Carswell Impact and Athabasca Sand dunes

[Nick]

Made a trip to far northern Saskatchewan Canada. It was Fishing trip made extra special with trip to the Athabasca Sand Dunes, which is likely the only place on earth where a sand dune meets ice. Fishing was great with many great northern pike and lakers, walleyes were mediocre with the largest at 9lbs, however we did get our limit.
Was a great trip shared with my father in-law a week before fathers day.
The fishing/Hunting Camp is called Carswell Lake Lodge, and for the bear hunters they get plenty of blacks with scores at or above 21.
And for the subject title "impact" it's in recognition of the Carswell Impact Crater which is the result of much of the uranium in the region , which may explain why the fish are so large!

Cluff Lake airstrip (abandoned Uranium Mine)

Carswell Lake Lodge

Carswell Lake Lodge

Athabasca Sand Dunes with Frozen Athabasca Lake in background

River Flowing from Carswell Lake to Athabasca Lake

Small Laker, only 15lbs

Average Nothern 22lbs

Typical Walley 7lbs

[MAU MAU]

Great pictures and report!

Are those Grizzly claw marks on the bottom of your plane!?

(If not, I would go with that story anyway)

[Mountain Doctor]

Holy $hit that's a big fish!!!

I bet your plane earned a good bath when that trip was done.

I'd LOVE to tear those sand dunes up with my dirtbike and a sand paddle.

[Victor Gennaro]

I would not call that a mediocre fish, catch and release or did you eat it?

[Nick]

The Girzzly marks are actually from the inside, damn thing looked dead when I stuffed it in the cargo hold...
I did come home with 40lbs of fillets and just finished smoking the trout, really good eating, the ice had left the lake 2 days prior to our arrival so the fish is quite firm and tasty.
The only access to the Athabasca Dunes is by boat or floats, and its protected so there are no roads and thereby no vehicles. Needless to say your a long way from repair shop is things go sideways. I had thought about landing on the dunes, but after a short flight and seeing the dunes overtaking the 30ft pines, and occasionally seeing pine tops sticking out the top of 50ft dunes I decided to wait till I'm on floats to explore and stake out a strip then...