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 History
Arctic Lodges is celebrating its 60th year of operations in 2010. June 1st 1950 the first group of guest visit Arctic Lodge and fished the waters of Reindeer Lake Saskatchewan. During the summer of 2010 Arctic Lodges guests caught and relesed 6 of the largest trout that had ever been record its sixty years of operations.
The Lockhart's and Arctic Lodges pioneered the first package tour into Canada's far North. Prior to Fred Lockhart's conception, individual sportspersons and corporations, were forced to line up their own air and ground transportation, lodging and fishing equipment. Starting in 1958, Arctic Lodges has, with few exceptions, continued to carry out a program of complete package tours.
Having it's own airstrip, Arctic Lodges opens the country up for sportspersons from all over the world. A mile long stabilized gravel and clay runway, approved by the Canadian D.O.T. and the American F.A.A., is available for large aircraft.
This airstrip has provided more guests with an easy and relatively inexpensive way of reaching great fishing! Other lodges across the far North rely on commercial aircraft, bush floatplanes and generally have some long delays. Reasonable air charters allow the lodge to keep the price of package tours relatively inexpensive and keep the travel time to a minimum. The Arctic Lodges airstrip is a big key to Reindeer Lake's great fishing experience. This along with the American plan facilities, will provide fishing enthusiasts with many years of spectacular fishing in an area and atmosphere little changed from the days of voyagers.
It was the Lockhart’s intention from the start that they would build a village similar to what they thought the guests would expect to find in the North Country. All the cabins and the main lodge are constructed of peeled spruce and jack pine logs.
All the logs were brought in from distances as far away as five miles from the lodge. Finding trees with straight six-inch diameters in 16-foot sections throughout the camp was time consuming. Cutting and trimming trees, hauling them back to camp, peeling them and laying up the logs by hand is a very long process. Log buildings require a large amount of labour.
Location
Arctic Lodges is located on a secluded island in the middle of Reindeer Lake 750 miles north of the Canada/U.S. border. Reindeer Lake stretches out over 200 miles and is fed by 94 rivers. Over 5000 islands provide sheltered bays and more miles of shoreline to fish than any other lake in North America. Reindeer Lake is known worldwide for its trophy fishing and Arctic Lodges has given many outdoor adventurists life time experiences to brag about.
The south end of Reindeer Lake hosts a huge meteor crater seven miles in diameter and 700 feet deep, appropriately named Deep Bay. Palaeontologists have established this blast occurred more than 65 million years ago. Natural erosion and waves have carved out a beautiful sand beach among the numerous cliffs that surround its eastern shores.
On the south end of the airstrip there are still the remnants of a well-constructed trappers cabin that harbours a haunting mystery of a murder and a suicide. The ghosts of the trapper and his wife are, by native accounts, still hovering around this beautiful location.
Brochet and the Hudson Bay Fur Trading Company are located at the northeast end of Reindeer Lake. A visit to this settlement takes guests back to the 17th century. A two hundred year old Catholic Church stands as reminder of the priests who followed the traders.
In a sheltered bay near the swift Swan River Rapids, the actual site of the old Northwest Fur Trading site is located. The route to this fur trading post is a scenic site with hundreds of islands and awesome cliffs plunging straight down into unexplored bay.
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