April 29th, 2011: I’m excited to get this season started! There’s a couple of weather issues that I thought I should update, especially for our early guests. Right now, the ice is still holding strong. I was at my mom’s cabin yesterday about 50 miles north of Winnipeg and there was still ice on that lake. Normally there’s a full 2 weeks from the time that my mom’s lake opens up until the ice on Bolton Lake goes away. It’s going to come down to the wire this year whether we get in as scheduled on May 17th or not. There’s always a good chance that the back bay behind the lodge will be open for the float plane to come and go, plus the river at Joint Lake opens up earlier than the main lake and that’s plenty of room for us to land the float plane so we should be able to get in, but the whole lake may not be available. I’ll have a better idea next week when I get up to the lodge.
Also, with flooding in Southern Manitoba, right now the main highway coming into Winnipeg is closed in certain areas. I-29 in North Dakota turns into Highway 75 once you cross into Canada, so if you’re driving to Winnipeg you may have to look into a different route. I’ll update this as the season gets closer.