AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2011 - 68

and GA pilot living in Houston, has been flying here since he was a child. “Flying is something that was a part of life for our family when I was growing up,” he said. “Coming places like this was just normal. It’s only much later that I began to appreciate the tremendous effort my parents made to provide us with such extraordinary experiences at such young ages.” With the eagles The weather turned atrocious the next day with heavy rain, thunder, and powerful east winds pushing whitecaps on

normally placid portions of the lake. This is the first year that Arctic Lodges has had an Internet connection, and I watched the weather forecasts with interest. It would have been nice to wait out the weather and keep fishing until the sun came out. But a large group was scheduled to fill the cabins in a few more days, and Rose and I had other work and family obligations at home. Rain and low clouds were expected to continue for several days at Reindeer Lake, but the forecast was much more promising 100 miles south. A break in

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the weather at noon the next day gave us an opening, and we decided to take it. We’d been at the lake less than 72 hours. I filed a VFR flight plan by phone to Flin Flon, and Ray Littlechilds humored us by letting us catch a few more fish from his boat before racing to the airstrip on a jarring, high-speed ride through intermittent rainsqualls. Soon we were loading our soaked gear into the airplane. I’d practiced simulated soft-field takeoffs in the Bonanza on the northbound flight, but now it was time to do one for real. I taxied slowly and at low power to decrease the chances of picking up a stray rock and damaging the prop, and then performed the run-up checklist at reduced power for the same reason. With the long runway there was no need to bring the engine to full power immediately, so I very gradually pushed the throttle forward during the takeoff roll and held the yoke aft. The stall warning horn chirped as the main wheels lifted off the gravel surface, and the airplane accelerated through the cool, choppy air. We overflew the lodge to let Littlechilds know we were airborne and on our way south along with the geese and the eagles we’d watched during the previous days. True to the forecast, the skies parted about 45 minutes later and it was sunny and clear at our fuel stop. The remoteness and isolation of the Canadian landscape had spooked me on the way up, and I’d actually turned down a direct routing in order to remain on the airways. But we’d take a straightline course south over Lake Manitoba and the wheat fields of Saskatchewan that would allow us to reach the United States nonstop. On the way up we had filed an IFR flight plan and eAPIS computer customs notification of our impending return from Flin Flon, and four hours later, we touched down in Duluth, Minnesota. The U.S. Customs agent scanned our airplane with a Geiger counter and seemed incredulous that we didn’t bring any fish home with us, but Rose and I thought it better to leave them in Reindeer Lake where they’d have plenty of company. Hopefully, we’ll return someday and see them again. E-mail the author at dave.hirschman@ aopa.org.
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2011

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