REVISED JANUARY 31, 2009
WEIGHT LIMIT: 100 LBS OF GEAR PER PERSON. Housekeeping Package guests this includes food, soda/water/beer/personal gear. American Plan guests your load will be just your personal gear & alcoholic beverages. Overweight is usually in the form of liquids and food. Rates for 2009 are .60 Canadian for extra gear. We will try weather permitting to fly your overloads in the same day and most of the time it is within a few hours. When you depart from the bush we will try and bring out left over food and liquids, however if the aircraft is full, we reserve the right to leave them at the lodge. Excess baggage in the form of extra pop, food, water, will not be flown out and you will not be reimbursed for the loss of these items. (Understand it is not cost effective to fly a charter flight to retrieve 2 cases of pop back to Ivanhoe.) We do have a number of groups especially American Plan guests that are within the 100 lbs and do not pay overweight charges and then we have parties that are overweight by huge amounts. We have struggled with setting the weights higher and incorporating it into our pricing, however this would penalize the parties that are not overweight. We have set our prices very reasonable for fly in operations and in order to maintain our aircraft/pilots etc we DO charge for overweight.
FLY IN: MOVE IN DAY When you arrive at your cabin, please check the cabin for cleanliness. If it is clean then you can start the move in process. Because the lodge rotates in and out on the same day, the staff are both trying to feed people coming and going, preparing lunches for the American Plan guests, and cleaning the cabins. If the cabin has not been cleaned, please leave your gear in the screened in porch until it is clean.
We like to have the whole party available to go over the outboard motors and parties should pay close attention to these details. As it often happens people are so excited to go fishing they do not get a proper checkout on the motors and are left in the middle of the lake because they did not follow procedures. Also please make sure the party that is leaving has all their gear out of the cabin, before you move in. Normally gear is on the dock, but when the weather is bad, there often is gear in the cabin.
FLY OUT: MOVE OUT DAY On departure day, please have your gear (nice weather) on the dock by 6.30 AM for Saturday Departures or 8AM for Wednesday departures, if you are the first group out. Check with the staff to see how you are rotating out of the lodge. If there is any equipment not working, please tell the staff, and we will correct the problem. If no one says anything the next party inherits the problem. Also please note that at least once a week someone will come up to our staff and tell us they have to come out first because they have a long drive home. First off everyone has a long drive home and if you would like to make arrangements to come out first, we will be happy to get up 1 hour earlier and go and get you. The charge for this service is $400 per flight.
EMERGENCY
PROCEDURES: If an emergency happens while you are in at
FLYING WEATHER: We fly under a license called VFR, (Visual Flight Rules.) If you cannot see the end of the lake and or there is fog hanging on the trees, the chances of us flying are poor. We do occasionally have poor weather and your camp is fine, or vise versa. All you can do if you are waiting is be patient, play cards and above all know that the key on any vacation is safety. We have owned and operated this air service for 28 Safe years and plan on maintaining our record. The majority of accidents happen because of bad weather and since our pilots are professionals and would like to maintain an accident free history, they will not put themselves or you in harms way. We can fly in fairly high winds and parties are quite surprised at times to see us at their location. Please give the pilot lots of room to dock the aircraft and ensure that boats are out of the way of the approach to the dock. If the pilot requests assistance, please help otherwise stand back, since he will be using more power and the propeller is turning as he approaches the dock. Always use caution around an aircraft and “NEVER TOUCH THE PROPELLOR”.
WATER: The government will not test surface water in the province, so therefore the recommendation from the government is not to consume the water from the lake. We do filter & purify our water, and can only assume that it is consumable, but since it is impossible to have tested regularly we have signs telling you not to consume the tap water. For our American Plan guests we supply bottled drinking water, and for our Housekeeping guests we sell cases of water and 20 liter jugs of water at market price, at the airbase prior to flying in to the lodge.
GARBAGE: We supply garbage bags of a good quality to fly out your trash. Canadian beer cans and bottles should be returned to their original containers and should be kept dry. At the end of your stay, anything that you elect to leave behind should be put in a box and offered to the lodge staff. Please keep all your burnables especially cardboard separate, since most paper products are burned at the lodge, and all other trash is flown out.
SIGN OF A GOOD SPORTSMAN: A good sportsman will always abide by laws of the forest and fish and game act. He/She will also leave a tidy cabin//Boats & Motors, for the next group. Good sportsmen will treat all rental equipment as their own and if there are problems with the camp or equipment will let us know. They will also treat the animals and fish that they are not planning on consuming with respect on maintaining their ability to survive.
WAIVER OF LIABILITY: Wilderness recreation is not without risk. There are few or no roads penetrating the wilderness areas we operate in. All guests should be aware of inherent risks associated with a wilderness experience. Ex: operation of mechanical equipment including Boats & Motors/Walking & Hiking/Weather etc. It is your responsibility as a guest to ensure that you are participating in an appropriate fashion. There are few incidents in the wilderness with a lot of the accidents are related to alcohol and bad weather. Please note that we carry proper insurance for our aircraft, but we cannot be responsibility for every tree root or slippery rock etc..
We hope that these tips and helpful reminders will make your vacation a fantastic experience and that once is not enough, and you will be back.
George, Jeanne, Joel and Jenna Theriault and the more than 20 staff that help us make your wilderness vacation come true.
THIS INFORMATION IS PROVIDED AS INFORMATION ONLY AND SHOULD NOT BE TREATED AS A LEGAL DOCUMENT.