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