[plinker]

I was training pilots on floats in Inuvik in 1990 and didn't know about the Mackenzie rising and flooding small lakes and then dropping drastically. Everytime I flew out of the town strip I saw this one lake and thought man theres gotta be some biguns in there. It was a hop over from the town strip, so one day I had a buddy with me and we took off on floats from the Mackenzie and landed on this lake. After fishing for about 5 minutes we realized the lake was only about less than a foot deep. We tried to take off and I couldn't get my floats on the step (where they break water and then you can take off) We were leaving mud tracks up and down the lake trying to get out and I was thinking it was gonna be a helicopter bill to get me out of this mess, when I saw these two Eskimos in a Lund boat driving at a high speed in the lake. I thought there must be a channel where they were cruising so I taxied over to where they had gone through and lit her up following their wake. We came screaming over these two poor buggers in their boat about 20 feet over their heads. My lesson was to never ever ever land in a lake you don't know.