Back “in the day”, Eagle Lake, Part one…

All this talk about years past has me thinking back to when I first encountered Eagle Lake.  Rummaging through some old pictures I’ve come up with some vintage junk.  This first one will certainly bring on the comments, but this is about the time when I would have signed on to a summer job at Lindmeier’s North Shore Lodge on Eagle Lake, Ontario.  Sounded pretty exotic for a Winnipeg boy.  In the background my 1974 Beetle, which I bought new for $2995.00.

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In the boat house at North Shore.  I could probably research the year on those Johnson’s, but 1980 might be a good guess.  Back then a 20 h.p. motor was on the cutting edge of speed and performance!  Apparently I am a traditionalist and have continued on with 20’s at VBL…..although Merc’s.

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An interesting deal that was done at North Shore was an annual spring cleanup of shore-lunch spots on Eagle Lake.  The Lindmeier’s had the guides (I was one) take out the Eagle River School older kids in the spring to pick up trash.  This picture is one day’s worth of collecting….pretty amazing!  Fortunately, the habit of tossing your garbage seemed to be on the wane back then….and a lot of what we collected was pretty antique…  Interesting note…..the person on the far right is Susanne, who likely was “freshly arrived” at North Shore in her first year of work there.

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Impressing Susanne with some big pike……I believe it worked!

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….and how could she not be impressed!  Note the stubby beer bottle in the foam cooler deal…..things were so much simpler back then.  In fact, one of the checklists before you went guiding was to see how many beer the guest’s wanted for the day.  A few times the cooler (those old metal Pepsi coolers) had so many beer you could hardly lift them………..

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Your typical fishermen….the Hamm group from Minneapolis.  They were constantly trying to get me in trouble……… by the way, if you’ve ever seen an old 16 foot Alumacraft from back in the day, it was little more than a wide canoe.  Somehow we managed to fit four of us, including all the beer and shore lunch gear……..and lived to tell the tale.

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There it is.  My very first Eagle Lake musky……caught on the West side of Stanton Island.

Stay tuned for part 2…..more vintage crap from back in the day…including some early musky catches…….

9 thoughts on “Back “in the day”, Eagle Lake, Part one…”

  1. Teal River
    Reply

    Basically, I’m speechless…..except that you remind me of Cat Stevens with his first muskie…..and Susanne has always been hot.

  3. Perchmaster
    Reply

    AWESOME Gord!!!
    This will be a great topic for sure.
    Teal as I was reading your post you were taking the word out of my mouth.
    Dan Fogelberg I think I recall downing a few cold ones and talking about this a time or two.
    As for Susanne being HOT I was going to say the same thing.
    GREAT minds must think alike.

  4. charles weiss
    Reply

    The Dan Fogelberg as a muskie guide, very unique.
    Willy Nelson headband , once again a great look “On the Boat Again, On the Road Again…”
    I like the large amount of crap found during your shoreline clean up day.
    Yes, simpler times and more alcohol .
    One day l’ll return to the shining shores of Eagle Lake

  5. Andy
    Reply

    Gord,

    I couldn’t help but notice that one of the bags of trash on the dock is labeled “Gord”. This likely brings back painful memories, but did they trick you into jumping into the bag by telling you that it was a potato sack race and Susanne was your partner?

    There seems to be consensus. You married up.

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On behalf of the Boyes Group, I would like to pass on our sincere thanks for hosting the Muskie Madness Week and we thoroughly enjoyed our stay at VBL and had a great time!! This was our 7th year on Eagle Lake and we have stayed at a few other lodges but VBL takes the cake hands down! You can definitely count us in for next year. I’m happy to see you post some of my pics, they turned out well. Thanks again Gord for a wonderful week of fishing and your stellar hospitality, you run a first class operation, we look forward to seeing you next year!

Trevor Benner

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