Eliguk Journal – February 23, 2025.

It was relaxing to organize all my seedlings and watch with excitement as they started to sprout. The feeling of getting down to your last few prized heirloom tomato seeds you acquired from halfway around the world - all because you somehow missed collecting that variety of seed from last year, can be daunting! Needless to say, when that tomato seed finally germinates - I feel more at ease. However the stress of it making the journey from seedling to full blown fruit producing tomato plant, is a challenge I don't mind taking on - I think that's half the excitement of gardening! I know some of you think planting anything and watching it grow, is about as exciting as watching paint dry - but we all have our obsessions.

My husband finally got my new LED strip grow lights tacked to a board that currently hangs above our kitchen table. An easier set-up with low wattage - enabling me to keep it plugged in all night long no matter what the sunshine is doing with our solar system. I can pull it up and out of the way during the day, and lower it for use when I go to bed!

Mountain Man beefed up his thumb for his excavator last week. It was breaking pins, so he re-enforced it with metal plates. At the time we were also still into the freezing day-time temperatures, so he had no choice but to try and use his small mig-welder at -8C (17.6F). Heating the thumb up before welding it outside was redundant because as soon as he brought it outside in those temperatures the cold instantly conducted it's way through the metal - hence why cold metal is a better conductor of electricity. With the mig-welder set as high as it could go, he proceeded to run a few small beads along each piece that needed to be welded, in order to heat it up before running a wide one over-top. This ensured a great weld that has held all week in his continual fire mitigation. I'm sure like all his welding - it will hold forever, as I've never seen any of his welds break.

How fleeting were those moments of relaxation and organization the last time I sat down to compose words in any form. With Mountain Man being back to look after as he works hard around the resort, gathering wood (as he just hates touching the accumulation of wood he has stocked away in the woodshed!) I've been cabin prepping and menu planning all week, if even just for my husbands palette - but even more, the guests coming in by snow machine from Anahim for one night. Last week, I mentioned the Blackwater boys. This week, one of their brothers booked a night with us, Hans and his friend Doug. Naturally, our lakeside neighbors had raved about the Eliguk food fare, so I had to whip up our typical 'welcome to the wilderness' table of deliciousness.

I spent the day before their arrival prepping the meal, as the arrival day meal is always the most complicated one, having the whole day before-hand in preparing it. It's the main reasons I lead most groups off with my signature Greek dinner. Tzatziki can be made ahead of time, and the porketta roast is pre-made conveniently freezer ready. Chicken breasts for souvlaki are thawed, cubed and marinating in lemon, sweet vinegar, italian dressing, garlic, oregano and olive oil - awaiting to be shish-kabobbed. The potatoes are prebaked, soaking up their lemony brine, while the naan bread dough is sitting in the fridge awaiting to be slapped with flour, stretched and pan-fried into a crisp bubbly flatbread. The salad is last on the list as it needs to be made fresh. It's a meal that takes days to prep, but bringing it together the day of serving it, is not as daunting as a meal that needs to be made from scratch- the day of guests arrival. A good thing to, as when Hans and Doug arrived Friday afternoon, they wanted us to show them the way to Pettry Lake, and talked me into tagging along! A trail ride that heads North, from the East end of the field at Eliguk Lake.

The cabin on Pettry Lake, was once part of Eliguk Lake Lodge as a fishing outpost, but it was separated from the sale when we bought it nine years ago. The son of the previous owners of our resort (Dan Schiller) still owns the cabin and uses this trail to access it. We are relieved it is no longer part of the parcel, as we fathom the additional work required in keeping the trail cleared in that direction. It is about 12 km from our lodge, and while people who used to fish here in the 80s could easily hike to the lake, it is nearly impossible now to get through the dying, decaying forest. Most of the trail north of Eliguk is cleared periodically, whether by us picking berries at the end of summer or others wandering through area. The trail leads up to Moose Lake and an old native trapline beyond that called 'Rich Meadows.'

As far as I know, this is how the story goes (as told from Johnny Blackwell himself).

The founders of Moose Lake Lodge, John and Mary Lou Blackwell, spent their off-seasons in Anahim Lake. They moved everything to Moose Lake from Anahim Lake by dozing a road north from the East end of Eliguk Lake from the Rodeo Road. This is why there are '4 corners' at the east end of the lake: one route going south along Rodeo Road to Anahim Lake, east to the Kluskus Forest Service Road where Walt's ranch is, and west to Eliguk and beyond on the Grease Trail. Johnny Blackwell, the owner of Moose Lake, along with his friend Floyd Vaughan and local native Timothy Sill, carved a path using Johnny's dozer up to Moose Lake in 1969. Rumor has it that Johnny was heavily fined for dozing that road, which is still called 'Dozer Road' to this day (marked 'cat' trail on the map below). The native trapline has been passed down to other family members who occasionally venture up to Rich Meadows.

On social media, specifically Facebook, there is a post showing my husband and I on a snow machine headed to Pettry Lake. A local native commented, "We cut that trail for our ancestors, but you're welcome to use it, I guess! Don't act like it's yours; that's my grandpa's highway." I was taken aback by this comment, unsure how to proceed on a Crown Land trail I believed was open to the public. After speaking with an elder in Anahim Lake, the son of the now-deceased trapline owner, he assured us that we are fine to use it; they just don't like hunters accessing that trail. Besides, he mentioned that Rich Meadows is north of Moose Lake, and we have never ventured that far. It is always good to check with someone when in doubt, even after almost a decade of being out here!

It was my first long snow machine ride of the Winter thus far, and only a light jacket was required in our above freezing temperatures with full sunshine to warm our faces. Once a-ways down Dozer road we got to the turn-off at the one mile path into Pettry lake, it was only cut wide enough for a normal sized snow machine. Our Arctic Cat trail groomer has extra wide ski's, and we bumped and and jolted up against every fallen tree who's limb was cut narrower than our snow machine, as we followed Hans and Doug into Pettry Lake. There wasn't enough snow to soften all the blows our snow machine took on the terribly cut trail. Dan Schiller will tell you that it is purposely done that way to keep people away from his camp, and I'd say it's the truth, as it's the last time I'll ever go there by land! I lost most of my hair on the hundred branches and tag alders that were thatched and interlocked across the trail, blocking access all the way in. We had to hold our arms out for safety, yet I still managed to get a fat lip when a switch whipped my across my face. Dan and the Blackwater boys had just been in to Pettry the week before, so I thought it would have been a little easier to access - but no!

When we arrived back at Eliguk - the grill on the BBQ was lit, and the porketta roast had been simmering atop the wood stove all afternoon. I had the lemony greek potatoes in a pot beside the roast and the cabin smelled wonderful. I stoked the wood stove, put on some basmati rice before I got into making a salad. Just before the rice was done cooking, juices from the spiced lemon pork roast were spooned over the rice - giving it the zest it needed in order to make the meal complete. The dough was hand rolled in flour and stretched-out thin, before placing it in the sizzling olive oil of my cast iron skillet. I navigated my way around the tiny kitchen orchestrating the final touches to the dinner I was presenting. Dressing the cozy cabins table with dishes and silverware while the men talked, sharing laughs about their excursion. Fresh perked coffee and Baileys was the requested beverage to sip-on, after a long some-what technical ride into the wilderness. Pulling the perfectly grilled chicken souvlaki off the outdoor grill was my final task before I joined the others to partake in the meal before them, and share many stories together.