2008-06-23T21:45:00.000-05:00

This is what greeted us from about 30 feet off the end of the dock upon arriving at Tate Island Lodge this June 5th. With lots to do to prepare our new lodge and dining facilities for the first guests this spring, not to mention the normal start up work, we left home early hoping for an early start, only to sit at a friends place for about 10 days and watch ice melt...vvveeerrryyyy sloooowwwly. We flew over a couple times to try to squeek in by plane before the big part of the lake opened up, but nature was taking her own sweet time. And no matter how hard you work, one cannot hurry up nature. So with about a week or 10 days worth of work before we would feel prepared for guests, we managed to float plane in on just enough "liquid" water to to allow a landing and takeoff on Thursday June 5th at about 5:00 pm with a full camp arriving Saturday June 7...so much for being prepared. However we hired a Turbo Ottor on floats (so much for profit this year)...flew in a few trips of food, fuel and a few other basic essentials...told the guests they would be seeing us at our worst unpreparedness...and got them in instead of having to call and cancel trips. Ice in it's final stages now, but still some on the main body yet, but no ice affected our ability to get to our fishing and hunting areas. Had to skirt some the first couple days, but open access around the islands and bays a couple days after arrival...so no major problems but added expenses and first guests seeing us as a unprepared camp and owners, but we assured them it would improve as the week went by and they actually were excited about the adventure...had a great time, better than staying home, and experienced the far north first hand...and we pulled it off!!!!