 shotgun, and 1 happy logistics person. Perfect. And probably no charr. RATS. Where’s the third bear?”

So with two of the bears north of our site and the third unaccounted for, Wayne wisely decided to leave us on an island while he slung the boat over. Excellent strategy. As I alluded to above, the key to a good bear strategy is an escape pod. LRB arrived and we moved to the lake. We named the bears Ursula (mom), Archie (cub 1), and Sam (cub 2) while we were waiting for the boat and munching on our lunch. The boat arrived and our pilot checked one last time for bears.

Wayne: “Heidi, you can check Ursula approximately 3 miles north and closing.”

Heidi: “F-WIS, you can check leaky red boat out of the cargo net and onto the lake of futile death.”

Tundra math: 3 bears + 2 girls + 1 shotgun = 0 tundra naps. Well, at least no tundra naps on LAND.