LAKE WANIPIGOW CABIN
January 2015
Living in Manitoba, a province with over 100,000 lakes and long hot summer days, the idea of 'lake' insinuates itself into the psyche where it feels at home and yet too often far away. And like the story about the shoemaker's children having no shoes, the architect's children having no cabin was a situation that we had long wanted to put a happy ending to. For years, we often enjoyed interesting vacation spots with family and friends, from the Manitoba Interlake and the Okanagan, to Victoria Beach and Clearwater-Pipestone Ontario, and a couple of years ago we began to look for a cabin site of our own.
Interested in undeveloped and affordable lakefront lots on the Canadian Shield within driving distance from Winnipeg, we explored numerous prospects: the Pinawa Channel, Lee River, Bird River, Davidson Lake, Flanders Lake, Macara, Long Pine, the Winnipeg River, Gibi, Dogtooth, Lac du Bonnet, and Lake of the Woods, all wonderful places, but for one reason or another, no one particular site answered completely our particular lake lust call.
In the fall of 2013, together with a couple of friends, who also were looking for a possible cabin site, we looked at entering the Manitoba Cottage Lot Draw. At that time,140 sites from all over Manitoba were available through the draw. (The way it works is, the Manitoba Government, every several years, sells some crown lake lots. One applies to enter and the government office draws a number for each applicant. A couple of months later, everyone assembles and the numbers are called. The first number called, get the first pick of the properties available to be purchased and so on.) We examined the lot offerings on the government website and then took a drive to look at several possibilities on the east side of Lake Winnipeg and on Lake Wanipigow. It was October, the air was crisp, the drive was lovely.
Lake Wanipigow had all the requisite aspects - wilderness, clear lake, rock, evergreens, scenic views and three intriquing off-the-grid available sites. If any one of us had the chance, we agreed, we would choose any one of those sites.
We each entered an application into the draw and three of us drew way-high numbers in the stratosphere of not anywhere near getting to choose a desired site, but . . . I drew lucky number 9.
Number 9 had possibility.
At a banquet room in a Canad Inn in Winnipeg a couple of hundred people gathered to participate in the draw in January 2014. Maps of all the lake sites were arranged along both sides of the room. Once your number was drawn, you were to go to the map with your desired site and sign your name to it.
Number 1 was called. They were a no show. (What?!) Number 2 was called and a man walked over to a lake near The Pas. Number 3 was called and a couple of people walked over to the first lot at Lake Wanipigow. Number 4 went to Lake of the Prairies
Number 5 went to Turtle Mountain. Number 6 went to Lake Wanipigow and now there was only one site remaining there. Number 7 went to Lake Manitoba Narrows. Number 8 . . . was withdrawn, and so . . . Number 9 was called and I was able to sign my name to the last lot at Lake Wanipigow.
We all truly felt like we had won the lottery.
Since then we've paid for the land, been given a 24 month timeline with which to build to lock-up, met wonderful neighbour cottagers who have been very helpful already, spent humid buggy days tramping through the site, taking topographical measurements, and stringing possible plan dimensions through the trees, and finally we've gotten our site permit approved and basically cleared road and cabin build site areas.
We also got to camp there this past first summer at Lake Wanipigow. As well as the site work, we did do some hiking, trail blazing, berry-picking, fishing, canoeing to the islands straight out from our point of land, boating up two of the rivers that flow into the lake, swimming off the rock after our days' labours were done, and some sitting at the waters edge, enjoying the view and talking about our plans.
So begins our journey to building our Lake Wanipigow cabin.
