Northwaters and Langskib are coming to a town near you! The “North American Living Room Tour” begins this fall! Our owner and director, C.G. Stephens is taking our show on the road, visiting friends and alumni to share what we do first hand with prospective NWL families.

Sometimes the website and brochure just aren’t enough- now is your chance to meet the director, speak to current families and get a true sense of who we are and what our community and programs are all about.

We will share food, drinks, stories and photos from 6-8pm in the following locations.

Southport, Connecticut- Thursday, January 19th, 2012

Boulder, Colorado- Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

Richmond Hill, Ontario- Saturday, February 25th, 2012

New York City, NY-Friday, March 9th, 2012

Northern Michigan and Ann Arbor dates pending

Contact us if you or a friend would like to  learn more, join us or host a recruiting event in your neck of the woods.

cena@northwaters.com, 866-458-9974

The real learning for our students is the experience itself.  They know what it is like to sit on a hard seat in a 33-foot long canoe and paddle into a headwind for hours, having to work in coordination with a dozen other paddlers.  They experience the generosity of the communities we visit in many ways, and they begin to experience the sense of accomplishment and being part of a team that comes from sharing a difficult journey with others.

I loved this trip.  The seniors this year were wonderful and fun to be with.  I wished that we could have had longer to be on trail.  I wish for them, that they could experience a three week trip at Langskib or Northwaters and know that feeling that you get when you paddle back into base camp tired, smelly, and triumphant.  There are so many things in this world that you can’t learn from the internet and that is one of them.

Good job Leelanau School Class of 2010.  I hope this whets your appetite for adventure, wilderness and great paddling.

Michael Jarvis

NWL Program Director

Click here to view a  google map of our trip.

Thanks to the gentle prodding of my friends, I find myself standing on the edge of the river in a cold drizzle, dressed in a hastily thrown together assemblage of gear, including a drysuit that inspires my buddy Jeff to say I look rather like a very large blueberry. While trying to maintain an air of competence, smiling and joking as we loaded boats and made final adjustments, I fight the inner emotional battle which precedes so many adventures.  Why, I wonder, after more than half a lifetime of fairly regular canoeing, do I stand at the edge of a river and feel like I know absolutely nothing about paddling? The same thing happens predictably at the summits of mountains, even those I’ve skied many times before.

Once we shove off, all those thoughts are pushed to the back of my mind as muscle memory takes over.  I am reassured by the familiar rhythm of the paddle and the feel of the boat in the water.  As we round the bend and the road disapears, I am embraced by old friends. The river is at once familiar and different.  Banks have tumbled in, log jams have shifted, channels have opened or closed, boulders have been rolled by the massive chunks of ice carried by the spring freshet and yet, she is my old friend.

A few miles in,  deep in a hemlock wood, ice and snow stubbornly cling to the edge of the river. Every time I get to this place, I feel as if I’m someplace truly remote. For a moment, I’m on the Dumoine, or perhaps the Temagami river, days from the nearest road. It’s magical.

All too soon, it’s over. Before I know it I’m home, darkness finds me warming myself in front of the fire, reliving my day on the river and dreaming of adventures ahead. I remember now what canoeing can do for a person and the incredible possibilities awaiting just around the bend.

Back in th office, my day on the river brings meaning and importance to the rather mundane work of an off season camp director preparing for a summer full of adventure for several hundred lucky kids. The Journey is everything.

C.G.

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.

The lands where we wandered were mostly desert, but interestingly, wherever I went, I found water. Sitting next to a trickle of a stream run off, or coming upon a moss covered rock, what rose to the surface was a simple realization: without the lakes and rivers, NW/L would not have been able to provide so many young and old the opportunity to grow and learn. I recalled the joy I had experienced each summer as I swam, paddled or boated over the constantly changing waters of Lake Temagami. I also thought about the many people who had never experienced such a privilege, about those who did not even have fresh water to drink, and about the many polluted rivers, lakes and oceans around the world. All if these thoughts led to a deep longing to give back to water in whatever way I could.

As soon as I returned from our last gathering in September a friend told me about a conference called “The Water of Life”. It seemed a good place to begin my quest to learn about the current state of water in our world. The situation presented was nothing short of a serious global water crisis. Although there is not space here to discuss the many issues, I think the “water facts” above support this claim. Senator Robert Kennedy spoke about all of the legislation going on in the United States. Although I was aware of problems in many third world countries, I did not know how critical the water crisis was in parts of the US. Maude Barlowe from Canada, recently appointed the first ever Advisor for world waters at the UN, spoke eloquently of all the issues facing our planet and we previewed her new film Blue Gold — the title aptly suggesting the value of water in a world that is running out of it. Fortunately, despite the dire situation presented, throughout the conference the committed work that many individuals have already done served as great inspiration. Consistently the idea of hope over despair was emphasized, and the encouraging news from the conference was that we have the technology to bring about change.

For those of you who ever sat with me in a closing circle at the end of a NW session, you might remember that I always felt a great sense of hope when listening to the learning’s you shared upon your return. I believe with all of my heart that your generation has the potential to make a significant difference in our world. Although you may not have created the problems we face, I believe you can help bring about a solution. In fact, without the energy and idealism of young people, I do not believe that we can affect the great change that is needed.

I know that some of you are already involved in environmental projects in your own communities and are already making a difference. But, if you are not, I hope that you will get involved. In the upcoming months I will be creating a blog/ website that will include many of the issues of the current water crisis, links to organizations who are making a difference, project ideas, and articles. It will be interactive and primarily serve as a way to share ideas and inspire NW/L folks. Ways to get involved will range from something as simple as printing off a brochure to share with family about key ways to conserve water — to implementing a service project which would bring water to a community that does not have fresh water. The possibilities are as vast as the lakes and rivers you have travelled.

If you have sat on the cliff at Langskib or down on the dock at Northwaters, I trust you can conjure up a memory of the sun sparkling on the deep blue waters of Lake Temagami. So, whether you are returning this summer to Northwaters or Langskib, or it has been years since you last paddled a red canoe, if you feel gratitude for the waters that both nourished and taught you important lessons, think about how you can contribute and share your ideas. You each have something unique to offer. I believe that our collective creativity and commitment can have a profound impact!

Facts About Water

• In the past 100 years, the world’s population has tripled. In the same period, water use by humans has multiplied six fold.
• Of the 6.7 billion people on Earth, about 1.4 billion people do not have access to safe water.
• 2.3 billion inhabitants lack adequate sanitation. Most are in Africa and Asia.
• Every 8 seconds somewhere in the world, a child dies of a water-related disease. Today, 6000 people will die from lack of clean drinking water, mostly children. 7 million people die each year of water- borne diseases.
• 40 percent of the world’s population now live in water basins under stress. In less than 25 years, 67 percent of the global population will be living in water stressed conditions unless we change.
• 40 percent of the rivers and streams in the United Sates are too dangerous for drinking fishing, and swimming.
• Global water usage will increase 40% by 2020 unless we change our current habits.
• Between 10 to 15 % of the planet was in drought in the 1970’s. By 2002 the figure had risen to about 30 percent.
• 250 million pounds of toxic pollutants are permitted to be dumped into surface waters of the US every year.
• If we continue depleting and polluting water, according to the UN, by the year 2020, nearly 50 nations will suffer severe water shortages; by 2030, water sources for many cities that have existed for centuries will simply dry up.
• Only 15% of the 2,262 watersheds in the US are considered by the federal government to have “good” water
• 97% of the world’s population now live in water basins under stress. In less than 25 years, 67 % of the global population will be living in water stresses conditions unless we change.
• A faucet that leaks one drop per second wastes more than 3 gallons of water a day….equally over 1,000 gallons per year.

*Sources: Vermonters for a Clean Environment and Blue Gold by Maude Barlowe

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.

The first Bay trip left the dock of Langskib in 1975 and was out about 46 days, traveling over the Kippawa watershed down the Harricana river and across the bay to Moosonee where they all arrived despite having lost one of their canoes and all its contents. This of course was in a time before such luxuries as nylon tents and poly-pro.

The trip is named for James Bay, the southernmost tip of the Arctic ocean, but there is a river to paddle before one gets there. The Harricana has its source in the Blouin, De Montigny, Lemoine and Mourier lakes, close to Val-d’Or, and flows down draining a basin of 29,300 km². Our trips put in now in the town of Amos, Quebec. From there it is about 370 km down to the bay. Poplars on clay banks give way to the evergreens of the boreal. The banks become rocky and the river narrows. Each day has something memorable, even legendary- from the abandoned gold mines at Joutel, to Nudebathing Falls, to Spring Gorge, to the Bridge Set, to the Sign-in cabin, to Stormy’s Gorge, to One Mile Island, to Pink Rock, and to Seven Mile Island where many trips encounter challenges, as the river rushes over raging waterfalls, through ferocious rapids, and breathtaking gorges. Below Seven, as it approaches the Bay, the river cuts deep eskers, the topography flattens and the vegetation thins.

Many of the perils are behind, but paddling the 60 kilometers of open water across to the mouth of the Moose river and up to the town of Moosonee is no small order. Besides the tides that need to be taken into account, there’s no telling what weather may blow across the open water within minutes. The tidal flats go out until the shoreline is barely visible and there are few options for camping along the way. Trips have seen Beluga whales, and swells up to 28 feet have been recorded at the mouth of the Moose.

Most of my memories from my first trip down this river to the Bay are blurry. I do remember aching arms and back from the long stretches of flat water paddling at the top of the river. I remember being humbled by the power of the waters. I remember coming to rapids that could not be paddled with no trail to walk around. I remember the endless horizon when we reached the bay, a place of only sky meeting water. And I remember having the space to look inside myself to see where I was and where I wanted to go.

Trying to push through the bush with a canoe on my shoulders, lines catching and branches scratching, the land felt wild and untraveled. However this route along the Harricana to the bay has been traversed for many years, first by the Algonquins. In 1670, the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) was granted a charter by King Charles II, giving it a trading monopoly over the watershed of all rivers and streams flowing into Hudson Bay. But it was only 1801 Alexander MacKenzie mapped the entire route of the river for the first time and identified it by the name Harricanaw. In 1908, the first camps were established on its banks at the rapids. These were provisioning camps for the transcontinental railroad construction. A few years later, in 1910, the first colonists arrived and founded the town of Amos at the place where the railroad crosses the river.

When the route was traveled by those colonizers, they went up-stream bringing civilization into the wilderness. Now we are journeying in reverse, escaping civilization for the adventure of the wilderness. I believe as our lives get more and more “civilized”, there is something we are losing, something every young person hungers for. That something that cannot be learned in classroom or experienced through a video game. It can be found on the land, in the excitement of adventure, in the fear of uncertain outcome, and in the confrontation of one’s self, which can be so easy to avoid in a life with so many distractions.

I had the opportunity to go back to the Bay last summer, in a different capacity. Many of my memories from that first journey were blurred to the point that they had become much more story than experience, and that it was exciting to have their reality confirmed. Another memory that came last summer was the trust and faith I had had in my leaders; I knew that responsibility was something I now had to carry. It is a privilege and honor to be a part of such a journey, something I believe is so vital for a young person’s growth and development.