End of the journey ..... ?

"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end." Ursula K. Le Guin
Yes, we did it ....... 22 days of adventure and experiences of a lifetime.......

Special thanks goes to Birgit, our Chief Communications Officer and Media Executive :-), and Rick from Tony Martin's office for coordinating the recent media event........
Check out the coverage at these links.
http://sootoday.com/content/news/full_story.asp?StoryNumber=28339
http://www.saultstar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=766136
http://soonews.ca/viewarticle.php?id=14798

Ben and Ross


Zoom in on the map below for a view of the route with stops.....

View Larger Map
Check out the links near the bottom of the blog to a few other recent content from other trips like this one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Alexander_Mackenzie_Canada_Sea-to-Sea_Bicentennial_Expeditions


The classic 1960's NFB production "The Voyageurs" that spawned journeys like this.


What sets a canoeing expedition apart is that it purifies you more rapidly and inescapably than any other. Travel a thousand miles by train and you are a brute; pedal five hundred on a bicycle and you remain basically bourgeois; paddle a hundred in a canoe and you already a child of nature.– Pierre Elliott Trudeau

Here's an excerpt from an interesting critical look at "fur trade route" canoe trips.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3683/is_200610/ai_n17194034/ (dead link)
The canoe is often represented in Canadian popular culture as a founding myth of nationality. Voyageur canoe routes represent cultural diversity and "the three founding peoples" of Canada, highlighting the foundational role of the landscape in Canadian identity, and emphasizing Canadian unity. The canoe appeals to Canadians because it offers an adventurous escape from the city, an imaginative encounter with history, a discovery of national identity, and an opportunity for a spiritual quest within nature (Francis 1997, 149-51). For Francis, this significance "emerges" from a survey of our national history, in which, as he states, "The canoe is omnipresent" (129). He recounts a history stretching from the First Nations birchbark canoe, through the Jesuit missionaries, to "our familiar textbook heroes, the explorers" (131), early twentieth-century Ontario summer camps, and Pierre Trudeau, tracing the way that the canoe links all these disparate events and individuals in a single narrative. (Dr. Misao Dean;Journal of Canadian Studies. Volume: 40. Issue: 3. Publication Date: Fall, 2006.)

Flat Water

We enjoyed a calm evening paddle heading to Blind River on day 3. The area of Lake Huron coast along the North Shore at the mouth of the Mississaugi river is undeveloped and seems to be a jewel of beauty still preserved.

Weather break

On an island next to Turnbull Island east of Blind River we had time to take some pictures while sheltering from the waves...

Portaging on the Mattawa

There are about 9 portages on the Mattawa between North Bay and the Ottawa River.
They're all longer and more technical than the French River though in retrospect not as long or complicated as those on the Ottawa River.

Portaging in Ottawa/Gatineau

Our last day arriving in Ottawa involved a few more portages. Here we are along one of the Gatineau bike trails. The video shows how "Place de la Portage" has developped from Voyageur times.....

Northwest Company store

North Bay remains today an important centre in the fur trade. The Northwest Company...yes descended from the original NWC and Hudson Bay Co......has one of their major exchange locations in the city. They distribute beads, skins and craft materials to aboriginal communities in this sector of Canada and serve the wholesale market taking in furs and other trade goods from as far north as Nunavut.
Note the rack of Narwhal tusks from Baffin Island with each tusk identified by a tag with details including the name of the inuit hunter who harvested the animal......

Driving back to the Sault

Driving back to the Sault we stopped at some familiar places while retracing our steps...strokes.....

French River Sailing

Althought the French River is upstream when going from west to east, the winds are said to be predominantly from the west. Check out some footage of us going upstream....please note that it is difficult to steer a canoe and capture video simultaneously... :-), thus the choppy image.

Here's some Video

This is some evening-scape on an Island between Spanish and Little Current. The geography of this camp site was drastically different from our trip to that point. The Island was made of limestone and not the granite of the Canadian shield. The water was perfectly clear and the layers of limestone formed ideal flat steps starting from beneath the water and rising to the area where we had set up the tent along the shore. We arrived at this site after braving open rough water and rain an hour earlier. We chose not to continue to Little Current due to high waves and this site, in the lea of the wind, proved perfect. We were even greeted by an otter that hung around watching the novel humans. The day ended with a post storm sunset....and of course the moon that followed for the first week.

End of the journey ..... ?

"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end." Ursula K. Le Guin

Yes, we did it ....... 22 days of adventure and experiences of a lifetime.......

Thanks to all our ardent fans, wellwishers and fellow paisans who helped us make this journey a success.......and a special thanks goes out to Birgit, our Chief Communications Officer and Media Executive........
Now that we're sitting in a non floating position, over the next few weeks we'll try to share some of the better pictures, video, and update an overview of the trip.

Ben and Ross

Constance Bay

We found out where we were....Contance Bay...an old cottage area north of Ottawa. Turns out there's a restaurant nearby....

Saturday morning update. As of 11am, we expect to be in Ottawa by about 1:30pm....the wind is blowing in our direction.

Arrival Update

Well, the last day isn't the last day....Red sky in morning sailors take warning ...We left Arnprior early in the morning and spent a bit more time than usual finding the portage around the dam without good maps. Later going downstream ...on an unknown lake making up the Ottawa River a wind blowing against us has grounded us till further notice(15km from the city)...quelle domage...but a storm is still beautiful ...hopefully we'll arrive at our destination late morning tomorrow.

See you in Ottawa...

We made it to Arnprior for dinner after being tossed around by waves and fighting a headwind on Chats Lake most of the way. We're excited that tonight may be our last night tenting....yeah... The morning was a pleasant paddle past a pulp mill and scenic bridge over the Ottawa River. The town of Portage du Fort...the one we had been dreading (where Ontario Hydro has a huge dam and since the town has "portage" in its name, it must be brutal) has an easy portage and the canoe seemed especially light. Since the most commonly asked question is what do you eat,....I had peanut butter and banana sandwiches for bkfst, some scrambled eggs with multi grain bread for lunch and more pb sandwiches and half a large pizza with pepperoni, green pepper, and sausage for dinner with orange juice not from concentrate to wash it down.

2 days left....

We spent the day navigating the Chalumet Chanel and stopped for services and lunch at Campbell Bay. It was chilly in the morning with obvious signs of fall. We are happy to be ending soon. Lots of fish jumping in the overcast environment but with no Quebec fishing licence they go on jumping. Changes in scenery and development are new with low river banks, fewer rocks and farmland making up the topography. We ended the day with a difficult portage around the Chalumet Falls and hydro dam. The Hydro Quebec worker took notice and advised us to be careful. We set up camp along the river's edge not far from an electric fence to keep the cow's in. we chased one of the 4 deer we'd seen today to another resting spot.

Ben'isms

Here's a brief list to new vocabulary being introduced to Canadian Vernacular via Bangalore....
If you'd like to add any, just send an email....

Shoe Bite: The pain that new shoes/boots cause when first wearing them. - I'm getting shoe bite from these new boots.

Piddle: The act of urination. - I need to piddle

Chamiana: Tent/gazebo. - There's a nice chamiana

links to other websites

Here are some links to other sites:

Destination Nord Ouest - French language reality tv program that retraced the Voyageur route.
http://tva.canoe.com/emissions/destinationnorouest/

2011 Cross Canada Cannoe trips
http://www.transcaneauda.ca/
Candian Canoe Odyssey Human propelled journey from Pacific to Atlantic
http://www.atikokanyouth.org/track_our_paddler.html
http://www.canoeacrosscanadaforsickkids.com/
http://www.mountains2montreal.ca/
2010
2010 DTB trip (dead link)
http://kristinaleidums.weebly.com/a-cross-country-canoeing-journey.html
http://www.ilyacoureurdesbois.com/
2009
http://www.canoeacrosscanada.ca
2008
Rich site for historic maps and link to David Thompson Brigade 2008 (original content modified)
2004
http://www.clippercanoes.com/cross_canada.php
Future trips and general resource
Voyageur Brigade Society
Canada Canoe Pageant for Expo 67, CBC content.
http://archives.cbc.ca/sports/exploits/clips/7716/&ref=spe
The Centennial Voyageur Canoe Pageant as Historical Re-enactment (link to academic research)http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/journal_of_canadian_studies/v040/40.3dean.html

The Institute for Canadian Citizenship (with whom we have no affiliation)
http://www.icc-icc.ca

Forensics.ca - Forensic Science Portal
http://www.forensics.ca

The year 2007 marks the 150th anniversary of the selection of Ottawa as Canada’s capital.
http://www.capcan.ca/bins/ncc_web_content_page.asp?cid=16297-58245&lang=1

Parsi Worship Ceremony

We stopped at a town called Chapeau this morning on Allumette island.
It's a mainly English speaking community in eastern Quebec reliant on
beef farming and tourism. When addressing a local resident for
directions in French I was ignored but once I switched to English we were pointed
the right way. Our trip may be demonstrating a natural east-west
development for Canada but so far one cannot disprove the 2 solitudes....
We used the internet quickly and stopped by the local bakery for some
great cinnamon buns and the Canadian icon of butter tarts. Later in the
day we were caught in the widest section of Lake Coulange during a
torrential downpour. We pulled up on an island and after standing and
waiting for the rain to stop we decided to set up the tent to keep dry
and warm. Ben is not praying to a Parsi god but trying to dry the
inside of the tent.
We had some time to look at our rough map and are estimating arriving in
Aylmer between 5-5:30pm and on the water at the museum of civilization
between 7-7:30pm on Friday September 14. There are a few significant
portages before Ottawa so plans are yet flexible.

Alumette Island

We made it to Stonecliffe and Driftwood provincial park after paddling much of the day. The Ottawa River is a much wider river than the others. We met a father and son canoeing from Montreal since 2003....doing a part each year....hoping to get to the Sault in the next 2 years. They gave us good advice for the 2.5 km portage tomorrow in Des Joachim. It's the longest they said but not the toughest.

Chenal de la Culbute

We left our comfortable abode at the Kelly's in Deep River and have set
up camp on a beach in the Chenal de la Culbute. It's a beautiful spot
surrounded by cottages and historic isolated farms on Quebec's
Allumette Island. We safely negotiated the initial rapids...mainly through
portage and line drifting the canoe. We ran into some help along the way
near Chalk River from Dan and company and had them sign the paddle...
See photo...

The Ottawa River

We paddled from Stonecliffe to Deep River, stopping at Swisha for the long portage around the dam. We did the 2.5-3km walk along a gravel road then down the paved "rue principale" of Des Joachim (the official name of the place before it was anglised by the seemingly English speaking majority of this tiny Quebec border town of, I'm estimating, 200 people. After carrying our bags and equipment then stopping for lunch to eat lots and lighten our load, we walked back to pick up the canoe. We had covered about 300m of the trek when a kind......very kind ..."semaritan" with a pick up, drove us the rest of the way, saving us a lot of trouble and surely anger towards the canoe at the end of it all. Once loaded, we paddled a short distance to fill our empty (for portage reasons) water bottles next to a nice alluvial beach. We continued the day, passing nice cottages/homes on the Ontario side of the river, in contrast to the vast green wilderness that existed above the dam. The Quebec side of the river is still undeveloped without a road. Since we didn't see any islands or areas on the Ontario bank, we set our sites for beach area on the eastern side. The beach was beautiful and being used by residents of Deep River from the opposite shore. The water was as flat as glass with an incredible reflection from the late day sun and there were people who took interest in our trip which to this point has been limited due to the remotness of the route and the amount of time we spent on the water. The family using the site as a waterskiing base invited us to stay with them and after consulting, we happily accepted. The picture is of one of the Swisha dams...it may not be too visible since this is the dam, we were told, to stay away from. This grey, windy morning background is in contrast to the sunny, calm afternoon...someone must have been thinking "flat water" for us.. :-)

Don't forget that there are more photos at this site..
http://s186.photobucket.com/albums/x219/soo2ottawa/

We're in Mattawa!!!! Yeah.....Just had breakfast at the local souvenir store/

restaurant overlooking the Ottawa River and train bridge. We had a long 16 hour (only officially 14 hours of daylight) paddle and portaging day yesterday and ended up camping on the lawn of a kind woman when we arrived after dark. We're going to try to see if we can supplement our maps with more detailed Ottawa River information before we head out later this morning.

People we meet....

Special thanks goes out to Gary Davison of world record muskie fame (he's the brother and was driving the boat) http://www.driftertackle.com/news/11_06.php who drove us with our equipment from the Marina to the Voyageur Inn. As well, thanks to Natalie who offered backup portage assistance. Thanks Dave Burns and Ivan Ryman for helping with the NB Portage.

Day 14

We just finished the steep Jean Talon Portage on the Mattawa River. We were told by a couple of hikers that the cliff was the scene for a Molson Canadian commercial. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQr_e8AaHME&mode=related&search The weather's supposed to be 30c tomorrow....nice....

The 425 Mile Diet

Horse Food and Dog food and an occasional meal in the civilised world, thats what we would like to call it. Basically, our diet consists of prepackaged rice / pasta meals and then we add a bit of essentials to it - cheese, tuna, vegetables or pepperets. Otherwise we survive on nuts, power bars, peanut butter and banana sandwiches for Ross and cheese and brushetta sandwiches pour moi. Lot of water - We've noticed that we tend to drink a lot more water if the drinks aren't juices. I guess juices keep us less thirsty for longer. 10 to 12 hour minimum days in the sun have taken a toll on our skin though.......Lot of weight lost between the both of us and I guess even though it takes a lot of muscle to paddle, in the end the journey is similar to an endurance sport. I think I can comfortably say I've lost 10 to 15 lbs, but I would eventually like to put it back on.

Campsite 301

September 5 - We awoke at 3:56am to a pterodactyl http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterodactyl making a menacing noise and coming straight for us and the tent - we survived and left that strange campsite early (Campsite 301) ... Please advise others about Campsite 301. As we were leaving we saw a bear 15 metres from us. We also heard very strange sounds throughout the night. The same day we pushed for North Bay and got there at 8:18 p.m. after paddling for a 14 hour stretch....we were totally pooched. Ahh, North Bay with a bed and flush toilets. It's strange living in a civilised world....We got help from my buddies in North Bay to portage 5 miles through city. We plan to leave at 5 p.m. for Camp Island then head for Trout Lake - Mattawa river and the Ottawa River. ETA in Ottawa...the 15th....of September!

Sault This Week

Hey...we're in the news... :-)

http://www.saultthisweek.com/webapp/sitepages/search/results.asp?contentid=671546&catname=Sault%20News&type=search&search1=ship

North Bay

Day 12.....We made it to North Bay after the 600m portage from the Lower French and the calm crossing of Nippising. We woke up early at dawn and after loading the canoe and setting off we saw a cute and cuddly black bear 20m across the river from our campsite. Ben took a few photos while we negotiated the current of craddle rapids ensuring not to get to close to the wildlife....
Soon afterwards Ben saw a river otter swim under the canoe. We saw eagles and were entertained by a group of loons on the upper part of the French River. Once arrived in North Bay, we rented a slip at the marina for our yacht and took up residence in our first bed in a long time at the Voyageur Inn. Yes, Voyageur Inn.

"Rapidly" Approaching North Bay

We paddled hard today and took a break for a late lunch along the river. There's lots of river traffic including aluminum boats with outboard motors and people fishing for walleye. We pulled the canoe up 5 rapids to avoid the portages. Tomorrow there's another small rapid before a 600m portage around the dam that controls the level of Lake Nippissing. A day and a half more and were in North Bay.

September 2/07

We're finally back in Rogers range for e-mailing. The wind is at our backs as we're paddling up the French River nearing hwy 69. Here's a pic of Ben sussing out the rapid we need to climb.

We're doing fine. It's a nice, sunny day. We went swimming to get clean and did some laundry. Our clothes needed maintenace after a few day of raininess and little sunlight hours in which to dry. Ben bought potato wedges and chicken for lunch from the grocery store and it lasted for dinner at the random camping island along the way where this photo was taken.

August 31/07

Successfully crossed Lake Huron and are in Killarney. We'll be heading for the mouth of the French River tomorrow but probably won't make it there until Sunday. Ben has succeeded in finding french fries for dinner.