A Canadian fishing paradise

A float plane is the only way to North Knife Lake Lodge. Photo credit: Harv Sawatzky.

In the polar bear capital of the world, there is tranquillity, a chance to view the Northern Lights and the irresistible lure of big trout and pike fishing.

The Champs Elysees. Rodeo Drive. The Ginza. Copacabana Strand.

To the world's list of illustrious addresses, I'd like to nominate an addition: 97W longitude by 58N latitude. It's all a bush pilot needs to home in on North Knife Lake Lodge, a fly-in fishing paradise in Canada's Manitoba province just south of Churchill, the polar bear capital of the world.

Lucky guy: Fisherman Bob Mehsikomer lands a trout in the 30-pound range.

Life is a series of choices. Consider sound. You could choose the buzz of several million people, the rumble of congested traffic, the persistent jangle of the telephone, and nonstop music pouring from stores, cars, elevators, offices and home stereo units. You could just as easily opt for the silence of a countless million spruce trees, wind swooshing through branches, water lapping at a virgin shore, and the occasional mournful cry of a loon.

If the siren song of peace and solitude calls you, North Knife Lake Lodge will fill the bill beyond your wildest dreams. Fisherfolk wax poetic over the enormous pike and trout that all but leap onto your lines. Less industrious guests luxuriate in the silence. Nothing breaks the spell. No phones. No television. Not even a radio blemishes the serenity.

The great outdoors is not my usual style, but the lure of tranquillity and big fish was irresistible. My first morning revealed you can take the girl out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the girl. As I wolfed down homemade cinnamon buns, sausages, omelet and Manitoba's Red River cracked wheat hot cereal laced with cream and maple syrup, owner Doug Webber chatted with a group of businessmen who had come for some trophy fishing. The topic of conversation was a beaver that had arrived the night before.

It didn't seem so remarkable. Canada's beaver population has been famous since the 18th Century when the Hudson Bay Company supplied pelts for European fur fanciers. I voiced my bewilderment, and blue eyes brimming with contained amusement at my wilderness naivete, Doug explained they were talking about a slightly different beast-- the red and yellow Beaver pontoon plane moored beside the dock, lifeline to civilization in the isolated north.

Fortified by my hearty breakfast, I headed out for a morning of earnest trout pursuit with my two companions, both serious fisherwomen.

Our Cree guide Tom knew every nook of the 36-mile lake and steered the aluminum skiff to one of his favorite spots. Almost immediately, Colette whooped and caught the first fish. Moments later, Anita calmly bagged another.

I valiantly attempted to catch my own specimen. I cast and reeled. I changed lures. I prayed to the fishing gods. I watched the fish shake off my hooks and chase my line right up to the boat. The trout knew I was out of my league. After three hours of fruitless striving, I put my pole aside and said, ``You catch fish. I'm catching rays.'' With that, I lay across the bow and soaked up some surprisingly hot subarctic sunshine.

At noon we putted to a sandy cove where Doug had built a crackling fire. Tom skinned and filleted the morning's catch with lightening quick surgical precision. Helen Webber and long-time friend Marie Woolsey ran the show. Authors of a great collection of North Woods recipes entitled ``Blueberries and Polar Bears,'' the ladies soon had potatoes and onions, baked beans, cut corn, and luscious golden trout sizzling in black-iron frying pans. Big crisp chocolate chip, peanut butter and ginger cookies topped off the meal. Breakfast should have held me for a full day, but for some strange reason I was starving.

Begging off the afternoon's fishing foray on the grounds of being a rank amateur, I hitched a ride home with the shore lunch crew. Along the way we stopped at a deserted Cree encampment. The remains of several wooden structures stood on a bluff overlooking the lake. An abandoned hand-hewn child's sled rested beside one of the gaping doors. I tried to imagine what it had been like to spend a frigid winter in one of the tiny cabins, snowed in and surrounded by ice, utterly alone in a vast white landscape. A chill ran through me like a blast from the north wind.

Back at the lodge, I pulled a novel from my valise, snitched two cookies from the larder and hauled a chair out onto the wide second-story veranda. The sweeping view was a study in greens and blues. Gently swaying spruce trees cascaded down to the sandy beach and sapphire blue lake. Dense evergreen forest stretched in all directions. The tightly bunched vertical lines resembled an immense mossy welcome mat. Jagged treetops etched a ragged horizon line under an endless azure sky.

For a while, sounds of dinner being prepared filtered up from the kitchen. Then all was still. Had a mouse crept across the balcony I would have heard its tiny nails striking the wood planks. Time stretched like soft taffy. Silence settled around me like thick cotton batting. Hours later the sound of approaching outboard motors warned I'd better be quick if I wanted a shower of chemical-free, silky soft, solar-heated lake water before chow.

At such a northern latitude the sun doesn't set until midnight. As everyone munched house-smoked trout canapes and traded fish stories, slanted sunbeams turned the lounge into a symphony of muted browns and gold. Walls and high open ceilings glowed with lustrous hardwood paneling. Oversize leather sofas and armchairs alongside a massive river-rock fireplace offered cushy invitations to investigate piles of photo albums illustrating the evolution of this hideaway from the felling of the first tree some 20 years ago, a formidable task in a land where there are no roads.

It took four years to build the sprawling 6,000-square foot chalet. Long before its half-mile-long sand runway was constructed, planes hauling lumber and supplies made late spring landings on the frozen lake. Forty loads of materials were ferried ashore by boat, snowmobile and tractor.

What fit in a DC-3 cargo hold determined the logistics. Beams were restricted to 24 feet. A truck was cut in half, taken apart, then reassembled and welded on site. A caterpillar was brought in via a ``winter road'' -- tundra jargon for blazing trails in sub-zero temperature across snow-covered terrain and frozen bodies of water.

Dinner was a North Woods feast. Grilled goose breast stuffed with jalapeno peppers and slivers of Canadian bacon. Crunchy hunks of Parmesan-crusted potatoes. Lightly sauteed zucchini with herbs plus a crisp spinach salad, courtesy of the Beaver's supply flights. Over the show-stopping dessert of wild blueberry cheesecake, Anita and Colette made a pact to get up at 2 a.m. to see nature's fireworks -- the Northern Lights.

Insistent buzzing intruded into a dream where I had just landed an enormous fish. A hand clapped me on the shoulder and I thought I was being praised for my extraordinary skill. But it was only the alarm clock and Anita waking me to come watch the show.

We trooped out to the dock and sat with our feet dangling in the cool water. Overhead a zillion stars peppered the blue-black sky. In the far distance, eerie pastel swaths of light swirled through the stratosphere; we were mesmerized by the majestic display.

Surrounded by tall trees that reached for the heavens, it felt as if we were sitting in a great open-air cathedral. Suddenly a splash broke the silence. My fishing buddies smiled knowingly. Time for sleep.

Thousands of pike and trout were waiting for us to come find them in the morning.

The season: mid-June to mid-August only.

The price: $3,500 US -- five days including all meals, host bar and round-trip air fare from Thompson, Manitoba, Canada.

Extras: Fly-out day trips to Churchill and remote fishing sites available by special arrangement.

Making contact: North Knife Lake Lodge, Doug and Helen Webber, owners, 26 Selkirk St., Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. Tel. (204) 675-8875, toll free from the U.S. (888) 932-2377, fax: (204) 675-8876, e-mail: swebberdigistar.mb.ca.

(Edythe Preet is a food and travel writer in Los Angeles, California.

© 1998, Edythe Preet. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate.