March, 2009

The Temagami region has long been a world renown canoe tripping destination and home to North Americas finest canoe camps. Northwaters and Langskib Wilderness Programs comprise two of these camps. Our 2 Island base camps and the 2000 kilometres of canoe routes surrounding them make it possible to offer separate boys, girls and coed canoe tripping programs from 2 to 7 weeks in duration.  From humble beginnings we have become a longstanding leader in the field of adventure based programing for young people. This blog is an avenue to share both within the NWL community and the world at large hard won lessons of nearly 4o years on the trail with young people.

We hope this blog will inspire you,  give you a unique perspective on young people, help you understand the value of wilderness experiences as rites of passage and their role in guiding youth through adolescence. (more…)

Brad Sablosky married the lovely Sara in a fun filled Durango wedding last Spring—complete with bonfires, a rafting trip and mountains of Colorado fun.

Blake Shester married Katie Logan in Nashville, TN (where they also have a home) last August. Fellow NWL alumni staff Geoff Shester was best man, and Blake’s blue grass band, Off the Wagon, played the rehearsal dinner at The Station Inn.

John Booth was wed to Hanna MacNaughton in August as well; their ceremony took place on beautiful Manitoulin Island.

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By: Cynthia Knudsen

In the time since Dave and I passed our paddles on to Jodi and CG, I had the privilege of participating in a year long vision quest program. The program focus was helping us discover what contribution we might offer to a world that is facing so many difficult challenges. We gathered four times over the year at four different places, each beautiful in its own way. While walking these unfamiliar lands I had time to reflect on the past 17 years as part of the Northwaters and Langskib community and what came to me was an overwhelming feeling of gratitude–. gratitude for all of the people I had met, for all of the lakes and rivers I had paddled, and for all of the challenges which had helped me to grow as a person. (more…)

By: Chris Wolfe

I remember being thirteen, standing on the dock at Langskib as darkness fell. There in the distance we saw the lights of torches appear. The paddle butts beating the dock echoed the beating of excited hearts. The Bay Trip! The boys who got out of those canoes were giants in my eyes. I knew that somehow what they had just done was big. And there was the way people talked about the Bay Trip with a certain deference and respect- it all took on a kind of legendary quality. If you had told me then that in two years time I would be paddling in in one of those torch-bearing canoes, I don’t know if I would have believed you. (more…)

By: Kate Kerrick, NWL Alumni & Staff

In the language of the Tema-augauma-anishinabi people, Temagami means, “deep waters.” Temagami is a lake, as well as a town of the same name. To some, Temagami is a place of vacation, somewhere to run a houseboat and go fishing. To others it is a livelihood. To me, it is the place where my heart is at peace, the home of my spirit.

Temagami is feeling, an experience. It is like a smell, something that will never be completely explained. The definition of Temagami (more…)

The Temagami area covers about 12,000 square kilometers from Elk Lake in the north, where the Montreal River broadens on its way south, to River Valley, west of North Bay at the confluence of the Sturgeon and Temagami Rivers, and from Lake Timiskaming and the Ottawa River in the east, westward to the Sturgeon River. In the middle sits Lake Temagami. Lake Temagami was once described as looking like a flower, with Bear Island as its center. The six petals of this lake cover 20,210 hectares, and there are 1,259 islands, the largest being Temagami Island, followed by Bear Island. Estimates of the shoreline length vary from 512 to 616 kilometers. The total island shoreline is perhaps another 340 kilometers. Temagami country is a rocky upland plain with a shallow soil covering. This is a border zone between the great boreal forest system to the north and the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence forest system to the south. Trees are a mix of northern evergreens and hardwoods. White and red pines tower on rocky shores and ridges while jack pine flourishes on burned-over areas. White and black spruce and balsam fir are plentiful. Northern hardwoods such as aspen and white birch may be found adjacent to southern hardwoods like yellow birch and maple on more protected sites. There are wetland communities—scrublands, marshes, floating bogs and black spruce bogs. (more…)

Bannock is an old English word of Celtic origin and may have been the first word used to describe bread. Many native cultures of North America have also incorporated bannock, or frybread as it is also called, into their cuisine.

Bannock is a yeast-less bread that we cook every night in our convection ovens. It is a very simple recipe that uses baking soda and baking powder as leavening agents. Although we eat it every day, this trail staple can easily be jazzed up so that lunch doesn’t get boring. People have added cheese, garlic and onions; tomato soup mix and basil; chocolate chips; and cinnamon and brown sugar. It’s been made into dumplings and cooked in soup, as well as fried and covered in cinnamon and brown sugar to make Beaver Tails. Below is the recipe for bannock (more…)

By Kate Kerrick

Although we are on islands, far from convenient stores and large shopping centers, we still receive a great deal of fresh food and so our meals are always extremely delicious, varied, and well balanced. It is all made from scratch – no mixes, no pre-made frozen meals. Some of my favorites are the ginger and carrot soup, our fresh bread (from the wood fired oven), and the banana and chocolate chip muffins. It makes it so much more wonderful to come back from trail knowing that there is a home-cooked feast waiting for you. (more…)

By: Kate Kerrick

We are very lucky here at Northwaters and Langskib (NWL) to have three great chefs in our community. Robin Young works at our Northwaters Basecamp while Lynne Brach and Elizabeth (or 2D, as we call her) work at our Langskib Island basecamp.

Our Northwaters cook, Robin Young, grew up in Toronto. Her father inspired in her an appreciation for good, fresh, seasonal food by planting a garden for her when she was little. (more…)

By: Deshka Foster, NWL Staff

Upon returning home from leading trips at Northwaters a few summers ago, instead of commencing my junior year of college, I packed my backpack and boarded a plane for Nairobi. I had decided to take a leave of absence from Stanford University and volunteer for a small, not-for-profit organization in northern Tanzania. The organization is called Students for International Change and offers HIV/AIDs education, awareness campaigns and testing in rural communities.

The previous winter when in the midst of researching possible abroad opportunities, I had come across the following quotation in a book of poetry:

“I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world.

I may not ever complete the last one, but I give myself to it”.

–Rainer Maria Rilke

I had already checked out the University study-abroad programs, but was not interested because I did not want to do “America in Paris” or “America in Santiago”; to take Stanford classes with a bunch of Stanford kids in a different country. I was rather looking for a meaningful experience that was separate from the American college scene to which I had become accustomed. Rilke’s words speak to this desire, reflecting on a human inclination to explore the world through a service project committed to making it a better place for those who are less fortunate. The effort to create positive change in the world and the experience of leaving behind what is familiar and comfortable, give rise to an opportunity for immense growth and learning.

I chose to do HIV/AIDS work because for as long as I can remember I have known that I wanted to become a doctor and work in international health. This inspiration stems from my belief that medicine is the field through which I will be able to offer the most to the world; caring for struggling abroad communities that lack the resources and expertise for proper healthcare. However, upon coming to Stanford, I quickly discovered that the actual process of becoming a doctor is more selfish than this philanthropic aspiration. I craved an experience that would allow me to get back in touch with my initial inspiration and to experience first hand the things that I had been writing college papers about. I chose to volunteer for Students for International Change because I was impressed by this organization’s commitment to excellence, with a combined focus on prevention and treatment and a very progressive approach to educating rural communities about HIV/AIDS. Excellence is a term that is frequently employed in the Northwaters/Langskib vocabulary. It speaks about the importance of doing things that you find meaningful and especially about caring about the way you do the things that you do.

For the next four months, I lived as a rural Tanzanian and taught about HIV and AIDS at primary and secondary schools, medical clinics and to communities, basically to everyone and anyone who was willing to listen. It was one of the most powerful experiences in my life: eye-widening, saddening, frustrating at times and incredibly rewarding at others. The first village I lived in was about halfway up Mount Meru. We lived in a little cement shack with a family of 11 give or take a few random neighbors, cows, stray dogs, goats and chickens. The eldest brother moved out of his bed in order to let another volunteer and I sleep there and was sleeping in the family’s “duka”, a small shop on the roadside that sells soap, matches, chai and Tanzanian pancakes. Although I had studied a bit of Swahili, it turned out that this family only spoke the local dialect, KiMaasai, making communication a serious challenge.

Every morning we were awakened around six by the eldest sisters, as they hauled buckets of water from the stream in a canyon below. Then we walked about an hour down the dusty dirt road (there are only two paved roads in the whole country of Tanzania) to a primary school. Many of the schools buildings were missing doors and windows and some children could only attend one or two days of class a week depending on their family’s needs. Some days there would be a governmental testing, church events for the community or simply students would not show up, but we would stay there for most of the day and teach whenever we could.

We begin our instruction with basic biology and immunology, then the progression of HIV in the human body, transmission and prevention and finally teach about HIV testing and how to live with and care for people who are HIV+. After five weeks of teaching in the school and community, our students possess accurate knowledge about HIV; small group of them have been trained to be peer-educators and continue educating at the school when we are gone; many of the dukas in the village have started to sell condoms and the people we meet along the road know our names and have taught us to great them in KiMaasai. Although HIV is a complicated health crisis and offering awareness campaigns in one ward of villages at a time will hardly immediately eliminate HIV from sub-Saharan Africa, I believe that our efforts are effective and genuinely excellent. I am incredibly grateful for all of the support I got for this incredible opportunity and will be returning to Tanzania as a volunteer coordinator for Students for International Change this coming summer.

If you have any questions, comments or would like information about Students for International Change, check out our website: www.sichange.org.