Deerhorn

The Fire
It was one of those watershed moments where you and everything you know is swallowed, shaken, and spit out on some foreign shore. I didn't know it at the time but losing Deerhorn would start a chain of events that would drastically change the next twelve months of my life.

Tinderbox conditions and an unexpected wind shift brought a forest fire down on top of us in the middle of the night. We received no warning from Saskatchewan Resources.

It was a fire that had been burning for over a week and would continue to burn for another two. Earlier that day I had seen it burning like hell had opened up about 40 miles to the north of our camp and heading due east. Worth keeping a close eye on but not necessarily something to be overly concerned about.

It took about a two hours from the sighting of the first flames on the horizon to sitting across the lake from the lodge and watching the fuel tanks explode. Not knowing how much time we had, the staff removed everybody from the site as quickly as we could, telling them to grab their passports and wallets and leave the rest.

Nobody was hurt. We spent the next twelve hours on the lake, dodging heavy smoke and ash as we waited for the skies to clear enough to get a float plane in.

Back at the lodge, after we got everybody in boats and out on the lake, I stayed behind for a while, cutting water lines and trying to hash up some sort of plan to keep things damp enough to snuff out the falling embers. I still didn't believe we were going to lose the camp.

I've never really shown these video clips to anybody.



Getting Lost (Ghosts of Attitti Lake)
There was a magic to Deerhorn.

Simple, rustic, and entirely remote, you would be hardpressed to find anything like it in Canada or anywhere else. Not that there aren't other simple, rustic and remote fishing lodges hidden away in the Canadian backcountry, but there was something about this one. It was the air, the lake, the wildlife, the land - it was special to each person in their own way. There was something haunting about the location, something that got into your bones and your brain and your heart.

It still haunts me.

Below is an open letter to guests and staff I wrote a few days after the fire.

Greetings from Kississing Lake, Manitoba.

It’s been an eventful season.

Kississing’s operations have expanded and shifted, the fish have migrated from east to west, shallow to deep, and new staff members have fallen into our fold like family. I don’t think I’ve ever worked with a more capable staff.

On the other side of the equation, an unusually warm and dry spring turned northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan into a tinderbox during the month of June, amounting in an evacuation of Kississing Lake and the unexpected loss of Deerhorn Lodge on Attitti Lake, Saskatchewan.

Losing Deerhorn, particularly in such a hurried manner, was met with a barrage of feelings and memories from a lot of people. It’s clear that the location meant something different to every person who found themselves in its cradle and I’d like to share a few thoughts of my own.

Deerhorn is a place where you can go and get lost; in the atmosphere, in the fish, in the opportunities. It’s a place where problems are purged by a filter of fresh air and the smiling, experienced faces who are genuinely as excited to be there as you are; guests, staff and guides alike. It’s a place for grand ideas and even grander stories of big fish and true, gritty, northern adventure.

Very few fishing destinations boast the spread of easily accessible lakes that Attitti offers. Far removed from any city, town or outpost, and with nearly a dozen bodies of water at your fingertips, a short portage brings you deeper into the wilderness than most have ever been. Getting lost never felt so good.

Having learned over the winter that I would be spending my summer running the camp on Attitti I was enthralled but a little apprehensive. I had spent three summers on Kississing Lake and was familiar with the ins and outs of how a fishing lodge operates. I was also aware that Deerhorn was quite a bit different than what I had come to know over the previous years.

As soon as I got there, however, I felt myself being pulled into the place. It was like Kississing’s little brother with an attitude problem and I couldn’t get enough of it. I let my mind wander and imagined spending the fall, winter and spring on Attitti and really getting to learn the lake and the bush. Max, one of our guides on Kississing, came over with me to guide Deerhorn for a week at the same time. From the second we stepped off the floats of the plane onto the dock he would not stop talking about the place; where the fishing holes are, where he’d seen caribou and moose, multi-colored bears and pickerel with golden scales . . . stories that only the deep bush can produce. It was clear that Deerhorn has a gravitational energy that sucks people in with such force that you nearly have to physically pry your feet off the dock on the way out.

Attitti Lake is one of those unique natural gems that cannot be replicated. When we lost it to the force of the very nature that we admire and respect, the first thing everyone was thinking, and most were asking, was when was it going to be rebuilt. Although Nature came in with fury it still gave the staff and guests enough warning time to evacuate.

It was as if She was saying, “Get out now because I’m coming in with everything I have.”

If you listened closely enough I swear you could have heard an apology echoing between the roar and the crackle.

Now, with building plans moving along with a ferocious energy that seems to be increasing in velocity daily, there is a constant hum at the camp on Kississing about what Deerhorn will now become. The mass of emails we’ve received from concerned guests sending their regards and questions have filled our inboxes and sparked our imaginations.

Despite the loss, this in an exciting time. This is what Deerhorn was and what it will continue to be: A place for ideas, big and small, and constant movement in any direction but where you currently are. Although the buildings are gone it is as if the energy of the place is still around somewhere inside the hearts and minds of everyone who’s ever been there.

It may well be over a year before we can send boats out on Attitti and the surrounding water again but it is clear that this is only the end of the beginning. Until that time comes we will all appreciate what the location means to so many and wait patiently until we can go and get lost at Deerhorn again.

With kind regards.