These Ice Fishing Photos Are Pure, Rugged Canadiana

There’s just something so Canadian about ice fishing. Maybe it’s because, like hockey, it involves buds, ice, sticks and copious amounts of drinking. Recently we heard our bud (and one of our favourite photographers) Carl Heindl had returned from his annual ice fishing trip up way up near North Bay, Ontario, so we asked if we could publish some of his pics as well as a short write up about what that was like. Here’s that.

Every winter the boys and I try to get away together to do some ice fishing. We try and fish where we can throughout the summer but the one big ice fishing trip in the winter is what we all look forward to. We rent a tiny four-man cabin and sleep on the frozen lake for two nights. The first time we went was a couple of years ago, to Lake Simcoe in a warmer than usual February (Ryan made a video about that trip). Since then we’ve pushed further north: Lake Nipissing, near North Bay, Ontario.

The cabins are furnished with cooking/eating essentials only. Fuelled by tanks of propane outside so you get heat, light and a little stove for cooking. There’s two double bunks right beside where you fish plus a plywood outhouse bolted to the side of the cab—here’s no lights or anything in there, a toilet seat mounted over a contractor garbage bag for number two's. There’s an upturned barrel outside with a well-placed cut hole for peeing. Plus a little outdoor hibachi.

One thing I count on each year is a great story. Without fail, every year, some adventure ensues even if good fishing doesn’t. One year we all woke up to the entire cabin hydroplaning 12 feet across the ice in a freak windstorm. Another we all woke up to thunderclap loud cracks of the old ice shifting and splitting under the new ice, screaming, thinking the cabin was going under. This year with all the snow on the roads we slipped and took the van into a snow ditch just one kilometer from the cabin and had to get the van winched out.

The fishing varies too. This year we caught just a few fish, whereas last year we bagged four dozen perch on the second day. It depends on a lot of factors including weather conditions, time of day, and plain and simple right place at the right time—the cabin being over a school of fish. Perch and walleye are common here, sometimes guys have even pulled out a big pike.

Charlie's a great cook, we always eat well. He cooks great meals with basic ingredients. We make a grocery/beer stop on the way up and he mentally prepares what to feed six hungry guys for two days and nights. The nights are great fun. We’ll play cards and listen to the hockey game on the radio.

I think what we take away from it isn’t necessarily the fishing, it’s hanging out in a clubhouse with your buds eight km out on lake. I’ve seen some of the best sunrises in my life on these ice fishing trips. I never sleep too well when the ice is loud, plus getting up early is great for the fishing. Also the stars are fantastic out here. It’s barren, it’s alien; days when snow is blowing you can’t make out the difference between the sky and the ice on the horizon. I enjoy getting that tiny feeling while I’m out there. @mutemute