An excerpt from a great letter one of our Babine guests sent us.
On this particular day the weather was overcast in the high 50s—balmy for this far north in Canada in October, when it can certainly be cold, wet, and stormy. We pretty much had the whole Babine river to ourselves that morning. It was a stunning, desolate landscape, with pine trees pruned low and angular by the winds coming off the steep mountains, and giant old growth storm-tossed timbers washed up along the rivers edge. In fact I was staring up at one of these massive piles of wood when the biggest steelhead I have ever seen took my swung fly like it was avenging the death of a close friend. When I started to feel panic rise at the lack of control I had, my calming guide picked up his net, nodded his head and announced “we are going to land this fish.” I thought to myself “I am learning how to manage this experience.” To be in this spectacular unspoiled ecosystem engaged with one of nature’s true wonders, (which ended up to be a 28lb steelhead).
Our home that week was riverside lodge – Babine Steelhead Lodge. My room felt like a cabin in the woods overlooking one of the greatest steelhead runs ever formed by mother nature. The team that made it all happen was focused on the experience, allowing us to truly enjoy our time in the wilderness safely yet unabashed.
I now can’t imagine a year passing by without stepping foot on this holy land, and visiting my family in the north. Experiencing the Babine River for the first time will not be what you expect because you will try to compare it to other fishing trips. When you finally see the river it will feel like a kind of privilege to gaze out at it, and when that first steelhead bite happens you will know the feelings I describe just as so many other anglers have. Suddenly you are no longer the bumbling angling observer, gazing at the stream from a distance, but rather part and parcel of everything that is transpiring. It is a deep connection that all of us that fish or work on the Babine River share and one I hope to experience for the rest of my life.
