by Keith Lozott, Contributing Writer
As mentioned in a prior article, my good buddy Martin moved to the Northwest Territory (Victoria Canada) to freeze his butt off, enjoy some cold water fishing for species unknown to me yet, and help with his family. Now that he is pretty settled in and getting back to his Canadian roots of eating air chilled chicken, moose, Asian food and drinking Molson Canadians he offered up the opportunity for me to fly up and experience what the place has to offer. Iâve been to Seattle and Whistler Canada before on vacation and must admit they may have been two of the most beautiful, picturesque places Iâve ever seen with the naked eye. I did try and fish Puget Sound on a head boat but knew that wasnât going to be the real experience of fishing the way we do on a serious trip.
Now I will give you a little advice on how to prepare for a trip that will require a passport. The number one and most important item on the list is to have your passport up to date and/or getting a new one. My passport happened to be expired, so my wife who is the world traveler helped me get all of the necessary documents required to renew, schedule an appointment with the passport agency and get two approved passport photos. I was travelling 14 days from the time I needed to get my passport. Therefore I needed to go to the agency and get the passport in person as the local offices cannot guarantee that you will get the passport back in time for your trip even with expedited service. What a nightmare this process is and when I say nightmare I mean a completely tragic experience. We called a week prior to set an appointment for the day after Memorial Day at 11:00 a.m. and the appointment paperwork instructed me to not arrive earlier than 15 minutes prior to the appointment and not more than 15 minutes after the appointment. So that being said I drove from Jensen Beach, Fl. to Key Biscayne, Fl. to arrive to a giant line of people waiting to get in. My first thought was âHa-ha I was smart enough to make an appointment and wonât be waiting in line with all of the procrastinators. âDude, I was in for a rude awakeningâ!  I walked past the line straight to the guard and confidently said I have an appointment for 11:00 where do I go? He said âGo to the back of the lineâ, I said âbut I have an appointment and the instructions are âŚ.â, He said âgo to the back of the lineâ, I said âwhatâs the purpose of the appointmentâ, He said âIt means you will get seen today at some pointâ, I said âHow will anyone know Iâm hereââŚâŚÂ I wonât go into the customer service battle I had on the phone with the powers that be in the passport agency!!! This process showed how inept government can be. You get the picture at this point and 6 hours later I had applied for my passport and paid the extra $15.98 to have it expedited to my house, otherwise I would have been there for 4 more hours. The moral of the story is prior to travelling get your passport updated months in advance of departure.
After all this headache I told my buddy I better catch a nice Canadian buzz and the record ling cod which Iâm told looks like a giant lizard fish. Seriously, salmon, rainbow trout, ling cod, Coho salmon, and halibut might off the yet to catch species list within a couple weeks. Pictures and fishing stories coming in âPart 2â after the trip is in the books.