

Their northern outposts are located in areas so remote there are no roads, not even logging roads! You can only get to these waters by float plane or canoe. According their website they offer world class Walleye and Northern fishing from a series of seldom fished waters bordering Woodland Caribou Provincial Park in Ontario and Atikaki Wilderness Park in Manitoba. Their traditional Heritage Bush plane fleet of Otters, Beavers, C-185’s are manned by experienced bush pilots who are professional, courteous and knowledgeable. Kenora Air Service Ltd., formerly OCA and Parsons Airways, has a long and rich history in the annals of Canadian bush plane aviation. Louie, one of the Kenora Air Service pilots showed us their immaculate DHC-3 Otter and the rest of their fleet. We introduced ourselves as aviation enthusiasts, interested in the old floatplanes. After parking our car at a nearby parking area we walked our way to the busy docks. Two companies, River Air and Kenora Flying Services, operate from these docks.Īs we drove into town we immediately noticed the floatplane base along the waterfront.

Kenora is also the starting point of numerous fishing, hunting, and camping trips, which start from the harbor front floatplane base. The town sits on the northern tip of Lake of the Woods and is well known for its forestry, mining, and tourism. Kenora's name was coined by combining the first two letters of Keewatin, Norman (two nearby communities), and Rat Portage. The community kept the name Rat Portage until 1905, when it was renamed Kenora. Kenora's future site was in the territory of the Ojibway Indians when the first Europeans sighted Lake of the Woods in 1688. The city, originally named Rat Portage, is a small city situated on the Lake of the Woods near the Manitoba border and about 200 kilometers east of Winnipeg. After passing endless miles of farmlands, we arrived at our first port of call, the small town of Kenora. We picked up our rental car at Winnipeg International airport and headed east.
