If the world was a boat, it got rocked for the past couple years. We could make innumerable parables between fishing and our situation, so let’s take the bait. Aikens Lake Wilderness Lodge had to learn to pivot, twist, swivel, bend, and like a taut monofilament line, avoid snapping while we tackled the tug-of-war between safety and travel. The last two years left us reeling, but we’ve righted the ship after riding wave after wave. Without getting out of our depth, let’s assume we’ve found the bottom and that we’re now buoyed by the hope that we have left the worst of it in our wake. Anchored by our dedicated crew, we weathered the storm. Let us now focus downstream, where current challenges calm and we can navigate our plans with hardly a ripple.

2022 season: Our upcoming season has a calendar stacked with hundreds of eager and earnest anglers. We are incredibly thankful for our guests’ flexibility in rescheduling their trips for the past two seasons. We’re suiting up for what will be our busiest season ever. Due to the deferred trips from 2020 and 2021 we are approaching sold-out capacity in certain 2022 months already, so if you haven’t already reserved your dates, please get in touch with us soon. Pit and Patrick have been reconnecting with group leaders to reconfirm their plans and dates After two shortened and irregular summers, we are looking forward to a 2022 season that will be buzzing from beginning to end.

2023 season: To offer our visitors more options to book their visit to Aikens Lake, we have opted to open our 2023 calendar earlier than usual and to start penciling dates for guests. Due to the limited availability in 2022, and the pent-up demand we are already seeing for travel, we are confident that some new groups will want to "beat the rush" for 2023 dates. But before we do that, we wanted to offer our current 2022 guests the first opportunity to pencil in their dates for 2023. No commitments (ie: deposits) would be required on those 2023 trips until November 2022, and you can change your mind anytime. We are happy to hold spots in our 2023 calendar for our repeat guests, and it will allow us to build our schedule around it.

Current travel requirements (March 1, 2022): International travellers need to be fully vaccinated to travel to Canada. Additionally, passengers must be fully vaccinated to board any aircraft in Canada (floatplanes are included on this list). We anticipate these two requirements will stay in effect for the entirety of the 2022 season. All travellers into Canada must download the ArriveCAN app prior to their arrival as the ArriveCAN submission and receipt confirmation must be presented wen entering the country (by air or land). There have been recent changes in testing requirements for international travellers, and as things evolve on that front, we’ll be sending our guests the most current guidelines closer to their trips this summer. Just a friendly reminder for our US guests taking a trip with us this summer – Check your passport expiration! You still have time to renew it!

https://travel.gc.ca/travel-covid/travel-restrictions/covid-vaccinated-travellers-entering-canada

Our conversations with our extended Aikens family have shown us that there is a strong desire for people to return to our idyllic lake (present reader hopefully included). The appetite for travel has returned and some folks are champing at the bit; we are too. We are poised and ready to greet you at Aikens Lake Wilderness Lodge in 2022 and beyond. We couldn’t be more thankful that we will, once again, be able to reconnect in person on our dock. See you at the lake soon!

2022 and beyond!