Mention “char” and someone may think you’re discussing an unsuccessful attempt to broil a steak. But mention it to an angler and his eyes will light up instantly. He’ll probably engage you in a conversation that will touch not only fishing but also caribou, barren-ground grizzly bears, seals, Eskimos, chilled lakes, brawling streams, ptarmigan, Lapland longspurs, and a tundra landscape abloom with lavish scatter rugs of wild flowers.
The arctic char, closely related to the brook trout and Dolly Varden, is found in North America only in Arctic waters, and depending on the season, in both fresh and salt waters. Some populations are landlocked, but most spend the spring and summer in the sea and return to ancestral streams and lakes to spawn and overwinter. It is when they first return to the streams in late summer or early fall that Arctic char are perhaps at their best. Then the fish may be an exceedingly colorful creature, cardinal red along the belly, with a dark median stripe, and a top-side somewhere between a sunset orange and a light tan. The pectoral, pelvic and anal fins are delicately outlined in creamy white, and splotches of white may appear around the head.
Any char over 15 pounds makes a good trophy, but exceptional individuals may weigh between 20 and 25 pounds. Most char average from six to ten pounds, and I’ve found myself supremely happy many, many times catching them at that weight.
The great thing about char fishing in the area I know best – the Northwest Territories and Arctic Quebec – is that you usually find the fish where you may also enjoy the solitude of vast places. Often when camped on the tundra my companions and I were the only people within 250 square miles, or more. When you consider that the Northwest Territories have a total population of only about 35,000 in an area spread over 1,300,000 square miles, you can understand why you are not likely to hear the squeal of brakes, jangling phones, the cacaphony of a jetport, or the strident rumble of a factory.
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