Once he had picked up all people from various hotels, he started off telling us that “he makes his money from tips, so lets have a great time and get started!”
When we stopped by the lake, he gave each of us a pair of snow shoes. We, like others had never used them before, and I was struggling to get the straps tightened. He didn’t come over to check how I was doing, so I finally asked him for help. If this guy wants a tip, he better give better service than this!
Once we all had snow shoes on, he had a couple of the Asian men in the group, pull gear in a plastic boggan, onto the lake. He was chatting with and taking photos of the Asian couples, and we were wondering when we were going to start snow shoeing. We stood around for some time and finally we asked what direction we were going. He pointed over there, not far, so we finally started walked over to a second lake across the road by ourselves. Eventually he came over and asked how far we wanted to walk. We didn’t know, we just wanted to get going on the tour we had paid for. When we asked what the others were doing, and why they weren’t comeing, he said the others were making snow angels and he was taking pictures of them. REALLY? This is a snowshoeing and ice fishing tour. That’s what we paid to do. Not stand around waiting for him to get us going with our activity.
He said we could walk further, or go back, so we turned around and went back to the first lake, to drill holes in the ice for ice fishing. He drilled three holes in close proximity, with the help of other tourists in our group. We sat on small stools, and used very cheap looking, short plastic rods, about 16 inches long, with a simple plastic spool of fishing line on them. For bait there was a plastic wiggly lure on the hook, or we could change to shrimp. We tried both, and none of the 6 of us fishing even got a nibble.
Our guide made a fire on the ice and cooked some sausages on a skewer for each of us if we wanted one. When we left he said he was going to leave the fire burning and it would burn itself out. We questioned that, asking why he would leave the wood that was only half burned? Why not spread it out so the fire would stop, and use the wood another day? He said he always brings more wood. So, why pollute the air with smoke from a fire that no one is using? He said he would the put it out then, and proceeded to throw some snow on the fire.
We wouldn’t do this activity again.