North of 53. A magic phrase. Spoken, mumbled or thought
inwardly by thousands of souls venturing northward. An
imaginary line, shown only on maps and labelled 53 degrees.
It's presence indicated to highway travellers by road side
signs.
A division of territory as distinct in the mind as any
international border.
If you have not been "North of 53", you have not been
north!
Travellers and writers, poets and pilots, have
contributed to the lore of the north. The rigors of life in
the bush are told in tales of man eating mosquitoes, of
murderous hordes of black flies, of the lumps of flesh
carried away by the giant bull dog flies.
The stories of record breaking trout, walleye
