Fish Lake - A Family Tradition

By Lucile A. Keller

Fish Lake is a family tradition. Lewis and Mary Ann traveled to Fish Lake every fall and came home with a barrel of fish for the winter. It took a week to get it. They camped on their way to Fish Lake and on the way back. They stayed for a week. The fish were salted down in a barrel and had to be soaked in water over night before cooking to get the salt out.

They went into Fish Lake from the north end. One time when they got here a cabin on the lake was burning. They helped the people get another place to stay until they could get their cabin built back up again and then helped them back.

Lewis Anderson said he could have bought Fish Lake for $10,000 and he had the money, but he said he didn't think it would be right for one man to own Fish Lake.

Mary had whooping cough and my mother said it would be nice if we had a cabin. Charlie Skougaard built the first lodge and my father got Charlie Skougaard to build a cabin for us. It was in the resort. It was back against a hill. The large porch was up high and with binoculars we could see all over the lake. Before they had motors we could see where the boats were and knew when it would take an hour to row to the shore so we could have dinner ready. The boats were wooden, flat bottom boats with a seat on each end and were nice to row with the wooden oars.

My father shot a pack rat in the rafters up over my head one morning before I was up. They later got ceilings in the old cabin.

Lewis and Mary Ann had a room in the old cabin and came and stayed in it for a week every summer. Bessie was with them and Lewis said he could eat fish every meal for nine weeks and then start over.

When we were there in the summer my mother took the bread mixer and baked bread. She could bake two loaves in the oven and two loaves in the oven in grandma's room.

Uncle Tom and Aunt Ettie were fishing on the east side and Uncle Tom got a big fish. When it was almost up to the boat Aunt Ettie said: "It's a monster, cut the line! Turn the fish loose." Uncle Tom said: "That's what I have been fishing for all my life."

The people along the shore came on Sunday and had Sunday school on our porch. An elderly man from Richfield said he had a dairy on Jorgensen Creek north of Fish Lake and they made cheese. His name was Eric Jorgensen. Eric Jorgensen told an Indian legend. Two Indian braves wanted to marry the Indian princess. They decided to swim across the lake where it was the widest (a mile and a half - or a mile and a quarter) and the first one across could marry the princess. One reached the shore and said when they were in the middie of the lake a big monster came up and swallowed the other one. Maybe it was Old Goldie, the big fish we are always trying to catch. But I don't think so. I think Old Goldie will always be there for us to catch. There were natives and steelheads and rainbow, and mackinaw stuffed and baked (for Sunday dinner).

A lady from Salt Lake lost her fishing pole on the east side of the lake. My mother told her they would go over and fish it up. They did and took it to the the lodge. The lodge had her address and sent it to her, so she got her pole back.