When it comes sportfishing legends, particularly in Canada’s Arctic, you need look no further than Chummy Plummer, owner/operator of Plummer’s Arctic Lodges.

Please enjoy this Mediterranean inspired dish created by guide/chef Christopher Langeman.

Enjoy this delicious recipe courtesy of guide/chef Christopher Langeman.

In late June of 1976 a group of 4:

While we have published a number expedition logs, or trip journals as we call them over the years, it’s not often that we come across one detailing a trip on the lake during the winter months.

Although we don’t have much in the way of detail regarding just who these hardy adventurers are, one thing we do know is that they hail from Great Britain, and are experienced Arctic travellers, having done something similar on Great Slave Lake a couple of years prior to this adventure. In fact, one or more of this group may have also travelled to Antarctica.

Over the course of 11 days, they walked and skied approximately 102.4 nautical miles – or approximately 118 statute miles (a nautical mile is equivalent to 1.1508 statute miles) – across the frozen surface of the lake from Cape MacDonnell, down the Keith Arm to Deline.

 For thousands of years the Dene have referred to this giant of a river as Dehcho – Deh meaning "river" and Cho meaning "big" or "worthy of respect." 

Perhaps because it is so isolated, and off of the main transportation and trade routes, not a great deal has been written about Great Bear Lake over the years.

Notations in the journals of various explorers and adventures constitute the bulk of the written record, but for the most part, these individuals were just passing through on their way to somewhere else. They rarely commented in much detail on the people who lived on and around the lake, or transcribed their feelings and thoughts about what impression that the big lake may have made upon them.