Larry Schnig
Larry Schnig was born on a homestead in Alberta. He came north in the late 1960s to drive truck for Cassiar Asbestos. He worked at Cassiar for a couple of years and then drove truck in Whitehorse for the transport division.1)
In 1969, he started running a fish camp and later a trap line on Toobally Lake. He built a lodge and cabins and operated a fishing and hunting operation for more than thirty years. In the fall, two local outfitters used the lodge as a base for guided hunting parties. Schnig trapped until Christmas then drove truck out of Fort Nelson. He bought his own truck around 1999. He returned to Toobally in the spring when fishing parties started to arrive.2)
One time the plane that was supposed to pick him up did not arrive and he walked the 120 km out to the highway. It took twenty-four hours and he encountered a grizzly bear. At the highway he found a dead man underneath a car. The transmission had fallen out of the car and onto his head, pushing his face into a puddle. Another time he bet a pal he could ride a moose that was swimming in a lake. At the shore, Schnig jumped off and the moose chased their boat away.3)
Schnig bought an airplane and learned to fly it a few years before he got his license. He flew sixteen cans of gas to his lodge and landed on the ice with wheels instead of skiis. He crashed in the middle of burn one time and had to clear out a spot so the rescue helicopter could land. His plane was damaged but only by the efforts he took to get it out. Schnig retired to Watson Lake and spent the winters in Panama where he owned land and had plans for a business.4)