The River's Course: New Brunswick Shenanigans: April

Back to the Miramichi the first of June for the Central New Brunswick Woodmen's Museum annual tribute/fundraiser in Boiestown, a little roofing in Sunny Corner, a few stripers on the North West, and back home ten days, give or take, later.

I got to Boiestown early enough to wander down to our new property, down the lane from the Swazey's. Pretty day, pretty view - and no black ducks swimming on the lawn like last visit!:

Saturday dawned cloudy and cold (if you don't like the weather in New Brunswick....wait a minute.)

My friend Vin Swazey has a boathouse full of Chestnut canoes and has decided to sell a couple of them, but we needed to dig them out from an assortment of other boats. Time to round-up some muscle; fortunately, Vin's nephew Jason was around, with several of his buddies. Couldn't have done the job of getting the first boat out of the boathouse with out them. The canoe is a 20 foot Chestnut Sponson that needs restoration:

The other canoe is an 18 foot Ogilvie by Chestnut. It has been restored, and has not seen the water since that restoration...always stored in the boathouse:

If you're interested in either boat, let me know and I'll get you together with Vin.

And thanks for the muscle, guys!

Speaking of canoes, the Woodmen's Museum was honoring Salmon Brook Camp, and especially Mervin and Myrna Green, long time employees of the camp. Mervin took part, in 1967, of Canada's Centennial Voyageur Canoe Pageant, a 3,283 mile, 104 day race across Canada. Provinces and Territories entered one canoe each, paddled by 6 men at a time, in the race. The Woodmen's Museum put the New Brunswick canoe on special display for the evening and Mervin told great stories about the journey in the hour before the evening's festivities:

As always, there was a great crowd at the event, generous of spirit and funds for the Museum:

Sunday morning...great roofing weather, so I headed downriver to Sunny Corner, to help Paul and Stephanie Elson rehab half of their rood, with Howie Gould on board as well.

I will not bore my dear readers with photos of our travail, save one; whoever on earth thought it was a good idea to put a chimney through the roof immediately adjacent to a valley should be shot. Took all of a day to fashion a platform that could be flashed. About an hour of that day was used to get 7 (count them, 7) layers of shingles and asphalt gook cleaned away so we could remove the chimney!

Some would say "fortunately, it was raining on Tuesday, so we couldn't roof". I would likely be one of those "some." And if you can't roof, you CAN fish! The North West Miramichi has more than a million spawning striped bass in it at this time of year, much to the chagrin of Atlantic salmon smolts and those that love them (I'm not going to go there at this time, but whether they know it or not - and it's apparently "not" - the Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans has a huge problem on its hands from both biological and sociological standpoints). So we loaded up, got Paul and Steph's boat in the river, and it was fish ON!

Howie's delightful daughter Melissa had joined us for a couple days before she moved out to Alberta, and she was no slouch in the boat!

She's got a healthy dose of Howie's "let's have a good time" genes, too.

Paul got in the act with her, too!

After a great day on the water, the run back to the landing was a bit chilly...just ask Paul and Stephanie!

The rest of the week was occupied with finishing the roof. It was a tough job, but everyone pitched in and we got 'er done. Saturday morning I headed back to Boiestown to rest up for a day or so before heading home. When I walked into camp, this message was waiting for me (don't forget - you can click on the image to see the big picture):

When Renate Bullock tells me to "come fishing", I obey! We had two lovely evenings together on the pools of Bullock's Lodge! She's a generous friend!

And those evenings gave me the opportunity to try out my new best friend - a Beulah Onyx 13'7' cannon of a two-hander. Whoa, do I like that rod! Thank you, Elsons!!