IceShanty Main > General Ice Fishing Chit Chat
My trip to the NWT
Akhardwater:
I left my house at 3am Monday February 28th and began driving for the next 3 days. I met up with Ted (Yukoner) in Glennallen and followed him to Tok where we had breakfast together then proceeded to drive for the border. The border crossing was thankfully uneventful and we proceeded towards Whitehorse. We stopped at a subway and got some food and I said farewell to Ted and continued down the road. I pulled over around 10pm in Teslin and got a short nap in before I started driving again at 2am. As daylight came I started running into wood Bison along the highway.
. I’m very glad I didn’t go through this area at night. The border crossing in BC and the NWT was closed at this time so I had to take the long route down and around through Alberta which added about 600 miles of extra driving to my trip. Once I got past Fort Nelson the snow started picking up and the semi traffic was pretty terrifying to say the least. I was almost hit head on by a truck trying to pass a semi in the whiteout caused by the semi. I started heading for the ditch when at the last second the truck veered back into his lane and I was able to stay on the road. After this incident my adrenaline made it so I was on edge the rest of the day and evening and I finally pulled over for a nap around 1am. I started driving the next day at around 5am and I was within 12 hours of Yellowknife so I pushed hard all day. I finally made it to Daves house (Drifter) around 5pm and needless to say I was a little tired. The drive took me around 60 hours and I logged right around 2400 miles in 3 days. The next day I got all my fuel I would need for the trip to the he east arm and got a little rest. The next day me and Dave made the 200 mile round trip via snow machine to the east arm to drop off all my fuel and ice shack. Needless to say we were both pretty sore the next day and should have spent a couple days resting but I was a stubborn man on a mission and on Sunday I made the trip solo to the east arm.
With all my gear it took me about 5.5 hours to make the 100 mile trip to my selected camping spot and some of the pressure ridges we crossed two days earlier had gotten bigger so I had to search around a little for a place to cross. I finally made it to my spot and got camp set up and was fast asleep by 7pm. At about midnight the wind picked up and started blowing real hard. If I had to guess the wind was probably steady 25-30mph with gusts approaching 50mph. Don’t ask what the windchill was because the evening temps were always -20 and colder and the daytime highs never got above 0. Lucky for me I landed on a good spot and started catching fish. Over the course of the week I don’t think I caught a laker smaller than 30” with the biggest being right around 24 pounds.
As the week progressed the wind never really let up, it didn’t blow as hard as it did the first night but I would say I had a sustained wind of about 10 mph the whole week. I had two nights were it got down to -30 with daytime highs in the negative teens. Needless to say I was confined to the shack pretty much all week and because of the wind my shack was not evaporating the condensation from my heaters causing serious ice build up in the shacks insulation. Dave sent me the weather forecast for the next week and I was looking at a big wind on Sunday and subzero temps all the way through fri with constant wind the whole time. I had planned to stay for 12 days before I came back for a resupply but because I was having to constantly run my heaters I was going to have to resupply on day 8. This would require me to resupply twice for a 4 week trip. I was starting to build a lot of weight in the shacks walls and the ceiling and walls were starting to sag. With the forecast not improving and the risk of structural failure of the shack I decided not to take any chances and get out of there on Saturday morning. I packed up my camp and made the long 100 mile ride back to town. The next day the wind blew very hard and I was grateful I made the right decision. I waited three days for my body to recover and made the long 200 mile round trip to retrieve my fuel. The wind from Sunday drifted up the lake something fierce and I pounded through 3 to 4 foot drifts for almost 12 hours to retrieve my supplies. I decided I wouldn’t return to the east arm and I would search around closer to town for a new place to camp. On Fri I went out 20 miles and drilled my first hole with a 12” extension and when I didn’t hit water I got a little concerned. I changed over to an 18” extension and punched through right as the handles on the auger hit the ice. Unfortunately I tweaked my back in this process and decided that drilling through 60” of ice was not worth the risk of severely throwing out my back and then having to try and drive the 2,000 miles to get home. So me and Dave talked that night and we decided to go and spend 4 days at his cabin and try and find a place for me to camp on his lake. Dave has done a wonderful job building his cabin and the pics on his cabin build thread just don’t do it justice.
We fished around for a few days and I selected a rocky point off an island to set up camp. We went back to town on Tuesday and by then my ice shack had dried out at dave’s buddies shop so I loaded up and went back out on Wednesday and set up my camp. Fishing wasn’t to bad I caught Dave a pile of burbot and I caught a few lakers and pike.
I spent a week on Daves lake with temps that ranged from -40 to 10 above zero with very little if any wind so I was very comfortable the whole time. This is when I discovered that the insulated hub will evaporate the condensation from your heaters when the sun warms the fabric regardless of the temp. The reason this didn’t work in the east arm was because the windchill kept the fabric cold and didn’t allow it to get warm enough to evaporate the condensation. I ended up going back to town the following Wednesday and got ready for the drive home. I did some touristy stuff like checking out the house boats and the ice castle.
On April 1st the BC and NWT border was going to open back up so that was going to shave 600 miles off my return trip so I decided to leave for home fri morning. I said by and thank you to Dave for his hospitality and left his place at 5:30am. The road to the border was desolate and covered in fresh snow so I ended up driving down the middle of the road for over 400 miles, in that time I maybe saw 15 other vehicles the whole time. I started feeling a slight vibration when I passed the junction to fort Leard and didn’t think much of it. By the time I crossed the border the vibration was a little more prevalent and I figured I had a bearing going out so I slowed down a little but kept going. The vibration started getting worse and worse so I sent Dave an Inreach message to see if he could find me a mechanic in fort Nelson that could fix my truck on a Fri night. He put me in contact with a mechanic just as I started getting cell service and I explained to him what I thought the problem was. I started going down a hill towards the fort Nelson river and lost service so I made it into a pullout to check my tire. That’s when I noticed my rear tire was actually the problem.
Thats right all 6 of my lug nuts had come loose and were about to shear off the studs causing my tire to go flying off causing unknown devastation. I realized I needed to get ahold of the mechanic so he could start getting parts so I limped up the opposite hill and made it to another pullout where I had cell service. I explained to him my situation and he actually followed the tow truck so he could recover my trailer.
I was extremely grateful for his help and he was able to get me back on the road in just a few hours. This is how close I came with those lugs.
I made it well into the mountains that night and ended up sleeping for about 6 hours. When I woke up I had 6 inches of snow on the truck so I new the morning drive was going to be fun seeing how I was the first one to drive the road. What was weird was within 5 miles the snow turned to just a dusting on the road so the stress level went way down. I had a lynx cross the road in front of me just before Muncho lake so that was cool and once I got past the lake the Bison started showing up all over the road and I actually had to push my way through a herd of about 30. Once I got through all the Bison the sun came out and the road started drying out and made for a very pleasant drive to Whitehorse. I was able to meet up with Ted at his buddies place for and Elk chili dinner which was delicious. I was able to give Ted a bunch of my left over bait so hopefully he has good success with his burbot fishing. I waved bye to Ted and started heading for the Canadian border. I saw 3 coyotes and a group of Dall sheep around Kluane lake which is a lake I plan to fish next year for my spring trip. I made it to Beaver creek right around 10pm and pulled over for some sleep. The next morning I crossed the border and made the 8 hour drive to get home and pulled into my driveway at around 2pm grateful to be home safely. All in all I had an amazing time and was extremely grateful to Dave and his hospitality, if it wasn’t for him I would have had to come home early. We are already planning my return trip for 2024 and this time I’m going to go at the end of March so I can hopefully avoid the wind and stay on the ice for the whole 4 weeks like I initially planned.
ran7ger:
been waiting for this post, thanks man! very jealous, despite the misfortune. beautiful country up there!
Whopper Stopper:
Wow! What a trip what an adventure.
Thanks for sharing it was awesome to say the least :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
WS
Fisherman 1:
Nice story, I suffered the same, left rear all the nuts came loose, 2 sheared off. I carry a torque wrench in the truck ALL the time and check regularly.
grababrewski:
Wow, what an adventure!!! You know your living, when one mistake could kill you!
Thanks for sharing! :bow: :clap: :blink:
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version