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Janesville couple run Canadian fishing camp

Photo

Photo by Greg Peck

From left are Julie, Chase, Andrew and Lee Edwardson of Janesville and Ontario. Lee started running the camp at around age 26 after his father got ill.

Photo

Photo by Greg Peck

Base camp cabins at Pickerel Arm Camp sit on a hillside in a bay of the offshoot to Minnitaki Lake, near Sioux Lookout, Ontario, Canada.

SIOUX LOOKOUT, ONTARIO, CANADA — When Chase Edwardson, 7, and his brother Andrew, 6, return this fall at Janesville's Madison Elementary School, they'll be able to regale classmates with tales from a Canadian fishing camp—catching walleyes, swimming, riding in boats and floatplanes, and maybe even catching crayfish in the shallows.

All that and still plenty of time for TV and video games.

The boys are spending all summer at Pickerel Arm Camp on Minnitaki Lake near Sioux Lookout, Ontario.

Their parents, Janesville's Lee and Julie Edwardson, own and operate the camp.

Flash back to the late 1960s: Lee's mother, Judy, had no idea what she was in for as a newlywed when her husband, Dick, took her on a so-called honeymoon—their first trip the autumn after their winter wedding—to one of the camp's fly-in outposts. It might seem odd that Judy's dad, Don Truckenbrod of Darien, joined them, until you realize Dick and Don had gone on such fishing trips together.

Lee laughs at the image and says the outpost on Kabikwabik Lake was little more than a plywood shack back then.

Dick, a Milton College grad, worked in accounts payable at Janesville's General Motors plant, and Judy knew he wanted to run his own business. They bought the camp and started running it in 1974.

Starting at about age 3, Lee spent every summer at the camp. His dad got early Alzheimer's at age 51 and died at 61. Lee essentially took over running the camp at 26.

'Peace and quiet'

Like her future mother-in-law, Julie Nguyen couldn't have imagined the twist her life would take when she met Lee. Julie was just 3 when Trinity Episcopal Church brought her family of six to Janesville from Vietnam.

She graduated from Craig High School in 1990 and met Lee at a birthday party thrown by mutual friends. They started dating, and though her years in Janesville made her feel like a "city girl," she accepted his invitation to see the camp.

"Once you come down that driveway, the view is just spectacular."

Julie was attending UW-Oshkosh, so the trip was like her vacation.

"It was just nice to be able to relax here and (enjoy) the peace and quiet."

The couple wed in 2002, and Lee says the idea of spending summers at Pickerel Arm "grew on her."

Now, the couple spend winters in Janesville fielding phone calls and doing paperwork between Lee's trips to outdoor sports shows. Lee runs the camp from May 1 to Oct. 31 with the help of Julie, who stays in Janesville until the kids are out of school. Also helping are a maintenance man, a longtime housekeeper and a dock assistant. Lee calls in hunting and fishing guides for clients who want them.

Pickerel Arm has nine cabins at the base camp and uses charter planes to fly anglers and moose and bear hunters to nine more cabins as distant as 100 miles.

Lee says they've weathered the recession well and remain about 80 percent booked. About 80 percent of customers are repeat visitors. Wisconsin probably sends the most people, but Minnesota and Iowa are close behind.

Lee is seeing smaller groups because guys have lost jobs or gotten new ones and don't have as much vacation time.

"It was not as bad as I was expecting," he says. "The one nice thing about running this type of a business is people don't want to give up their fishing trip, their vacation, over anything, really. …

"For a lot of people, it's their one trip of the summer—you know, they're going to Canada fishing. And they'll find other places (to save). Maybe it's going out to eat less or whatever."

All the comforts

The camp has undergone many changes since Lee's parents bought it. Dick and Judy expanded the number of fly-in cabins—built on leased government land—from three to nine. Rotting log cabins were replaced. Although many people are just discovering solar power, Lee says his outpost cabins have used it for lighting and pumping water for about 20 years.

Cabins at the base camp are not ordinary. Think ceiling fans, carpeted bedrooms, well-equipped kitchens and gas grills outside. They even have flat-screen televisions with DVD players for watching movies.

Lee never thought he would install TVs.

"But then over the years, as we got nicer cabins and more families up, I noticed that the kids would all be huddled around a laptop computer watching movies at night while the adults have drinks on the porch or play cards. Realizing that kids are the future, and I want them to have a fun Canadian vacation above anybody else, the decision was easy."

Running the camp is anything but easy, though you'll often find the amiable Lee running barefoot down to the docks. Any day could bring a freezer on the fritz, a roof leaking or a boat motor kaput.

Even an interview with a Gazette staffer was delayed because Lee had flown out to try locating—without success—a boat someone sank under a waterfall in June.

All that pales in comparison to what happened on an otherwise beautiful day May 18, 2004. That's when a fly-in crash killed three fishermen and the pilot, who was a camp employee.

Among the dead was Edgerton's Kenneth Schremp, 49, the father of two and a racquetball champion at the Janesville Athletic Club.

Lee says the best the Transportation Safety Board could determine was that Frederick Illsley, an experienced pilot, erred in not keeping up his airspeed on approach to Fawcett Lake. The plane stalled, flipped when it hit the water and sank. A second plane dropped off more fishing buddies and headed out to try to find Illsley's plane. The fishermen from the second plane discovered Illsley's aircraft at the bottom of the lake.

"That was the worst day of our lives and the toughest," Lee says quietly, reflectively. "It was a tough year. It was a tough season. We think about all the families all the time. They're always on my mind."

He had no thoughts of selling the business, however.

"… You just kind of keep taking each day; you just keep going forward. I have never done anything else but run the camp or live here, so I really didn't have any thoughts of doing anything else. It was just a terrible moment, a terrible accident, and it's out of your control; that's the worst part. It's out of your control, and you just have to ride through it."

No regrets

Lee gave up owning planes and hiring pilots two years ago. A charter service out of Sioux Lookout is more convenient. He called operating planes and the required paperwork a "money pit."

Coincidentally, Schremp, who loved the outdoors but worked at American Family Insurance, hoped to someday be a fishing guide.

Lee was a hired guide by his teen years, but after taking over operations from his dad, he had to give up guiding. These days, he's happy to get a couple of hours of free time to take his kids fishing—though he's always in touch with Julie by cell or satellite phone.

Summer at the camp is like dairy farming—nobody takes a day off. Besides constant jack-of-all-trades work, every camper expects Lee to be available to answer questions or resolve concerns.

Still, Lee has no regrets.

"I like it. I can't imagine doing anything else."

These days, his mother, Judy, spends summers in a home on a point near the main cluster of cabins.

Could Lee see spending his retirement days there with Julie, getting back into a little guiding, while one of his kids runs the camp?

He smiles at the suggestion.

"That'd be nice if one of the two would have an interest in it," he says. "If they don't, I understand fully. They're more than welcome to do anything else they want in life."