Fly Fishing Fabisch, the Weekly Picture Archive 3 - 2019

Camping way out in the wilderness is quite different from staying in a campground. No tap water, no electricity and no sewage pipe. This means best avoiding to waste water, if the nearest source is 60 km and a mountain pass away. Well, a pass consisting of a dirt road that any rain may quickly turn into slippery mud. Of course you can shop food and drinks to last you for a certain length of time, but unfortunately our freezer gave up on us for lack of propane early in our trip. All we could do was discard the ruined provisions.

Our deepest hole had a depth of 6.5 meters and on the bottom there was only room for a single person to scratch at the very bottom with only a real small shovel. In case the wall had crumbled at the top, the person on the bottom would not only have been dead, but also buried at the same time. The picture on the right shows this very hole at a depth of 5 m. Look how deep it is to my right. The ladder on the left side of the picture is 3.8 meters long, which is not as much as the depth of the hole (see picture in the middle). As permafrost begins at a depth of 20 cm to 1 meter, over 95% of the tailings had to be loosened using a jackhammer.

This town has a well stocked supermarket allowing you to replenish your stocks of groceries and what have you. We spent three days there and tried to catch a few fish. Unfortunately a northern pike of about 50 cm was the only one worth mentioning. The only other specimens we hooked were tiny grayling, below 20 cm. The results of our gold panning were equally disappointing. The river and its scenery however are gorgeous. Regrettably there were also forest fires while we were around.

And then, all of a sudden, the day of your flight back home pops up. The last days had been rather turbulent. What should better be taken home to Germany, what should be left in our trailer? In between we went to cast a fly into the Yukon at Whitehorse once more. We had planned to visit the canyons upstream from Whitehorse and, finally, the fish pass at the hydroelectric plant in Whitehorse. The time passes, like sand running through your fingers, until you finally find yourself sitting in an airplane bound for Frankfurt. After the first meal you manage to relax, I managed to sleep for five hours.

Normally I suffer from jetlag about for about a week upon returning from British Columbia after three or four weeks. This trip to the Yukon lasted three months, so I expected the time of jetlag problems to last longer, too. Luckily I was wrong and the problems were almost negligible. May be this was due to the fact that up North there was only little difference between daytime and night. Anyway, it suited me right and I could start right back into my normal chores. My experiences in the Yukon have been deeply embedded in my memory and will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Of course our fisheries in Franconia are affected. While the karst and its underground cavities will work as a sort of buffer, their capacities are not unlimited. Especially on the upper stretches the lack of water is evident. The drier it gets, the more water is needed for farming to ensure a harvest. Thus the problem for the fisheries multiplies. There is certainly no simple solution for all that, but we should work hard to find a feasible one, before it is too late for our rivers, and for us.

In this case the pilot heads away from Vancouver almost as far as Vancouver Island and then turns back towards Vancouver. This means you can forget about your photographs. This year I was lucky in chosing my seat. The conditions were perfect over Greenland as well as during the approach to Vancouver. The pilot was following the Fraser from Hope to the airport and took the direct approach to the runway. Right after Hope he had considerably reduced the fight´s altitude, so I had many opportunities to get good shots. Hope is about 150 km from the airport.

      ✆ DE   011 49 9126 288640,   Fax 011 49 9126 288643,     Ⓒ Wolfgang Fabisch