Earlier this month I went to Ontario Canada fishing. Last February here in Columbus, my
friend Denny and I first met John the owner of a fly in
fishing camp. We were in a bar, across from the convention center and the Easyrider Motorcycle show, and
we was drinkin’. Go figure. John had a booth at the Vacation show in a different part of the convention center trying to drum up business for his camp and had come into the bar for a few beers and hot wings.
John told us about his fishing camp, gave us his website information and
the price. They would give us a cabin, with all the amenities (pots, stove,
fridge, toilet and shower, beds, linens, etc), a boat with motor and
fish finder, and the float plane ride to get there all for $870 apiece for a week. We
had to provide our own food. That sounded ridiculously cheap…I mean quite
reasonable. Later I looked at the website, liked what I saw and decided to go. So did
Denny. So we signed up.
The fishing was good, once we figured it out. We caught
mostly walleye. We ate a lot of walleye, too. It was fantastic. Denny caught
the most fish, but I caught the largest one. The scenery was gorgeous. The
cabin was clean and entirely functional. John and his wife Shannon, the owners
were wonderful. We spent an extra hundred dollars each and upgraded to the
bigger, faster, newer, much more comfortable boat and thought it well worth the
extra cost. Aside from both of us getting a stomach bug, which I am still
feeling the effects of a couple of weeks later, we had a great time. I’ll go
back again next summer.
It isn’t really the fishing week itself I want to share with
you but two stories from our drive there. To get to the float plane in
Hornepayne, Ontario is nearly 800 miles or 13 hours with limited stops from
Columbus. Since we had to catch the plane at 7:30 on Sunday morning, we decided
to drive up in two stages starting on Friday, so we could be in Hornepayne on
Saturday. It’s a small town, about 1,000 people, and the only place to get a
room for the night is Uncle’s Restaurant and Lodge. I made a reservation for us
for a two person cabin there for Saturday night. We planned on stopping on Friday night on the US side at
Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan (pronounced Sue Saint Marie) which is a little more than halfway there. Having been been to Soo (as the locals call it) before, I knew it had a number
of hotels and motels, so I didn’t bother to get a reservation.
To properly tell this story, you need to understand that
with Denny and me and all the other boys from the bar most of the really good
stories start with “We was drinkin’...” You will notice this rant did just
that. The first little story I want to tell, however, starts with “We
wanted to be drinkin’…” So our priority on Friday night in Sault Ste. Marie was to find a hotel that either had a bar or
was within walking distance of one.
We drove down hotel strip and finally found the perfect spot,
the Studebaker Restaurant and Lounge sandwiched between a Days Inn and some
other similar type motel. Yippee! We stopped at the Days Inn, said “give us each a room”, and the
nice clerk said “ain’t got any.” Neither did the place on the other side. None
of the other motels and hotels in town had rooms either. Who knew they were having some
sort of baseball tournament that weekend and all the hotels were sold out? Finally
at the Best Western, which was charging $90 a night before tax for a room they didn't have, the clerk said
maybe we should try the Indian Casino 4 miles or so outside of town. She said they might have
rooms but were likely to be expensive. Now, it was 6 pm, we hadn't had our first cocktail/beer yet, and we did not want to
backtrack 45 miles to Mackinaw or cross over into Canada. We decided to give the casino a shot.
Sure enough, the casino had rooms. Denny’s first question upon
learning they had two rooms for us was not “how much” but “is there a bar on
premises?” The answer was “Yes, of course, we have three bars.” Okay, we’ll take two rooms and we don’t care
how much they cost. The clerk signs us in then charges us each $60 per room for the
night. Outstanding! That beat the Best Western by $30. And, for staying there
this weekend, she said she was giving us each $10 in gambling credits loaded onto special debit cards. Cool.
We checked into our rooms, quickly cleaned up and hit the
first of the three bars. A couple of drinks there, and we moved on to the second
bar. It had video poker games built into the bar and Denny won about $30. I
played $10, lost it and quit. After a couple more drinks, we moved to the
third bar. Denny won another $30 at poker. I didn’t play. A couple more drinks in
the third bar, and we went back to the first bar. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Finally at about midnight, I suggested we spend our $10
of free gambling credits and then go to bed, since we were both about to fall
down anyway. We staggered around until we found the special slot machines for
our free credits; how we found them only heaven knows. I could not for the life
of me get my fuddled up brain to figure out how to get the credits off the card and into the slot machine, and
ended up just sort of staring at the whole mess thinking I ought to go to bed
if only I could remember where my room was. Finally a fellow comes along
pushing a broom. I grabbed him and somehow explained I needed help, my English was
not so good at this point. But he was a nice fellow and he helped me get the
money into the machine and showed me how to bet and what buttons to push.
I pushed the button nine times and nine times I lost. I had
one credit left and sort of flippantly slapped the button to set the tumbler
rolling. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding! I hit a jackpot! $126. I grabbed
the janitor dude, gave him a hug and a $20 bill and staggered off to bed.
Denny and I left for Canada the next morning with vicious
hangovers but silly smiles on our faces. We had both paid for our rooms, and in
my case all of my drinking, with our winnings at a casino we hadn’t planned to
visit but did because I hadn’t bothered to make an easy hotel reservation. That’s
called falling into the fish cleaning station and coming up smelling like basil.
The second mini-story does begin with “We was drinkin’...” but
that is only peripheral to the story.
We made it to Hornepayne and got checked into our two person
cabin. We then proceeded to settle on the small porch and have some cocktails, in
my case vodka and Denny had beer. We were into our 3rd or 4th
round when a small SUV packed with five guys screeches to a halt in
front of our cabin.
A young bearded fellow sticks his head out the front passenger window and
yells, “We’re the beer patrol. We’re on the lookout for beers. You seen any?”
Denny says, “Yep, got one right here.” Holding his bottle up for all
to see.
“Lots of beers hereabouts this time of year,” the fellows
says.
“Glad to hear it,” Denny responds.
The young man gestures to the back seat and hollers, “My pop
just got a really big beer!”
“Mine is just regular size,” Denny replies, shaking
his head sadly, clearly demonstrating that it's never good to have to admit size limitations.
“Well, we gotta go check for beers on the other side of town.
Folks here are counting on the beer patrol,” and with that they roared off.
“Good luck!” Denny yells after them.
He and I were laughing our asses
off by that point. It was more than just funny how the young man’s accent made “bear”
sound like “beer.” Because, it seemed to us that The Patrol was finding plenty of the latter that evening.
