Thirty Aikens skaters. That’s right, thirty of them. Two teams faced off for fun in the St.Malo arena. Dark jerseys vs. Lights. With such a mixed bag of skill sets, the guys and girls on both sides gave it their all. In the end the Light jerseys took the best of three mini games. It ended two games to one after a vigorous 90 minutes session on the ice.  The tired skaters were more relieved than thrilled when that final goal went in!

Various family members and loved ones came out to watch the spectacle. Amidst the dipsy-doodling, toe-drags and top cheddar, tons of laughs were shared. The happy smiles on the team picture do not lie! Looking forward till the next game!

Fishing is an experience best shared with others. Friends, family and colleagues all bond in a very special way when their lines are in the water. Discovering new techniques and fishing grounds adds to the enjoyment. That is why Aikens Lake Wilderness Lodge continues to show its presence at the various outdoor trade shows held all over North America. These events showcase all aspects of the outdoor industry and offer a unique opportunity for outdoors people to discover the many products and adventures available to them. No surprise our one-of-a-kind ”Aikens Experience” is one of the many attractions at these events.

Here is the schedule for all of our sportshow destinations:

Jan. 5-8th : Denver International Sportsmen’s Expo (Patrick and Pit)

Jan. 12-15: Chicago All-Canada Show (Patrick and Pit)

Jan. 19-22: Kansas City Sportshow (Gerry and Lorraine)

Jan. 16-22: Barrett Jackson Scottsdale (Chris and Jeff)

Feb. 2-4: Las Vegas International Sportsmen’s Expo (Patrick, Pit, Janelle and Julie)

Feb. 23-26: Phoenix International Sportsmen’s Expo (Pit and Julie)

March 14-18: Toronto Sportsman’s Show (Patrick and Pit)

March 28- April 1: Northwest Sportshow - Minneapolis (Pit, Julie, Janelle and Patrick)

We are excited to visit these cities and hope to meet plenty of folks interested in discovering one of Manitoba’s crown jewels! If we are coming to your town or someone you know, we’d love to offer you COMPLEMENTARY PASSES to the show. Please don’t hesitate to take us up on the offer; the only charge: stop by the booth and say hi! For tickets or any other request please contact us by email fishing@aikenslake.com  or call toll-free 1-800-565-2595. We look forward to seeing you at the show!

As it is every year, when that Yuletide cheer comes around, Aikens staffers, volunteers and alumni converge at the Turenne’s for a great big shindig! At peak time, there were over 50 people in the standing room only event. Julie and Janelle prepared a delicious meal and when everyone’s belly’s were full, we drew names for prizes. The generous gifts were a small token of appreciation to our diligent team which have made of us a lodge that is the envy of many in the industry. Our 5 separate nominations this year in various tourism award networks (from local to national) are a testament to our hard-working team’s excellence.

Laughs, dancing and non-stop smiles made for an evening filled with fun. Drinks were poured and many toasts were heard around the room. And to top it off, our partners during the summer season, ÔTours, provided all parties with a safe return home in their shuttle. Thanks!

On behalf of everyone in the Aikens Lake Wilderness Lodge family, we wish you the very best in health and happiness during this Holiday season! Joyeux Noël!

In October 2011, the highly anticipated new terminal opened at Winnipeg’s James Richardson International Airport. This monstrous new building was a much-needed upgrade over the old facility. There is a modern and well-lit design with mostly glass walls to give you a bird’s eye view of the airport grounds, as well as a nice far-away view of downtown Winnipeg. The most noticeable upgrade our guests will appreciate is the expanded presence of restaurants and shops in the airport … especially for international departures. There are now over a dozen restaurants in the airport, including T.G.I.Fridays, Tim Horton’s, Starbucks, and Fuel Bar, among many others. When you arrive in Winnipeg, there is a convenient liquor mart located just past baggage pickup. You won’t have to stop on the way to Silver Falls if you want to pick up that special bottle … although with our Platinum Plan most people no longer need to do this anyway. 

The new airport is a bit more “self-serve,” meaning that a small adjustment period will be needed to check-in at the airport. However, with 32 kiosks where you can check yourself in and print your boarding passes and bag tags, the process is lightning fast. For our American guests, you will still clear customs in Winnipeg before boarding your flights home. You will even check your bags in before meeting the customs agent, and a state-of-the-art baggage system will bring your bag back up to the surface quickly if needed.  With this new terminal will come more routes and better aircraft. As of December 2011, our US connections all come through Denver and Chicago (United), or through Minneapolis (Delta).  The hope is that larger planes will replace the Regional Jets (RJ’s) for those United flights, and more connections will come into play (there is talk of NYC and LAX). 

Our preferred flight times to get to Aikens and home same day will remain the same; make sure to land before 2PM on the day of arrival to Winnipeg, and book a 1:30 p.m. or later flight on the day of departure. We look forward to hearing your comments about the new airport.  We believe it will greatly enhance your logistics and comfort coming to and from Aikens Lake Wilderness Lodge.

3D video tour of the the airport

www.waa.ca

The phone is ringing, are you listening? And next summer,  is ‘a booking. A wonderful time to get things in line, walking in an Aikens Wonderland.

Please call us (1-800-565-2595) or email (fishing@aikenslake.com) to start planning you 2012 Aikens Lake Wilderness Lodge adventure at last year’s prices! Have a great day!

With the Aikens offseason upon us, two members of the Aikens family have been rehearsing their lines and projecting their voices in preparation for opening night!  Pat is playing a double-role these days… sales manager supreme during the day as he is busy rebooking our 2011 guests into their 2012 time slots, then changing in a phone booth and going to the Cercle Moliere at night where he is a big part of a new play called Boeing Boeing.

For those of you that book spring or mid-summer trips, you will notice much of Gabs’ handiwork on your next trip up to Aikens.  He is a roofer by trade and has spent many weeks at the lodge over the years.  He came up in late August/September this year to help convert 4 roofs from shingle to green tin (Master Angler’s Row, Park Place, Orion, OCC Storage) .

Opening night was this past Friday, and the review in this weekend’s Winnipeg Free Press was 4 stars!  Congratulations guys.

Read the review by clicking this link

In 2010, we introduced a new goal at Aikens Lake.  It is a very fun goal to chase, much like the Master Angler program from Travel Manitoba has been fun for us over the years.  The premise of our Century Club is to catch 4 walleyes in a guided day that total 100″ (average 25″ each).  This is an individual award and it has created a lot of excitement on the lake for the past few summers.  Those that achieve this prestigious designation can be proud of their great achievement.

In 2010, we were in the infancy stage of this program so we only introduced the Century Club concept to our guests and guides without pushing too much.  The reaction to it was incredible though!  We received some excellent and positive feedback all season long… even from those anglers who would be stuck at 99″ and hoping for that last lunker to show up!  This past summer, we decided to spice things up with our Century Club and put some larger stakes on it.  We decided to draw for a free trip for one lucky angler out of all those who managed the Century Club feat in 2011!  The trip would match the length of stay, accommodations, etc from this past summer’s booking.  One person would have some really jealous friends!

Well, the draw happened this afternoon in Winnipeg.  After putting all of the names in an official blaze-orange hunting tuque (that’s how they pick powerball, right?!?!) Julie and Janelle pulled one lucky name out of the hat.  The winner is Mr. Murray Bruce from Saskatchewan!  Murray has been coming up with his close friends, and sometimes their sons, since 2008.  A joker, he wasn’t sure if we were pulling his leg when we called, but he is very happy now!  Murray landed 101″ on June 10 of last year, with the biggest walleye being 27″.  He told us on the phone that his buddies were going to be “all twisted up over this” because they ribbed him a lot while at the lodge - although those other guys never did get the Century Club designation!  Congratulations Murray - we look forward to hosting you and the rest of the guys back up here next June!

Aikens Lake Wilderness Lodge is quickly becoming a household name in both local and national tourism circles.  Having already won a Manitoba Tourism Award back in April in the “Service Excellence” category, a CDEM Lauréat de la PME award in June for small business, and a prestigious nomination by SKAL International for “Sustainable Development in Tourism”, it has been quite a banner year for the lodge.  Well, we are very proud to announce two more feathers in our cap as we have just been named one of three finalists for the “Traveller Experience” award at the Canadian Tourism Awards, and are also a finalist for a Manitoba Business Award.

The Manitoba Business Awards will be presented on October 26th at the Delta Hotel in Winnipeg.  We are one of three finalists in the category of “Long Term Achievement by a Business - Rural Category”.  The strength of the nomination was based on how Aikens has transformed in the past 60 years, and especially in the past decade as we have redesigned our guest experience completely! http://mcc.olasoft.com/uploaded/26/web/PDFs/MBA%20Announcement%20finalists%202011.pdf

The Canadian Tourism Congress will take place from November 22-24, with the awards ceremony representing the culmination of Canada’s premier tourism conference.  This conference is attended by more than 400 industry leaders and execs, MPs, Senators, and members of the federal Cabinet!  The Congress is organized by TIAC (Tourism Industry Association of Canada).  We are very happy to be recognized under the Traveller Experience category, as we have been priding ourselves on giving our guests the best “Aikens Experience” we can deliver for many years now.  Although we cannot control the weather or the fishing, we do make sure that everything else about someone’s experience is handled professionally.  Hopefully TIAC agrees!  We will let you know if we end up winning either of these pretigious awards!

http://www.tiac.travel/awards/2011finalists.htm

A forest fire that started south of Bissett on October 5th quickly got out of control when South winds gusted to 90 km/h (about 55mph).  The blaze started on Wednesday morning and was being held for the first 24 hours, but the winds kicked up and started moving it a an astounding speed.  It moved the fire across the last highway in Eastern MB and proceeded to rip through pristine wilderness overnight, at some points jumping over 1/2 mile lakes and rivers!  Friday was a very hectic day as the southern part of the fire was threatening the gold-mining town of Bissett, attracting all the attention of the crews to save the town, while the northern wall continued it’s barage through the dozens of miles wilderness inching ever closer to Aikens.  It was a very unsettling feeling on Friday, with knowledge that this 18,000 hectare wall of flame was moving so quickly towards us.  Reports had the flames as high as 400 feet in the air!  Smoke filled Aikens as the first 3,000 feet of airspace was unnavigable.

More than 110 firefighters from MB, ON, and even BC were brought in to help fight the blaze over the weekend.   Thankfully, Saturday brought cooler temperatures and some drizzle which stagnated the growth of the fire.  Mother Nature continued to lend a helping hand to the crew and finally the blaze was contained earlier this week.  If you search the link below, you can find a Google Map of the exact location of the fire.  It is still burning today, but has not grown in size since Saturday and is now just burning itself out in the already affected area.  The wall of flame ends just North of Aikens on the Gammon River, and the fire’s closest boundary lies about 10km (6.5miles) West of Aikens.

We have not had any real fire threat like this since the last big fire of 1980 which burned the North, East, and South sides of the lake.  Although the previous ownership (the Lavergnes) were there at the time, Gerry Lavergne told us stories about how the tops of the trees were exploding just on the other side of the Back Bay, and that although they had waterbombed the lodge, they feared that one of these fireballs would jump the Back Bay and burn down the cabins from the backside.  The lodge had of course been evacuated but it was being used as a staging area for the firefighters that year.  You can still see some fire damage as you walk through that thick 30-year old forest.  A few tall fire-burned trees still tower over the rest of the forest, and make ideal spots for the Bald Eagles to perch (maybe that’s why we see so many at Aikens!)

With this previous story in mind, we are actually quite lucky with our location.  In reality, our main camp sits on a perfectly located peninsula that would be really hard for a forest fire to access.  Forest fires move quickly and dangerously with hot south winds, and we have the entire lake to the south of our camp so that is not an issue.  Our only mainland access to the North is cutoff by a huge swamp (fun fact: on really high water you can actually navigate a canoe from the Back Bay to the main lake through that swamp - only having to get out on the shore of the main lake to cross a small rocky beach).  Also, we have quite a water and hydrant system that would help soak down the cabins in no time if needed.   So, even though we are in the wilderness, we are very well protected from a fire catastrophe.

A big thankyou to Manitoba Conservation and Bluewater Aviation for their quick and efficient response to this threat that had us all very concerned!  Bluewater had many moose hunters strewn about the affected area but was able to pull them all out safely before the threat was close.  We appreciate all the work the fire crews put in 24 hours a day to make sure that no one was hurt (or worse), that the last outpost of civilization Bissett was saved, and that no one lost any property.  There were several private camps and cottages that were much closer to this blaze than we were, and amazingly they are all untouched.  They say that a healthy forest needs to regenerate itself through fire every 60 years, hopefully it’s that long again before we see something like this!   Next year as you fly up to Aikens, be sure to look out of the left-side windows of the otter and you will see just how big of an area this fire took down this fall!

http://www.gov.mb.ca/conservation/fire/Fire-Maps/index.html

Top to bottom, front to back, the place is getting a breath of fresh air. Gone are curled shingles. Away with drab older siding. Chipped paint? I don’t think so Tim. There’s a new look in town.

This fall has been a whirlwind of renos, roofing and siding. From the Old Caillebo (the ex shower facilities) to the Big Molly’s porch nary a tar shingle can be found. Expert installation of green tin roofs complete with new fascia, soffit and gutters was handled by Gabs Gosselin. The metal topsides were added to OCC (Old Caillebo), Park Place (which also had its logs refinished this year), Orion and Master Angler’s Row (which is, at press time, being gutted and renovated into luxury two-person suites). Our renovations spearheaded by FGBuilders owner/operators Dan Garand and Andre Fontaine, as previously mentioned, are an interior transformation of MAR; new windows and doors, tongue and groove white pine vaulted ceilings, a new bathroom layout and brand-new hand crafted beds built right here in our shop with the able and quality craftsmanship of the Captain. The exteriors of MAR and the lodge then got a wrap around finish of half log with green trim. Very sharpish!

Meanwhile on the other side of the lake… GGO had it’s huge overhaul earlier this season. This time we wrapped up some unfinished business. Low water and a few free days equaled three new footings for the final phase of the Grey Owl’s dock. Flown in was our welding visionary Leo Nolette whom, with our maintenance manager Marcel Bedard, boomed out the final sections of this imposing structure. With the deck installed the dock now has 75ft of frontage and is able the tether our entire guide boat fleet during high water for those large (and delicious) shore lunches!

Elbow grease and vision have paid dividends at Aikens once again. The place is constantly re-inventing and improving its ability to offer you, our distinguished guests, staff and readership, a unique and unforgettable adventure. Out with the old, in with the new. We look forward to hearing your feedback towards these recent efforts.