I have reread this article several times from my Fish&Fly Magazine which I bought several months ago. The more I read, the more I realized what is flyfishing means to me... even what is mountain climbing means to me... as well as documentary photography means to me... his writing and adventure are just fantastic! I think I will be explore somewhere like this again and pursuing my unknown imaginations...
Direct quote from an article by
Peter Christensen ...As an adult, I feel that fishing has lost some of its original mystique. It’s not that I don’t dream of jolting rods any longer, because I do, but the magical atmosphere that used to cover the water like a morning mist has been replaced by too much dry knowledge and calculated anticipation. Wherever I go fishing, I’m pretty sure I know what to expect and know exactly which fish ought to be there and how big they grow. I know their favorite prey and thus their favorite fly. Every cast is still exciting, but at this point, it’s not exactly a cast into an exotic unknown.
This demystification of my fishing brought about a longing for waters that could match the glory of the childhood pond. An urge to cast a fly in strange and uncharted places grew irresistibly strong, so the idea of a canoe trip to Canada was born. Rather than follow the beaten track of decades of fishing tourists, my travel companion Rasmus and I set out into piscatorial terra incognita. Starting out on the enormous lakes of the Northern Territories, our two-month odyssey would take us through more than 400 miles of bleak wilderness, ending on the north coast by Coronation Gulf, crossing gigantic expanses of inland lakes, battling torrential currents of mighty rivers and keeping alive in the Barrenlands. We set out in pursuit of distant dreams—distant dreams of fish the size of those monsters swimming around in the depths of my imagination.
