Month: August 2018

This week marks our annual family fishing trip to Canada.  Strangely, it does not usually involve the entire family, nor do we go every year, but that’s what it is.

For years we have come up to Canada in pursuit of Kamloops trout which inhabit many of the lakes in interior British Columbia, and we almost always end up at the same fishing camp.  This may be a puzzling aspect to some of you.  What is a “fishing camp”?  Well, try to imagine a remote wilderness, with a set of cabins and basic facilities in which you squeeze into for a few days to a week, while taking in the natural beauty of the world and sitting in a boat with a line in the water on one of the many lakes in the area.  Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you will even catch a fish. Shameless plug: http://www.meadowlakefishing.com/

I was eagerly checking my email for FSI session invites the first few days of this week.  I had been on the Foreign Service Register for about 9 months at this point, and had all but given up on getting an invite to the September 17th FSI session which we knew had resulted in invites to some Diplomatic Security applicants.  So, I had pushed this to the back of my mind and focused on catching fish.  Our luck had resulted in 10 fine fishy specimens in the first two days of the week, and perhaps we’d try our luck at the elusive, yet alluring “wall fish”.

A wall fish was simply the tradition of the camp we had been visiting and is considered a fish in excess of 4 pounds (which is hefty for these trout!).  Generally, there are around a dozen that are caught in any given season, and catching one would result in a bit of a celebration and commemoration of catching the unwitting fish.  Of course, fish of this sort were difficult to hook, and require an arcane combination of know-how and luck.  I had never caught one, and after we had collected some smaller fish (which we would call “smokers” for their deliciousness and application as a tasty treat after they had been smoked) we would shift or focus to lakes which produced larger trout in order to hook a big one and come away with tall fishing tale.

In any event, this meant that we were visiting a lake that, while being known for it’s larger fish, was often loathe to produce them, often resulting in coming home empty-handed (“skunked” in fishing terms).  So, I settled into the boat and immersed myself into the audiobook I was enjoying at the time (Cormac McCarthys “Blood Meridian”), and spent the hours of the day fishing away.

Eventually, 6 PM rolled around – which marked the time we ought to consider packing it in and heading back to camp to enjoy a 7 o’clock meal.  It hadn’t been a bad day.  In fact, it had been uncharacteristically good, and we would be headed back with 3 fish in the 14-17 inch range, all of them quite fat.  I elected to finish the chapter of the audiobook and head back in.  I opted troll (row slowly with lines out) back over a particular spot that my father had identified as a “good place for fish to be” on my way out.  It was at some point in the following minutes that I felt a rather substantial tug on one of my lines, to which I grabbed the rod and twitched the tip up to set the hook.

There was considerable resistance to this action on the other end of the line, so I knew the fight was on – and on it went, for over 10 minutes.  The fish went long, it came close.  It rose up out of the water, and dived down deep.  I could see that it was no small fish by any means.  It circled the boat multiple times, much like a shark – and finally just relied on it’s heft and gravity’s will to thwart my effort to bring it to heel.  It was no small effort to balance just the right amount of tension on the line during all of this to ensure that the well-endowed fish did not snap the line entirely, but my efforts were rewarded when I was finally able to bring the exhausted fish to the surface and usher it into the net.  It was by far the largest trout I had ever caught, and was beautiful (as far as fish go).

 My father had already landed his boat, and was waiting for me at shore when I rowed up with my prize.  It was most certainly a “wall fish” which was confirmed upon our triumphant return to camp.  That night, we celebrated, I wore a loon party hat, talked about the occasion, and toasted our drinks in celebration.  But this was not strictly a celebration of the fish, for I had checked my e-mail once I had returned to camp, and to my surprise there was an invite to the September 17th FSI session.  I had been offered a position in the Foreign Service as an Information Management Specialist.  Just like that, I knew my life was going to change.

The Pacific Northwest isn’t exactly the first place I’d look for war museum. The area has been entirely untouched by conflict aside from early confrontations with native peoples, and the Pig War, of which the only casualty was that of a (you guessed it) pig. That said, it’s not where I’d expect to find an amazing collection of military relics from a bygone era, but that’s exactly where one exists.

The Flying Heritage and Combat Armor Museum is a relatively unknown fixture of the area, yet in its hangars at Paine Field in Everett, you’ll find an impressive collection of aircraft, vehicles and other equipment from World War II and the adjoining eras. A number of them are unique, in that they are the last remaining example in the world of a particular model of aircraft – a feat made possible by the late Paul Allen, whose passion for history and aviation drove him to collect these relics and found the museum. The aircraft are painstakingly restored – many of them to flying condition. On pleasant summer weekends select aircraft will take to the sky and demonstrate in front of anyone who cares to watch.

Once a year, they have a premiere event called Skyfair, in which they invite other private owners and collectors to exhibit their own collections, and roll out a large number of their own aircraft for display and a subsequent airshow. Their tanks and other tracked vehicles will put on their own demonstration on a small parcel of land they’ve dubbed “The Tank Arena”. There’s a full gamut of family-friendly activities, exhibits, and demonstrations available on these days, helped along by knowledgeable docents and informational placards.

Low flying aircraft will buzz the crowds of spectators, in formation with, or perhaps in pursuit of other aircraft. Tanks will roll around the arena, fire their cannon, and generally struggle under their own weight. Banks of simulators will provide the opportunity for people of all ages to try flying their favorites. Of course, all of this is on top of the plethora of aircraft and other objects displayed by the museum on a daily basis.

For the experience offered by events like these, the Flying Heritage and Combat Armor Museum is well worth the visit, even if you’re not propeller-head or military historian. It is rare to find such a large collection of lovingly cared-for artifacts in this corner of the world, as such I recommend anyone that lives in or visits the area to drop by and check it out.