TYEE TALES – Pat Bergendahl and Ann Aikman

Tyee fishing with Ann Aikman. It is impossible to keep a Tyee a secret!

My first and only Tyee was rowed by my next door neighbour, Ann Aikman. She never tells me how, what, where to fish. She says I know as much as she does. This comes from a woman who has caught however many with her famous family.

We picked an afternoon tide on her day off because it was a beautiful day and a good tide. We were surprised to see no one else around and thought we might have figured wrong tide and time. On our first drift we got our strike. All the time we were working and landing the fish, we sounded like two little kids at the playground.

After registering “the fish” we decided to keep it a secret and surprise our husbands who were so used to seeing our downcast faces. We showed the fish to Granny Painter as she watched us come up the dock and we swore her to secrecy. Little did we know that someone from the mobile home park on the spit had called Ann’s husband’s cell and he had called her Mom, who then called Granny (she never let on), and my husband.

When we got home the whole neighbourhood was there to greet us. So much for keeping a secret in Painter Barclay.