Hommel Mangas
One would think after nearly 33 years of marriage, I would have heard all the Husband’s boyhood stories — but this one I had not.
The story goes that active little 10-year-old Steven Craig Mangas was not one to sit still for too long — except when the mail carrier delivered the Field and Stream magazine.
There was one advertisement amongst the many that the 10-year old boy remembered and re-read every issue. It was for a new camp (Plummer’s Arctic Lodge) with non-stop trophy lake trout fishing. Grown-up Steve said he could still remember the advertisement from 50-years ago featuring a photo of men holding up their huge lake trout. At 10, he was impressed that there was fishing and maybe even bigger fish to catch further north of of the northwest Ontario area where his family fished annually.
Intrigued and curious about this advertisement, after Steve came home last week from a life-long bucket list dream to fish the Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories in the Arctic Circle with the same Arctic Lodge, I jumped into action.
I jumped onto the internet and searched until I found a PDF version of the June 1970 issue. This 7-page-PDF online version was a 75th-anniversary edition of Field and Stream, which also had 16-pages packed with hunting/fishing adventure advertisements entitled: “WHERE TO GO.”
One 1970 advertisement shows a photo of a smiling Dr. J. Adams, from Dearborn, Michigan, holding his record 60-lb lake trout — he was beaming. (That record has since been eclipsed by a 72-pound lake trout.)
The same ad touts that this is the “New Luxury Lodge on the west end of Great Bear Lake” and also reads: “Fishing under the midnight sun staggers the imagination, a trip never to be forgotten and forever talked about.”
Steve explained that fishing is only open here for six weeks as the ice only leaves at the end of July — so fishing is in August and the first part of September, and then the ice sets back in. Great Bear Lake is the fourth largest body of fresh water, only behind Lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron in size. It is 100 miles long and 150 miles wide. Lapping waves reach anywhere from two to eight feet tall in the open water.
So Steve and his brother Jeff from Minnesota met up and took five planes — Indianapolis to Minneapolis to Toronto to Vancouver to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, then into camp. Luggage failed to show for the final leg of the commercial flights and it seemed that one of the anglers, who happens to live with me, was going to be without any clothes and warm raingear for the trip. Luckily, the bag showed up within 10 minutes of the final leg of the trip into the bush. The last flight was finally into the arctic lodge with its 4,000 foot gravel airstrip. The landing would not be for the faint of flying. The end of the runway is the glacial lake with its 38 degree water.
The camp has multiple outposts, but remote is the underlying theme for all the lodges. The family style home-made food service, hot coffee and freshly baked scones daily were welcomed blessing after fishing daily for 10 hours. The cabins were simple but well kept, warmed every night by a oil heater that kept the frost at bay each night. Just like the old advertisement said it would be: luxury in the bush. The region is home to wolves, grizzlies, caribou, a few moose, musk ox and trillions of mosquitoes.
Lunch was a shorelunch of freshly caught lake trout fried over the open fire, beans and fried potatoes. One day after a long and sparse morning of fishing, Steve managed to boat a nice fish for their lunch. The guide placed the fish in the back of the boat. However a few minutes later, the fish did a death flop and popped right out of the boat and back into the lake. Fish 1, fishermen 0.
Fortunately within minutes they caught another fish for lunch. Provision.
Another day the guide left his can opener in camp, which made having the lunch a challenge. As Steve was gathering firewood for the lunch, he found a can opener that God had conveniently placed down the beach from their site. The odds of that can opener on the thousands of miles of shoreline in the middle of the Arctic — zero.
Yet as always, provision comes when and where you least expect it. Jeff remarked he was going to start looking for a denarius in the fishes’ mouths (Matthew 17:27) since provision seemed to be the theme of the trip, not just trophy fishing.
After an hour-plus boat ride across open water on their last day, the guide set the fishermen to trolling for trophy fish. Steve’s brother boated several lakers between 10-20 pounds while Steve managed to boat a few in the 10-pound range. My husband is not one to pout, but he said he was feeling a little jaded after fishing four days and not catching the elusive big one.
At the end of the day, the guide informed the fishermen that their trip was coming to an end and they had just five minutes before they had to reel in their lines and head back home.
Two minutes later, Steve hooked a fish and initially felt like it was just a juvenile lake trout as it was swimming in the direction of the boat. But a minute later, his pole bent down hard and the guide started yelling, “That’s your fish, that’s your fish!” When the fish was finally netted, the guide and fishermen were screaming, dancing and fist bumping, and the trophy 25 pound lake trout was photographed and released for another battle another day.
Provision — when you least expect it, God comes through. Just like it was advertised decades ago in Field and Stream: “… Never to be forgotten and forever talked about.”
Janet Hommel Mangas grew up on the east side of Greenwood. The Center Grove area resident and her husband are the parents of three daughters. Send comments to [email protected].
