Northern Manitoba is well represented among the province's candidates who have nominated themselves as Canada's ultimate fishing town in a contest being held by the World Fishing Network (WFN), a specialty TV channel, but Thompson was not among them as of last Friday.

Three of the six Manitoba nominations lay above the 53rd parallel, with The Pas, Flin Flon and Lynn Lake all entered to win a $25,000 community grant for fishing-related initiatives as well as a half-hour show about the community to be aired by WFN.

"Flin Flon is a beautiful place with all the woods surrounding us and it's all about the outdoors here," wrote Amanda Morissette in her nomination. "We have a lot of Americans who travel here just to fish."

In his nomination for Lynn Lake, Floyd Buhler wrote: "Do you consistently enjoy non-stop fishing action in a pristine and secluded setting? Do you want a very real chance at hooking a fish of a lifetime? Are you bored of doing the same-old lodge or lake? Are you ready to experience fishing unlike what many anglers have experienced before? Let's be honest. To enjoy truly spectacular fishing, you have to go to the end of the road. Lynn Lake is located that the end of the road - literally in Manitoba."

The nomination for The Pas, submitted by Terry Tooley, reads, "Northern Manitoba has a bountiful fishery and I would say we are one of Manitoba's best kept secrets. The Pas has it all!"

Lynn Lake was the only one of the three to have received any supporting entries as of July 23, with one comment, which read, in part, "The Lynn Lake area is home to many easily accessible lakes and rivers and is also a hub for Northern Manitoba fly-out fishing. The lakes and rivers in the area receive very little pressure from anglers and the fly-out lakes remain almost untouched."

The deadline to enter the contest is Aug. 16, and WFN's website reported last week that it was approaching the 200-nomination mark for Canada as a whole.

Manitoba's other entries for the contest as of July 23 were Dauphin, Lac du Bonnet, Lockport, Rossburn and Selkirk.