FISHING JOURNAL August 1959

Fishing Journal

Transcriptions of my journal entries from 1959. [VAT]

August 1959

Dept. of Mines and Technical Surveys – Map Canada Sheet 92-0

TASEKO LAKE

Departure Saturday 22.8.59 (Aug. 1959) at 8:00 a.m.

Fraser Canyon – Fish ladder

Thompson River – clear water – rugged landscape – sage brush – the scent to mint in the air

Nicola Valley looks very interesting

Harry Smardon and Steve Vida are great guys, helpful and knowledgeable

Caribou Highway — the houses are numbered according to miles

100-mile House — population about 200

15-mile House — population about 600

William’s Lake, where we stayed overnight, bigger—population 1600. Went along – 1800 hours.

Sunday 23.8.1959

Departure at 8:00 a.m. west across a mud-colored Fraser. Judging by the trees the landscape resembles Finland—huge cattle farms—rolling terrain. Not much game—only a few quail.

Alexis Creek – 12:30. Base Camp. Went for coffee at the Harleys. Really fine people. 2:00 p.m. Departure for Chilko Lake. For a long distance along the way Indians fishing and smoke curing sockeye salmon. The road is rocky and at the end it’s muddy in parts. Driving time about 4 hours. Arrival at 1800 hours. I was told by my boss—John, what was his name now (Weir), that I will accompany Steve to Taseko Lake. I gave a few trout flies as a remembrance to Harry, who seemed genuinely sorry that I wasn’t going to be joining his group. I went with him to get familiar with their counting routine. —Seemed pretty easy. Sockeyes are breaking the surface everywhere: in a 20-minute span of time 59 swam upstream and 35 downstream past our observation post. Tried to do some fishing—no success.


24.8.59Departure at 1:45 p.m. John drove slowly and Steve swore: "son-of-a-fun." Driving time 5 hours. The day was sunny, but quite windy. At Alexis we met our future crew members. The Horsefly Hatchery caretakers are Dough Hemdal and Gunnar Olsen. Both seems to be nice guys. Not able to continue our trip any further today. Stayed overnight.

25.8.59

Taseko Lake, BC

Taseko Lake. Departure at 8:00 a.m. Drove a different route than last time (to Hansville). The first 35 miles were better than the Chilko road. Every so often we drank coffee when we met up with a new hunting or fishing party. Apparently things were going well and new excursions were being planned. At the 35 mile marker we met a lone trapper who also made us some coffee. From there the road became miserable, but the landscape was pleasing and we even saw some quail. Arrived at 1720 hours. Taseko Lake is milky white—chalky.

The river is the same where we were spotting salmon, especially sockeyes. Doug and Gunnar took the Commission cabin for themselves, and Steve and I spent the night in the Forestry cabin. The food is good and varied—Gunnar has cooked up to now. We tried to make radio contact—we heard the guys on the other end, but they couldn’t hear us. (Chilko).

26.8.59

We started out at 7:00 a.m. with morning coffee. Brought in some firewood with Gunnar and used a hand truck for the first time in my life. Surprisingly it wasn’t very heavy at all. Have eaten well, sleep has come easily; the air is fresh because a wind blows in from the lake, and we live in the middle of a fir and pine forest! Spruce and Lodgepole Pine. Steve and I saw three mountain goats when we went fishing before breakfast. In the afternoon we got the spawning platform in shape and the boys saw two black bears on the opposite mountain side. I didn’t have time to see them.

    New plant: Indian Paintbrush. The Dobson Flies are swarming—a preview of things to come. Steve ran into a rat at the boat house—I scared a raccoon into a tree.

    Kingfisher, Gray Jay. A chipmunk for company. Steve found some beautiful jade. Took the boat out on the water. Gunnar got the gill nets in order – sort of. Was asked about them, but wasn’t sure about how to put them in order. Radio contact the same as yesterday—we can hear the transmitter, but they can’t hear us. And now it’s raining buckets again. —Have felt very well today—maybe we’ll get through this.

28.8.59

It rained all night—every once in a while very hard—a torrential downpour. Had some sort of dream about Veikko and that’s when I woke up. Had this depressing feeling that my stay here will only be for two weeks or how ever long it may last. Ominous feelings and impressions of past experiences, and a fear of the future. Spent a sleepless morning and at 6:15 we got up to the sound of pelting rain. The aluminum roof on the camp—new—leaks in many spots, but we weren’t able to adjust it totally, and our morning communication was totally unsuccessful. We weren’t able to hear the transmitter, and no one could hear us.

     At 8:30 right after breakfast we departed in our aluminum boat for the other shore of the lake to do some gill netting. We pulled in 3 nets, with 40, 30 and 50 fish respectively. With the egg mass we gathered there were approximately 15-20,000 eggs, since spawning was only just starting. We estimated about every 0^th egg was fertile. Got to cast the net and it would have been alright except for the aluminum spikes which poked out of the boat, plus there were all kinds of other places where the nets could get caught. Got through it somehow because I cast the net twice, and the others didn’t seem to be anxious to give it a try. Blamed the spikes that were poking out and proposed that we cover them with a piece of plywood to which Doug agreed. It will be interesting to see if we gillnet again tomorrow—I don’t think it’s worth it. In any case, I’ll try again—hopefully with some better luck. As we got to the shore it quit raining. We put the spawning boxes in the truck and took them downstream to the platforms we had constructed. Put them in place and filled the first box with the eggs we had caught. The boards were covered with a tarp so the birds won’t get at the eggs.

     After that the afternoon was free, but Steve and I didn’t think it was worthwhile to go tramping in the wet forest even though we were offered use of the boat. We decided to test the calibration of the sight on Steve’s moose rifle (a Swedish Mauser). Measured 150 yards to the shore, and used as our target a cardboard box which I weighted down with a rock. The box flew apart with the first shot—and so did the rock. We placed a tin can on top of a 5x6 board, and he shot two rounds at it. Then he suggested that I try shooting. I protested since I knew what a poor shot I had been in the past, but to no avail. Shot twice —both shots seemed to get away from me because the trigger was so touchy. Figured it was useless to even check my accuracy, but Steve wouldn’t hear of it. And to my great surprise the second shot hit the target—and a very good shot it was at that. Figured it was around 1 p.m. Decided beforehand that this was going to go down as some type of omen, so I was a little apprehensive before I shot. Since I did this well, what can it mean? Perhaps not anything at all.

The afternoon was spent chopping wood plus eating and washing dishes. Felt a bit tired so I came here to camp planning to get some rest, but nothing came of my plan because I had to write and heat up the cabin. We would not have gotten along otherwise.

    On Friday—wakeup call at 7:00 a.m. Breakfast at 7:30. We really eat well here – there seems to be more than enough of everything. One just has to prepare it—and Gunnar is a master at it. Right after breakfast we went out with the nets—we drew in 3 nets and got 19 ½ ounces of egg mass. We examined it—or actually Doug examined it and counted how many ounces we would need—it came to 480. (That can’t be right—the writer’s memo). So the first day’s record was nearly 10,000 eggs, thus we still have a way to go before we reach 300,000, which I understand is at the bottom of our target number. Each box holds 25,000 eggs and there are 40 boxes which indicates that the desirable goal to reach is 1,000,000 eggs. We will see—so far fertile fish have totaled around 10%. When we reached shore we put the eggs in incubation trays which were placed on incubation racks in the stream flow. We ate and then in the afternoon we drove across the lake to take a look at Lastman Lake. The walk was about 2 miles and the road was good. By the way, we had spotted a she-bear with her cubs on the mountainside.

Lastman Lake, BC

     The lake is about 1 kilometer (1 ½ miles) long and quite beautiful, but the water is so high that we had to wade among the bushes along the shoreline so we could do any casting. The north end was shallow and we had no desire to cast there so we went to scout out the west shore. There the shoreline was much better—a little deeper too. A couple of small fish broke the surface but my hardware didn’t seem to interest them. A bit further out toward the center of the lake there appeared to be bigger fish, but there was no way to cast that far without a boat. I couldn’t help but compare the lake as well as the fish to corresponding ones in Lapland, and felt that those at home were in no way inferior.

Northern Goshawk

     I decided to go scout out the east side where the shoreline was much steeper. It was quite a pleasant walk over there along the trail. On one side of the trail was a hill—perhaps about 30 meters (100 feet) high. From the summit it would be possible to see around the area and so I started climbing to the top. My lungs were about to give out totally—what could have happened to them? It may well be that I will have to adopt a very sedentary lifestyle for the rest of my life – it that’s possible. Will it be possible to find some kind of occupation that doesn’t require too much physical exertion? It doesn’t seem very promising over here—fly tying might work in Finland, and it may be the only possibility.

     On the east side there had been a stream at one time—judging from the downslope. Discovered a beaver dam—now I have finally seen one of those. The shoreline was very steep, but so choked up with brush that it was not possible to do any casting. The trees grew right up to the shoreline which was about a ½ meter deeper than the previous one. Didn’t even attempt to fish because I didn’t know where the rest of the crew was. Saw a group of hawks—Steve called them Goshawks. I wonder if it’s the same as the Finnish nuolihaukka?

     When I reached the road I whistled and got an answer back. Walked along the road to the west bank but didn’t see anyone. Cast my line in a few times—just for show. Started walking back, but no matter how I checked around couldn’t find any footprints leading back to camp. Stepped off the trail toward the rushing sound of the stream—the forest, which had seemed so familiar, had suddenly become lush and thick. The stream was all rapids—not one fishing hole or gently flowing spot on the way to the bridge. Perhaps there might have been some higher up—who knows. No departing footprints either—just a pair of quail flushed into flight. Started slowly walking toward the boat, then changed my mind and turned around —and there came Doug and Gunnar. Found out that Steve had been on the south end with the boat. We didn’t stay to wait for him but hiked to the boat. Another boat was approaching and in it arrived the crew of “Lord River Hunting Camp” —that’s what they are called—3 men and a woman—they sound like they are French origin. They had a car on the shore and started to load things into it. Seemed to be anxiously waiting for some hunters. The cost is $50 for a day which covers everything including the guide. I have seen their brochure and in it they promise everything you can imagine —if you have the money to pay for it.

     There was no sign of Steve so Doug took us across the lake and went back to wait for him. An 18-foot aluminum boat and a 30 horse power engine—it almost flew across the water!

     We got dinner ready and had to wait for some time because Steve is a keen fisherman, and above all, an avid hunter. After dinner we went out to pick out all the spoiled eggs but were overtaken by darkness. At first we weren’t sure why the dead count was so high, but soon it became clear that there was quite a group of small fish milling around the spawning platforms, some Rainbow trout as well as whitefish, and they were nosing at the spawning boxes from underneath. And the eggs can’t tolerate any shaking or motion of any kind in the beginning stages. —Steve had caught 4 Dollys.

29.8.49

Wakeup call at 7:00 and breakfast at 7:30. Almost immediately we went gill netting and after we had a bit to eat we renewed our efforts. Collected about 70,000 eggs and the salmon we had killed were strewn around the shore line to prove it. The day was sunny and we were sheltered from the wind since we were on the lee side. That’s how our Saturday was spent, and to top it all of in the evening we took the eggs to the spawning boxes. For two meals we had fried trout—just the two of us, Gunnar and I, ended up eating them. 

Sunday 30.8.59

Wakeup call and breakfast as usual. After that our first job was to cull out all the dead eggs from the egg mass—that took about 1 ½ hours. We drank our coffee and ate a couple of sandwiches because the plan was to go cast out the nets on the same trip and then return to camp. We pulled in 7 nets and gathered about 120,000 eggs. It was already after 4 p.m. when we pulled into our home shore. Doug and Steve took the eggs by truck and I helped Gunnar with preparing dinner. I brought in some water and firewood and peeled one onion—that was it.

      Steve talked a little about his life. He has been in this country now for 7 years – escaped from Hungary in 1949. Was born in ’22 —attended flight school at the Hungarian cadet academy 1940 -43, flew in the war for a year, spent 8 months in the hospital. Was in the Hungarian communist army until he made his escape. The next morning they were going to come and arrest him, but one of his friends was in the Secret Police and warned him through his sister. The friend was hung, the sister was sent to prison. Steve’s father had been sent to prison that spring and now it was supposed to have been his turn. He escaped with two of his brothers. His mother, who had been a teacher just like his father, was arrested the next morning in place of Steve. She as well as Steve’s father ended up spending 4 ½ years in prison. Steve’s older brother fought in Finland 1940-41. He returned to Hungary when the war broke out there. He now professes to be a card-carrying communist to protect his family.

     Steve has lived just about all over Canada, but he has especially toured BC on foot as well as by plane. Photography is his second vocation. He has been a guide, the same as I. “If only I could go back to Hungary and fight. I’m too old to fly here anymore.” A 37-year-old and the man is in the prime of his life! Where does that leave me then?

     Today I had some shortness of breath now and then. A cigarette fast would help. Guess I’ve received lifelong reminders from Canada—but I have no desire to die here. Really hope there is some way that we can return to Finland once more if I just come up with some kind of plan. Fortunately my appetite has returned and the hemorrhoids are gone. At least there is some kind of progress to be noted. The conversation just doesn’t seem to flow very naturally. I’m not sure if I will learn it here either—if I could just stop worrying about the future I would probably be more receptive. Right now it seems like I’m being given a dose of castor oil—and that is not the best attitude for learning the language. 

Monday 31.8.59

A hard day of netting. —We exceeded ½ million eggs. My fingers are getting pretty sore, but when we get working I don’t seem to notice it any more.

Translated from the original Finnish: Marja-Leena Tolvanen-Rogers

NB: This blog had been compiled from an autobiography and journal entries by Andy (Valto Antero) Tolvanen. He is renowned in fishing circles in Finland for being one of the first individuals to bring the art of fly-tying to Finland. Andy translated the instructions from English to Finnish in the early 1950s since there was no literature in Finnish on the art of fly-tying. He is mentioned on several Finnish fishing club websites regarding this fact. ~ MLR