Destiny

As a child I would rummage through my parents photo albums and marvel at the pictures that predated my existence. Many of the Polariods contained people that I had never met and places that I had never been. There were a few Polaroids that subsequently became burned into my memory. In particular were two photos of young men holding fish of imaginary proportion to a child. Truly giant fish never before witnessed by a young aspiring angler. The first time I viewed these photo’s my father was quick to tell a story of what seemed to be a mystical place in a foreign land where fish grew to epic proportion and filled the rivers spilling out of the banks. For as long as I can remember I had heard and known of the Big Manistee and Tippy Dam from my fathers youthful travels. To a young child such a place seemed distant and magical and for the better part of my upbringing and adult life it remained as such. For some reason it had always seemed so far away and unreachable. Still to this day I can conjure up the images of two particular pictures from the photo albums of my childhood as if I were viewing them for the first time. It was not until I read a post put up by a fellow Great Lakes Steelheading blogger that I got the itch to seek out this destination. That initial trip would lead me down a road that would eventually find myself frequenting this locale on a regular basis and eventually purchasing a cabin of our own in the Manistee National Forest. Now I can be considered a local all stemming from an old Polariod picture from my youth and my fathers colourful stories of his adventures. Life is a weird. Call it destiny if you must but I do not try to understand life's mysteries anymore. I have learned it to be much more rewarding to enjoy them.



The above image is the only Manistee Salmon Polaroid that survived a recent basement flooding at my parents house. It will soon adorn the cabin décor up in Wellston.