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A Family Vacation to Canada
This is the actual story of a trip I took with Smith Family into Canada. The total head count was 19, including myself. The trip took 8 days to complete. We left on Saturday, June 24 at 12:00am and got back on Sunday July 1, around 3:00pm. This is the list of names of everyone who went along. (All their last names are Johnson)
Harry- Grandpa Johnson has taken the most trips to Canada. Says the word “Prit-neer” a lot.
Craig- The only one of Harry's kids with a family, has three daughters.
Renee- Craig’s wife. Red hair. Always had the video camera running.
Erin- The oldest of the three daughters at 15. Looks exactly like Emily Smith.
Allison- Middle child at 13. Loves to read books and is in gymnastics.
Amber- Youngest daughter, 11. Likes gymnastics and volleyball.
Troy- Younger than Craig, a gym teacher at New London Elementary School.
Todd- Younger than Troy. Married to Erica. Math teacher at Willmar School.
Erica- Todd’s wife, second trip to Canada.
Jonathan- Erica’s brother who was 15.
Larry- Harry’s Nephew. 4 kids, all boys and all names starting with “J”
Paulette- Larry’s wife. First trip to Canada.
Jordan- Going to be a sophomore.
Jared- Going into 7th grade, taller than Jordan.
Justin- Has glasses and blonde hair. He is in 6th grade.
Jonah- Youngest at 6. 1st grade.
Jeff- Tyler’s dad. Renee’s Brother. Been on many camping and fishing trips
Tyler- A good friend who invited me along with his family, 17.
The great Canadian adventure started at 12 noon on Saturday to pack the bus and truck. The bus is an old school bus with a big rack on top to hold canoes, and screens over all the windows. Inside there are 8 bunks in the back for sleeping. The middle is where the food is kept. The front has two tables on each side for playing cards. As soon as I got there I started meeting people. I had only met Craig, Renee, and Amber before at Cameron Smith’s graduation party. There were 3 well fed dogs running around. The first person Tyler pointed out was Harry, his grandpa. He was getting the gas together for the boats and there were about 5 others standing around him. One was Troy and the other was Larry. It was easy to see that Craig and Troy were brothers, they were rigging the bus to carry 5 canoes. Others were busy helping to get ready. I helped put the motor rack in Tyler’s truck. After the bus and truck had all of the canoes on, Jeff, Tyler, and I went back to Tyler’s house to take showers and eat. The plan was to meet Craig at Cash Wise at 8:30 to buy the food. Craig’s Eagle got a flat tire on the way to Willmar. Tyler, Jeff, and I got there at 9:30 but the shopping was already done. As we were leaving Willmar, on our way back to Harry’s, we were able to see fireworks from the “Works over Water” display on Foot Lake. When we got to Harry’s, there were several cars in the yard. Tyler and I went to the house were I met Erin and Allison for the first time. Erin was eating a pizza and at first glance I thought she was Emily Smith. I could not get over how much Erin, Allison and Amber looked like Emily. Little kids were running everywhere. In the living room, were about 25 people I had never met or seen before, who seemed to be having a good time together. I am not exactly sure why there were all there, perhaps to see us off. After a while, Tyler and I went out to load the truck with gas. Right before we left Renee took a picture of everyone in front of the bus. Jeff drove the truck and Craig drove the Bus. Most people were already sitting in seats so I took an open bunk on the bottom. Finally at midnight, we were on the road to Canada.
I slept very well on the bunk, until we got to Fargo where it was about 45 degrees. Since it was so cold, it was hard to sleep. I was sleeping until we got to the Canadian border and could hear Craig talking to the border guard. We made it through without a hitch. I continued to sleep until we got to the Simson gas station to fill up the bus. Jeff was yodeling when he got out of the truck. After we all went in to go to the bathroom I sat in the coach seat next to Tyler were we slept until the sun came up. Troy came up from the back and we talked to him a while about ice fishing and wrestling. Todd, Erica, Larry, and Paulette were sitting on the other table. Todd was sharpening his knife to a perfect hone. Tyler tried to fix the squeak in my dad’s millionaire reel, but unfortunately he only made it worse. The next stop was at a gas station where everyone bought a fishing license. I liked the Canadian money even though it was worth so much less. Tyler drove the truck for a while and I rode with him, but slept the whole time. After riding with Tyler, I got back on the bus and went straight to a bunk. I tried to sleep, but did not have much luck because of the bumpy road. While lying there I could hear Todd reading questions from a quiz book. We played that a few times on the trip up. For lunch, we ate sandwiches at some park on Devils Lake. After eating we all went down to the shore and skipped rocks. Troy and Todd where good at that. Their rocks skipped the farthest. After the many hours of driving we finally arrived at our destination, some river in Manitoba. The last mile of the road was very twisty, windy, muddy, and bumpy. The bus followed the truck in and barley scraped through because of the over grown brush. The final downhill hairpin turn was a nail bitter since the bus had very poor brakes. The first step off the bus was a shocker. It was about 50 degrees, a little cold for shorts and a T-shirt. I quickly changed into jeans.
The bus was parked, and we immediately started taking the canoes off. It didn’t take long to load the 7 canoes and motors at the access. Tyler and I were the first to leave shore in our canoe. Everyone’s canoe was loaded to the brim. We raced Troy, Erin, and Allison on the way to the portage. They won with the faster canoe, a Coleman. It was Jeff and Renee in the other Coleman. Larry, Paulette, and Jonah were in the Pelican. Todd, Erica, and Jonathan were in the Sea Cow. Craig and Amber rode in the Silver Bullet. Harry, Jordan and Jared cruised in the big green heavy canoe. Tyler and I were the second canoe, behind Troy and Todd, to reach the portage. By the time Larry’s canoe had reached the portage, Paulette was soaked from head to toe from the splashing water. She was so wet that she just stepped right in the water when she got out of the canoe, shoes and all. I was told that this was the hardest part of the adventure but I didn’t think it was so bad. By the time Tyler, Troy, Todd, and I got the first boat in the mule, Allison had already made one tip to the other side with a bag. It was fun making the canoe runs on the half-mile portage. Being part of the team with Tyler, holding back the canoes on the big hill around the rocks and roots was cool. The only bad part was the millions of mosquito’s hovering around us. On about my forth trip back I noticed Craig still had shorts on. I could see about a hundred mosquito bites on his legs. By the time he finally put mosquito repellant on it was too late. On the other side of the portage Harry met some guys he knew from Paynesville. They were just leaving the island we were going to. When we got on our way again, it was only 2 river miles to the Island were we were going to camp at. The island was right next to the second highest waterfall in Manitoba Kawasitchewan falls. At night when you went to bed you could hear the water going over the falls.
When we arrived on the island everyone piled their gear on the rocks. After everyone had got to the island, I took a little peak at the camp, and saw a heavily used camp fire ring, a ripped blue tarps making a wind break, and an old sleeping bag hanging over a log. It was nearly dark when everyone was seating up his or her tents. Up where all the tents sat, there was a big 55-gallon grill. It was amazing that someone would lug that huge grill all the way to that Island. That night we all eat beef stew and bread. It was very good. The first night was the coldest by far. Troy had a little handheld weather station. It said the temp and the weather for the next 12 hours. I almost froze to the picnic table then we were sitting there. We sat there talking about Troy's weather station until 11:30 when it finally got dark. Troy’s predictor was wrong every night. If it said it was going to rain, the sun shinned. If it said it was going to be sunny, it usually rained. Tyler said this would happen but I had to see it to believe it. Every single cloud that went over our heads dropped rain. I was in the purple tent with Tyler, Jeff, and Harry. I slept on the right between Harry and the wall. It was tight fit with 4 guys and gear. Harry forgot to bring a pad for sleeping on so he used that old brown sleeping bag that was hanging over that log. Jeff was always the first one up to go make breakfast. Jeff was our cook for the week. Harry was close behind, and Tyler and I stayed in the tent until about 9:00.
The first day everyone stayed around the island and fished. It was a little windy. There was one little bay that had a beaver dam in it and logs around it. Tyler and I pulled up to it and made a few casts on the outside. I told Tyler to go in closer; there could be a big one in there. He didn’t because there were too many logs in the way. That evening Craig brought back the biggest fish at 10 pounds. He caught it in that bay with the beaver dam in it. I told Tyler and he was mad that we left that spot. I had never caught a Pike over 5lbs. before this trip. I think it was Tyler’s mission to make me catch a big fish. I was ready for a monster. But I could only use my spinning real because Tyler scrued up my bait caster. My spinning real wouldn’t be able to handle anything over 10 pounds, so I only used spinner baits and top water and caught small fish. It was fun using my top water bait. You c
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