Gull Habour Campground, Manitoba

We arrived at the Gull Harbour Campground, Hecla Provincial Park near Lake Winnipeg in the late evening of June 8. We were immediately hit by swarms of mosquitoes. We quickly set up camp and lit some mosquito coils to try to ward off the insects. After spraying ourselves with bug repellent, we took a walk to the lake to check out potential fishing spots. We stopped at the store at the Gull Harbour Marina and Inn to get another box of mosquito coils and met Joy, the very friendly cashier who printed out our park permits for us (which we bought online) so that we could put them on the dash of our vans. She knew all about the upcoming wedding and gave us some fishing information. We then walked back to our campsite; dinner was dim sum leftovers.

The next morning, after a hearty breakfast, we drove around in my brother's minivan to check the lay of the land. We visited Hecla Village which was very interesting. This area was settled by immigrants from Iceland in 1876, and many of the houses have Icelandic names.

We spent some time at the general store, bought a pound of frozen pickerel fillets for dinner, as well as a bottle of Canadian wine. The very friendly store manager was well aware of the Zhang wedding, he said he was supplying liquor for the reception and had talked to the bride and groom to-be a few times. My brother also filled up his minivan at the store, the price of gas was slightly lower than in Winnipeg.

We stopped at the fishing pier where a few people were fishing, including one who was filleting his catch. His buddy told us that they had caught their limit of 6 pickerel (also known as walleye) and had to throw back one that was over the size limit of 75 cm (about 29 in.) We went back to our campsites, and made dinner. The pickerel fillets were delicious, and we were eager to try catching pickerel ourselves. After two nights in the campground, we were ready to move to the cabins at the Gull Harbour Marina and Inn to attend our niece's wedding.