Promised Land Camp

This adventure happened a couple of nights ago and I'm just now getting around to recording what happened.  My good friend Bernie Zweerman along with his son Brandon and family friend Jason were visiting the area for some ice-fishing and they were staying at Promised Land Camp.

Brandon, Jason, Patty Ann, Bernie Z

 Marker B on the map shows the location of their cottage--number 4. A very nice cottage.

Patty Ann Dennis and I were invited for steak dinner at 7:30 pm.  PA brought a cake.  Thoughtful.

Promised Land Camp is about 30 km from North Bay.  The roads were clear and dark.  It was mild at about -3.  We arrived and enjoyed a terrific meal.  Jason was the chef on the BBQ and managed  4 different steak requests.  Nice work.  Medium-well for me.  I'm not really a big steak guy--having gout will do that to you.  However, it was delicious, along with mashed potatoes and green peas and Patty Ann's cake.

Bernie, Jason, and Brandon are all very knowledgeable about animals.  It was neat to listen to them talk about their own adventures with nature and animals.  Cool people.

"You want to see a deer carcass?" (WARNING: my son John suggested I put a warning regarding the video below.  It shows the remains of a deer after being partially eaten by wolves.

That's sort of the way it is with Bernie--if there is something unusual or incredible around he will find it.  Small things or big things it doesn't matter--everything about nature is fascinating to him.  He is a retired science teacher.  So after our meal, we all suited up and headed out in the darkness and onto the frozen surface of Lake Nipissing.  The remains of a deer were on the ice, marker A (17T 0613724, 5108666) on the map.  The distance between the deer carrion and the cottage was 230 m.  The wolves had taken this deer down close to shore, and very close to the cottage.

As we respectfully examined the remains it was hard to ignore the sheer beauty of the night.  The cloud cover had moved off and now millions of stars could be seen.  The big dipper was prominent.  The temperature had dropped about 9 degrees in 2 hours.

We heard a wolf howl in the distance.

Nature in all its beauty.

I was in awe.