A Stewart Lake Trip Down Memory Lane


A mirror image of Thunder mountain and the clouds above it
reflected in the evening light on Stewart Lake, Yukon

Two summers ago I took a trip back to the Yukon to visit my Whitehorse friends John Firth and his wife Dawn, and to fly in to our much beloved Stewart Lake, a place we have been returning to from time-to-time over four decades.

On this visit to the lake, John and I were joined by my brother-in-law Ted Vandenberg from London and my life-long Ottawa friend Alan Clapp.

Our five-day Stewart Lake adventure is captured in a retrospective feature that I wrote for Outdoor Canada Magazine. The article is published in the May/June edition which hit the news stands this week. Shoppers Drug Mart carries it, so that's where I picked up my copy. I'll have to wait for my subscription copy which I guess is coming by Canada Post's slow dogsled service.

The digital edition may at some point put the Stewart Lake feature online. The photos below are a sample of some of the sights and experiences we enjoyed on our visit in June 2024.

Peter Seifert's Little Bay Cabin where we stayed.
       The plywood exterior shows damage from porcupines
gnawing on the wood.



The inside of Peter's cabin





John Firth with a nice lake trout



   Al and Ted with me at the helm. We took a boat ride and were treated to a rare sight.
 
A cow moose leading her newborn calf to shore after swimming from a sanctuary island where she gave birth. Mother moose choose island sites to protect against predators, until the calves are nimble enough to follow their mothers. When they are strong enough, they swim to the mainland for better browsing opportunities. 




Me with a large northern pike



Comments

  1. Jimmy ButlerMay 4, 2026 at 8:58 PM

    Unspoiled splendour and cherished memories intertwine into an incomparable mix.
    Great piece!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Shout-Out to Yukon Story Laureate John Firth

Image
John Firth, with Ted Vandenberg at Stewart L. In 1980 when my wife and I moved to the Yukon from Ontario , one of the first people we met was John Firth . He was the property manager for the apartment building where we lived in Whitehorse . John was an approachable guy who collected our monthly rent, plus he was the in-resident fixer for any problems with our basement flat. A one-bedroom apartment in Whitehorse rented for about $300 a month in those days, and our brand new unit was $320, if my memory serves me correctly. We soon became close friends, a friendship that has endured 46 years; this despite the fact we departed Whitehorse in 1989.  By virtue of his position on various national level associations over the decades, John has been a regular visitor to Ottawa. He and his lovely wife Dawn attended both our daughters' weddings, and over the years we have returned to the territory at various times to visit them and enjoy the Yukon outdoors together. During the early years in W...
Read more

Welcome back to the Long Back Cast

Image
My name is Kevin Shackell and I live in Kanata , Ontario , a west-end suburb of Ottawa , Canada . I began my career as a newspaper reporter working for the Yukon News  in 1980 following graduation from the Algonquin College Print and Broadcast Journalism Program . Weekly newspaper reporters in that era were lucky to make $1,000 a month. I started at $800, and received a $200 car allowance. It wasn't enough to make a living at so I only stayed in the news business for three years before moving into public relations and communications where I spent most of my career. Mary-Ann, my girl friend from college, followed me up the mostly gravel Alaska Highway in her old  Datsun B210 . My newspaper job was first offered to her, which she declined in favour of a higher paying job at the City of Whitehorse for the princely sum of $15,000 per year. This beautiful and talented woman from journalism school, who had been hired by the Ottawa Citizen  after interning there, quit th...
Read more

The Flying Circus in our Back Yard

Image
Junco We live one street away from the National Capital Greenbelt and during the winter months I like to watch the wildlife circus playing in our back yard from our kitchen bay window. In early December I put up a pole feeder to augment the finch feeder we have year-round to attract gold finches. Even though the finches rarely show up in the winter, other species of small birds eat the niger seed during the cold months. I get a kick out of observing the birds flit in and out all day long, picking at the sunflower seeds and bread crumbs I place in a tin pan set on top of a greased pole. A small flock of grey and white Juncos have been daily visitors. These little birds, blue-grey on top with a white under-body, have a definite pecking order as they alternate between the niger feeder and pole feeder, competing for food. When one has been too long at a feeding station, another will buzz it off. Every now and then a few Chickadees will drop in, pick up a few seeds, then fly off somewhere...
Read more