I remember one February day in 1974 in Wawa, Ontario Canada when the Old Man of Wawa, Gerry Spreng came out to visit us in the Mission. Gerry always had an interesting story or two to tell about something and his reiterations usually made me grin while listening to them. I think the story that day was about "cabin fever". The weather was partly sunny and cold and we were just finishing up breakfast when Gerry arrived. In those days breakfast was either wheat flour pancakes with jam and peanut butter, a bowl of oatmeal, or on a special occassion, bacon and eggs. All our cooking was done on the woodstove and we usually reserved a bacon and egg breakfast for when we were about to go into the bush for a firewood run.

On this particular morning Gerry found the three of us awake and out of bed. I say this because the log cabin we were living in had no electricity or running water and Rob, Bob, and myself would often stay awake until the wee hours sitting around the woodstove trying to keep warm, playing music, reading, or getting into some type of self improvement project. On most days we stayed in bed until one of us had to use the outhouse and then whoever got up first had to restart the fire to get the place warm enough so the rest of us could get out of bed. Sometimes a friend would stop by in the early afternoon and we would ask that person to get a fire going for us, sometimes they would, most times they laughed at the idea.

If I were to try and describe Gerry, he was a tall man in his late sixties or early seventies, was impressively spry and active, and he smoked cigarettes. His weathered features and hands told the story of his life and he had an air of wisdom and knowledge about him. He also possessed a willingness to help out strangers as if they were members of his own family and he additionally impressed me as a man who spoke what was on his mind, practiced what he preached, and had a great sense of humour.

When Gerry came to visit us that day he let us know that he had three pair of snowshoes, an ice auger, and fishing gear in the truck and wanted to know if we would like to go ice fishing with him for some "lakers" (lake trout). The problem was there were four of us and only three pair of snowshoes and if we couldn't decide who would stay or who would go someone would have to walk through the deep snow without the benefit of snowshoes or not go at all. We eventually decided that one of us would take a turn without the snowshoes walking in to the lake but would have the benefit of snowshoes on the way out. I can verify that it was rough going in the deep snow without snowshoes.

After some small talk we were finally on our way to one of Gerry's secret fishing locations with four of us packed into the cab of Gerry's pick-up truck. It's a good thing the gear shift lever was on the steering wheel column instead of on the floor because if that was the case one of us would have certainly had to have stayed home. We must have travelled a good twenty minutes or more before we arrived at the walk-in spot. At the walk-in, someone Gerry knew had left a marker that could be seen from the road. It wasn't an obvious marker, but obvious enough if you were looking for it. Gerry parked the truck close to the snowbank on the highway and once we were packed up with the ice auger, fishing gear, and the snowshoes strapped on, we headed out into the Jack Pine and Paper Birch forest towards the lake.

Walking several meters into the forest we found a blazed trail someone had previously marked out on the sides of trees with an ax. I imagined that when the snow melted in the spring the blaze marks would be ridiculously high in the trees. The light, dry, powdery, snow was incredibly deep as I remember and was at least waste high when I took my turn to trudge through the snow without the benefit of snowshoes. There was more snow beneath my feet, but compaction prevented me from sinking any deeper - sometimes. When we finally arrived at the lake an incredible scene opened up before us. The sun was high and bright where the lake had created a large opening in the forest. Just off the trail heading towards the lake I noticed some fresh moose tracks and I surmised that the moose was set up for living in this wilderness with long, slender legs in order to survive and make its way through the heavy snowfall this part of Canada receives annually.

Once on the lake the snow didn't appear to be as deep and the first thing we did was scout the area for a fishing location. There seemed to be many possibilities but the old man reckoned where the first auger hole should be drilled. Once I made the first hole through the thick ice with the auger, Gerry tied on a snap swivel to a fishing line and then attached his truck and store keys to the snap swivel and lowered the keys into the water and down through the hole. I wondered why he had done this but Gerry explained that he was using his keys for a weight to allow for the line to sink to the bottom of the lake so he could estimate the depth of the water and to make sure there was enough oxygen in the water to support fish. Apparently, Gerry had not fished this lake before. I don't know why he didn't use a lead sinker instead of his keys but maybe he wanted to let us know that his fishing knot had integrity and could be trusted not to fail under the stress of trying to pull a heavy lake trout out of a six inch hole in the ice. We augered several holes in different areas still using Gerry's keys for depth testing and settled for a depth of around fifteen to twenty-two feet. After the holes were drilled in the ice and the rods baited and set up we gathered some firewood and built a fire and made some hot tea.

The ice fishing rods were baited with live minnows and loaded by a spring mechanism called a tip-up. In my opinion, using live bait is the most productive means of catching fish in either salt or fresh water. We additionally made use of a tool that was similiar to a slotted spoon to remove rapidly forming ice near the surface of the augered hole as the temperature was cold and the exposed water started to freeze within minutes. With a fire going on the ice, and bright sunshine above it was a pleasent outdoor acitivity on a winter's day and a great deal of fun. We talked, laughed, and listened to Gerry talk about earlier times and experiences in his life. We didn't catch any fish that day not because of lack of skill or bad conditions but it's just the way fishing is sometimes. After some hours we walked back out to Gerry's truck. I didn't hear a car, airplane, snowmobile, or see any other sign of human activity while we were there ice fishing and that was the beauty of it. We left the lake that day with feelings of camaraderie, warmth, and fulfillment. I felt exceedingly grateful for having had the opportunity to experience an ice fishing expedition with the Old Man of Wawa.