The Li'l Champs Are Getting Bigger

Joanna's new litter of 8 puppies has some champion breeding coming from four time Iditarod winner Doug Swingley lines. She is very excited about these puppies and how they may perform in the future for her dog sled races. They will soon be seven weeks old and are in one of the cutest stages of growth. Joanna is often taking interested guests up to the dog yard to show them off. It helps with their socialization too.

Joanna had quite a scare when she took Sparrow, the mother, down to breed her to one of Doug Swingley's champion sled dogs, north of the Duluth, MN area. She took Sparrow into the pen where she was to stay during the breeding process. Inadvertently, the gate was left partially unlatched and when Joanna was looking the other way, Sparrow somehow slipped out and took off. Joanna suddenly noticed she was gone and frantically ran in search of her. Sparrow wasn't in the parking lot or yard, so she looked toward the road and there she was. This all took place in February when the roads were icy and it was very cold out.

Though Joanna called to her, Sparrow was very spooked being in a strange place and would not come to her. She was in the middle of the road and an approaching vehicle tried to stop to keep from hitting her. When they hit the brakes they began to slide and almost ran into Joanna. This caused Sparrow to run toward the intersection of a busier road three quarters of a mile away. I guess she had had enough of this experience and was headed back to Canada. Joanna was getting nervous thinking she could lose her special dog in this unexpected scenario.

The man helping Joanna with the breeding had the foresight to jump in his pickup truck and head over to get Joanna. They raced down the road to catch up to Sparrow. In the meantime, Sparrow ran in front of another car. Eventually Joanna and her helper were able to go around her in their vehicle to get ahead of her. Immediately Joanna hopped out of the pickup to intercept her. She called Sparrow to her, but in her panic state she didn't recognize Joanna. As Sparrow tried to run around Joanna, she grabbed for her and touched her. That seemed to snap Sparrow out of her fear mode and she recognized Joanna, came back and crawled on her lap. Joanna's relief was immense.
Then it was back to business and a successful breeding took place. Whew!

The top three pictures are when they were first born, the rest are more recent.

Ice Out

A few days ago the ice went out on Indian Lake. We noticed big chunks of floating ice moving downstream on the river and into the rapids under the bridge. So, we went over to the top end of Indian where there is a little camp spot to take some pictures. We wanted all our guests to be informed of this great event and see it for themselves.

Another interesting and exciting event is the running of fish. This year we finally hit the moment dead on and Joanna took some great pictures for you to see. One bridge we went to had all suckers which is what these two pictures show. But another bridge had an abundance of walleyes. At night we could see their eyes sparkling like gems through the dark water. What a sight!

That's about all everyone needs to know; the lake is open, ready to be fished and there are plenty of fish to be had.

Licenses and Bait

A change has taken place concerning Vern's Minnows in Ignace. The business has been sold and moved to a new location. Gene's Shell station purchased and now houses the Bait/tackle store, which is right on Hwy 17 in downtown Ignace. Their phone number is 807-934-2225 should you need to contact them.

There is another place in Ignace where you can buy licenses, bait and tackle along with some very unique gifts. It is called Black Bear Gifts and is located next door to Gramma's Supermarket in Ignace on Hwy 17. Their phone number is 807-934-6792.

Be sure you purchase your licenses and bait before coming out to camp.

See you soon.

Back From Vacation

Joanna and I just returned from a very relaxing and refreshing three week vacation to Florida, along with our other daughter, Cherish Oberg who lives in Ely,MN. The first leg of our stay was a condo at New Smyrna Beach, where my sister, Nicki joined us for the week. Nicki and I used to surf there in our teen years, so it has always been a memorable place to go back to. We still try to get up and ride smaller waves on our surfboards. We call ourselves the surfing Grandmas.

From surfing to sunbathing to boogey boarding to beach walks to tennis to shopping, we girls had the time of our lives. The weather couldn't have been more perfect with 75-85 degree sun shining days every day. Cherish and Joanna spent a lot of time riding the waves on their boogey boards. I thought they were going to get water logged they stayed out there so long. On several occasions, we had the treat of watching porpoises catching waves nearby us, jumping high in the air and splashing about. They put on quite a show.

After our week at the beach, we moved inland to stay at Nicki's house which is located in a peaceful neighborhood of Cassleberry, Florida on a small, placid lake. We had several nice visits with her son, Scott and wife Genny and of course little three year old Sydney. Another exciting adventure was our visit to Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios at Disneyworld. The African Safari was my favorite. Being up close to animals you would see in the wilds of Africa was a rare treat.

We also had a lively visit with my brother Ron, whom Cherish and Joanna hadn't seen in quite a few years. And on the way home, we visited with John's brother, the cousins and John's mother who all live at Timber Wolf Point Resort in Buyck,MN.

All in all we would say it was a terrific vacation and one which we will always remember. Now it's on the fast track as we prepare for opening fishing and welcoming all our wonderful guests back to camp.