Scott Lake Lodge - Index

Scott Lake Lodge - report - Index

View from Caribou
Pat and I have now spent eleven full seasons at Scott. Somehow we
forgot to celebrate last year when we hit a decade. After well over a
thousand days on an island 350 miles from a paved road the novelty
of this wilderness life should have worn off. After all, how many big
pike can one catch? How many delicate takes of a dry fly by a sleek
grayling? How many times can one listen to the calls of loons and
wolves at midnight? How many times can one be transfixed by the
cosmic glories of the northern lights? How many three AM sunrises
can one experience? Apparently not enough. The waters of Scott
Lake seem to get deeper into our cells every year. There appears to
be no escape from the magic of the 60th parallel.
It’s not just the fish or the wolves or loons or eagles. It’s also, in a
big way, the people who get off the float plane and share their lives
with us. It is a unique community that has evolved here. While it’s
transient, it also feels permanent. People just keep coming back,
every year, both guests and staff. Now when new acquaintances ask
us how many kids we have, we answer “about thirty”. It’s not that
our staff is that young or at all immature. It’s just that after spending
100 days a summer with someone for a decade you half expect them
to show up on your doorstep on Christmas morning. And nearly all
of our guests, about 75% this year, come back season after season.
This continuity of staff and guests is comforting and very rewarding.
It takes Scott Lake Lodge out of the category of a business and moves
it into a far more interesting category—lifestyle investment. It is so
satisfying to offer a business product that people enjoy so completely.
Most of our guests just can’t imagine a summer without a trip “up
north” and Scott is the ultimate north.
The 2007 season was stimulating. We had a full house every week
and over 1600 trophy fish were caught but it was not a typical year
for me. It was a season of managerial transition and I found myself
in the office more than on the water. Builds character I hear. After
nine years, dozens of sport shows, thousands of telephone call and
tens of thousands of emails not to mention freezing snowmobile trips
to the Lodge in mid-winter, Tim O’Shaughnessy decided to take more
time for the important people in his life, his two daughters, Aiyana
and Siobahn. And Tim needed to spend more time building Northern
Limits, the best duck and goose hunting show in Canada. Tim did help
out with guiding when we were tight in that department and we hope
he will do the same next season but Tim is moving on. His fingerprints
are all over our island. He was the prime mover of our rebuilding effort
and front and center in all the customer service improvements. He
will be missed. We were fortunate that a talented person was right on
the island to take over. John Gariepy had spent three seasons in the
Lodge’s maintenance department and knew every nut and bolt on the
island. He jumped on the manager’s job like a pike on a finless burbot.
As John put it in one of his first night orientation speeches, he went
from “cleaning out the composting toilets to the really dirty job of
managing.” John is a natural and the Lodge is in very capable hands.
He will have the place humming in ’08.
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The waters of Scott Lake
John Gariepy
seem to get deeper into our cells
every year. There appears to be
no escape from the magic
of the 60th parallel.
Tim O'Shaughnessy
Tom Klein, President/Owner
The year ahead will be challenging. The total collapse of the US dollar
has put tremendous pressure on our budgetary process. Not too many
years ago in 2002, a US dollar would purchase $1.60 in Canadian goods
and services. We built our budgets around that exchange rate bonus.
Now the same US dollar buys 96 cents, yes cents. It is the first time in
over 30 years that the Canadian dollar is worth more than a US dollar.
It takes a lot of cash out of our business plan. We will find ways to keep
Scott the premier fly in lodge in Canada. The north brings out toughness
and determination. We know the second decade at Scott will hold
as many great memories as the first.