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Author: carlnordgren

Jan 02, 2015
in Ojibway Chief Stories, True Guide Stories
by carlnordgren
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Behind Anung’s Journey: The Day I Met Steve Fobister

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ueh4GWvp9s&w=420&h=315] This is part 1 of a six part video series where Carl and Steve Fobister, creators of 'Anung's Journey', talk about their time together and Anung's origins. When I traveled to Winnipeg in November to meet with Steve and present him with a box of 'Anung's Journey', I arranged to have a local videographer, Tyrone Otte, shoot us in our hotel talking about the pioneer days, the good old days, the four summers in the mid to late 60's when Steve and I worked together, at Delaney Lake Lodge for one summer, and Barney's Ball Lake Lodge for three. This is the first of six short videos we edited from that evening. This first video is our memories...

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Dec 19, 2014
in True Guide Stories
by carlnordgren
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To Guide, I Lied

I wanted so badly to be a fishing guide. I spent my first summer, the summer of 1967, the summer I turned 16, working at Delaney Lake for room and board, as a camp laborer, and was allowed to take a boat out with Little Stevie every chance I got, to learn the water, to prepare to guide. The second summer Barney Lamm, the owner of Ball Lake Lodge, began to include me in the guide pool as "the number three guide in a three boat party." When six businessmen came in a group for their three or four day fishing adventure, they would need three boats--two guests per boat. So two guests would go out...

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Dec 01, 2014
in True Guide Stories
by carlnordgren
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My Thanksgiving surprise. I’m sorry.

I got to spend sometime with my dad, Loran Nordgren, over Thanksgiving when we gathered at my brother's house, in Athens, Georgia. My father is a remarkable man, in so many ways. He is a classic self-made man--he dropped out of high school to join the Navy during World War II and went on to be a innovative business leader in the HVAC space. He's incredibly vital at the age 86, flying his airplane, an Air Cam, every day the weather permits, for instance. And he is a great storyteller. I wish I could do an Irish accent the way he can, or Swedish, or just about any one of the many he heard growing up in...

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Nov 20, 2014
in Nature, West of Ireland
by carlnordgren
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Back to Ireland: The Burren

I am working on the third novel in The River of Lakes trilogy and early on in book we find Grace O'Malley Burke, the teenage daughter of Brian and Maureen, visiting Ireland with her girl friends from back home, two Ojibway girls, Annie Strong and Louise Keewatin. Early in their trip they visit The Burren, one of the most remarkable landscapes in Ireland, in the world. From The Burren National Park website: "The word "Burren" comes from an Irish word 'Boíreann' meaning a rocky place. However it has been referred to in the past as "Fertile rock" due to the mixture of nutrient rich herb and floral species. In 1651 a Cromwellian Army Officer named Ludlow remarked, 'of this barony it is...

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Nov 11, 2014
in Ojibway Chief Stories
by carlnordgren
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Steve tells stories about me–and I saw a wolf

One of the delightful surprises of my just concluded trip to Winnipeg to spend time with Steve and give him a box of 'Anung's Journey' was to learn that while I have stories I like to tell about Steve, he has stories he likes to tell about me. At our talk at the University of Manitoba, after we shared our stories about meeting for the first time, Steve then went on to describe how after supper the first day I went to my cabin and returned with a football. Here is a close take on his riff, for I heard him tell this story twice: "After supper the first day he was in camp I saw Carl was tossing a football...

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Nov 06, 2014
in Ojibway Chief Stories
by carlnordgren
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One of the best endorsements of The 53rd Parallel

I mentioned Steve was traveling with his grandson. Dorian Assin is 18. (assin means something like 'teaching rock' in the Ojibway language). He seems to be a great kid, very respectful of his grandfather, really into video games, and eager for his last year of school to be over. I happened to be watching yesterday when he noticed the open box of 'The 53rd Parallel' in the corner of the room. He picked up a copy, checked out the awesome cover that Elizabeth Turnbull at Light Messages designed, checked out the back cover, then put it down without any comment. An hour or so later he picked it up again, and I could see he was reading...

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Nov 05, 2014
in Ojibway Chief Stories
by carlnordgren
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Steve Fobister

I arrived two hours ago at the Place Luis Riel Hotel and found Steve waiting for me in the lobby. He arrived last night, with his grandson. We've been telling old stories and he's just retired for his 4 pm nap. All the events are still to come, and I'll do some reporting, but for now I needed to say this, upfront and on it's own, and right away: Fairly recently I realized that I have known one great man. And what makes a great man? The version I consider starts with a good man who does good things. But there's something more to greatness. Maybe something like, a defining self- sacrifice informed with genuine humility. I am with...

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Oct 31, 2014
in Ojibway Chief Stories, True Guide Stories
by carlnordgren
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Steve and I in Winnipeg

When Steve Fobister and I began to plan our reunion in Winnipeg next week the good folks at the University of Manitoba learned we would be in town and first invited us to speak at a previously scheduled event for the evening of the 6th, then set up this event for earlier in the day. Isn't the old camp lovely to behold? It's the inspiration for Innish Cove. And I have arranged for Steve and I to be video taped as we talk about meeting for the first time, about working and living together in the frontier days on the English River, about when he entrusted me with the legend of Anung, and where my Indian nickname came...

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Oct 30, 2014
in True Guide Stories
by carlnordgren
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Ball Lake Lodge

How about it? This photo is from the early 60's, just a couple of years before I started working for Barney Lamm at Ball Lake Lodge. You want a sense of the scope of the business he built? Well, all the buildings in the left third of the photo were for camp operations, and there are others not captured in this picture. There are storehouses, the ice house, a fish house, Barney's office and radio room, his wife Marion's office; there is the camp store where guests could purchase fishing tackle or soft drinks or a Hudson Bay coat; the lunch box room where we collected supplies for our shore lunches; a motor repair shop and building...

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Oct 26, 2014
in True Guide Stories
by carlnordgren
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In Praise of Barney Lamm

I’m surprised there hasn’t been a song written about Barney Lamm. He lived such an extraordinary life of adventure, surrounded by legendary figures as he was creating his own. He began building Ball Lake Lodge on the English River in Northwest Ontario in 1947, starting with a single two room log cabin on a beautiful sandy beach 50 miles north of the frontier town of Kenora. Over the next couple of decades he and his wife Marion built it into one of the most successful and famous fly-in fishing camps in all of Canada, the destination of rich and famous Americans as well as adventure seekers from around the world who enjoyed a bit of rustic comfort at...

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I want to thank all the folks who have been so important to my writing. My wife, Marie, and my three daughters, Sarah Rose, Brita, and Krista Anne. Steve Fobister. Elizabeth Turnbull. Robin Metz. Kevin Qian. And my father, Loran Nordgren.

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