Gourmet Dining on a Labrador Salmon Fishing Trip

". . . if he be an honest angler,
the east wind may never blow when he goes fishing.”

-- Izaak Walton
The Compleat Angler

That role of CEO as helpful host was continued on my salmon safari near the Arctic Circle in Labrador. A Canadian client operated a private salmon camp near the northern tip of Labrador where important customers were entertained. My client was interested in finding out what I thought about inviting the company’s large shareholders to the camp for such fishing trips.

As someone who hadn’t been fishing since he was 7 years old at a trout farm in California, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I wasn’t even sure where Labrador was until I looked at a map. It’s northeast of the province of Quebec in Canada and extends as far north as the bottom tip of Greenland. You may remember that Greenland is primarily covered with ice and snow year around. So it’s pretty far north and seldom warm. My client assured me that I would have a good time.

It’s not easy to get to a private fishing camp in Labrador. We initially met in a hotel in Montreal where we stayed for the first night. The next morning, we boarded a private plane to fly us to Goose Bay in Labrador. Once there, I was amazed to see jet fighters from many countries and learned that Goose Bay is a major training site for NATO air forces. But it still seemed strange to see the German air force planes taking off there. At Goose Bay, we went to a little convenience store where we were encouraged to buy any snacks we particularly liked. This was the nearest grocery store to the camp.

We then drove out to a lake, and boarded a small boat that took us to . . . a pontoon plane. I felt like I had just stepped back into the 1930s with Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. The pontoon plane headed straight north while we oohed and aahed at the many blue-hued ice bergs floating down from the Polar ice cap. Once near the camp, the plane dipped . . . and alit on a small river downstream from a compound which was to be our home for the next several days. Our individual guides paddled up in canoes and we rode off with them. The surrounding area looked like something left over from the moon. Little was growing out of the rocky, desolate landscape. After getting settled, we had our first casting lesson . . . and, boy, did I need it.

The company’s CEO took turns fishing with each of us over the next several days. He waited to go with me until after I was no longer a hazard to others in the vicinity when I made a cast. That’s a real danger. A company executive on another trip was hooked by another angler, and the CEO had to carve up his cheek to remove the hook.

Seeing many remaining weaknesses in my technique, the CEO kindly and patiently spent the next four hours whipping me into shape. At the end, he asked me what kind of fish I liked to eat. I commented that it was getting a little boring having salmon at every meal. So he pulled out another fly rod and began catching brown trout almost as fast as his lure hit the water. We had a marvelous mess of those trout for dinner that night. I loved it! To get us more variety, he called in the pontoon plane the next day to take us to a lake where we could fish for other Arctic species that are good eating.

The company had long ago learned that people get along much better in the wilderness if they like the food. So they sent their camp cook to Cordon Bleu school, and we had gourmet meals featuring some kind of fish for each meal. Why did we eat so much fish? Well, when a wilderness is so far north, you have to carry everything in and out. Otherwise you will just make a mess out of the environment. A pound of anything costs about $100 to bring in or take out. You are better off eating as much of what you catch as possible. It cuts the cost of a trip by thousands of dollars per person.

By the end of the trip, we had each reached our legal limits on the salmon we had caught, and the remaining fish were fast frozen and stored to be returned home with us. I later estimated that it cost about $4,500 per pound for the salmon I caught and brought home. But it was all free for me.

Oh, by the way, I highly recommended that large investors be invited in the future and suggested how much stock they should have to own to qualify. I’m sure that many loyal shareholders developed among the salmon fishing fans in the world of institutional investing.

Salmon fishing may not be your thing. But you may want to enjoy a similar adventure in another field. One of the things I learned is that people at these corporate retreats often lack for entertainment. Usually, the most popular entertainers are simply those who can tell a few good jokes or stories. So if you’ve ever wanted to be a stand-up comic, think about developing a routine that companies would enjoy having you do at their annual executive meetings and unit retreats. You can begin getting exposure by trying out your routine at “open mike” nights at comedy clubs and at luncheons of local service organizations like the Rotary Club.

If salmon fishing is your thing, remember that our guides fished along with us. Because you couldn’t take many salmon under your license, the guides would release the fish they caught. But they ate the same wonderful meals that we ate, and lived an idyllic existence during the brief summers they spent there. Check around to see if any fishing camps need guides for new fishermen for a few weeks during your vacation. You have to be better at this than I was . . . and I wouldn't have known the difference between you and a 30 year veteran.

These camps often have last minute cancellations. We had one in our group. If you let people who have such camps know that you would be glad to come on zero notice, you may well find yourself invited at no cost.