Gary Thompson's Churchill River Lodge - The End of the Road

Or so it was in the mid sixties, anyway.  Nell and I discovered the camp in July of 1964. We had followed the road on our map to Lac Laronge, which was supposed to be as far as we could drive northward.  But when we got there we learned that the road had been extended another 50 miles to the Churchill River System, which we soon found to be teeming with large Northern and walleyed pike. The Walleyes would take just about anything you jigged off the bottom and the Northerns would take anything.
    We still remember running up river in a square end canoe with an 18 horse Johnson, moving along about 15-20 mph, when a splash at the port gunnel scared the galloping geewillikers out of us.  I looked back at Sam, our Cree Indian guide, who just shook his head and said something like, "You lucky - coulda lost rod." The rod had been leaning against the gunnel with the 12 lb. test line and about a five inch long spoon hanging down over the water.  A big northern had come out of the water and hit the spoon in the air.  If he hadn't missed the hook I would have lost all my gear.  That's the way they were in the Churchill River System, back in the sixties.  Here's a few pictures I made from old dirty slides.  The quality's not the greatest, but you'll get an idea of what it was like.
    Just click on the thumbnail to get the big picture and story behind it.  Or, if you prefer, start anywhere and click from pic to pic.