Land Water Sky; Environmental Stewardship

Recently,  I took a four day Voyageur Canoe camping trip with the senior class from the Leelanau School where I work.  In many ways it was a wonderful trip.  The weather was beautiful which is always a gift in late September.  We do this trip every year and most years end up with at least one day of paddling in rain, hail, sleet or snow with a ripping headwind to boot.  This year we had the headwind but sunny warm skies and beautiful water on Lake Huron.  Our students study the life of the voyageurs on this trip.  We read historical accounts of the voyageurs, were visited in camp by Larry young, who has been studying and re-enacting the fur traders for more than 50 years, and spent a day at Mackinac Island, which was an important hub in the fur trade.  On Mackinac Island we spent time writing at St. Anne’s church, which was established in 1670 and has served the community for more than 300 years. (more…)

For the past few weeks I’ve been watching the snow disappear from the High Peaks and the river rise at the Falls in Wadhams, mourning the end of ski season while eagerly anticipating paddling once again.  The Boquet river runs out of Elizabethtown as a meandering, innocuous looking stream, disappears into Steele Woods where it becomes a raucous class 2+ ride  and then emerges at Brainards Forge looking relatively innocent, giving few clues of the good times had out of the public eye. (more…)

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…)