Or… “Why Langskib is like Mongolia”, by alumni Dave Roberts.

It has been over thirty years since I lead my last trip from the dock at Langskib canoe camp for boys.  I was a camper on the first Temagami Trip the year Dave Knudsen bought Camp Windshift which became Langskib. I was one of the first leaders, I co-lead the first Dumoines River Trip. I lead CG on his very first canoe trip; he later became the best assistant I had the pleasure of working with.

A lot has happened since I left Langskib;  some good, some not as good. I moved to the West, I worked as a cowboy on several cattle ranches in Colorado, I lead elk and deer hunters on horse pack trips into the Rocky Mountains for 11 years, did many other jobs, lived in several places. I married, raised kids, divorced and ended up with a desk job shuffling paper. I soon plan on changing that desk job to something more exciting.

Last year, life was getting a little too slow and too domesticated, I was missing the adventures I had leading canoe trips, the traveling into the unknown, not knowing where camp will be until evening comes. I missed the nomadic life I lived as a cowboy. So I packed some belongings and traveled to Mongolia for three weeks. The people there still live the same as they did 800 years ago when Genghis Khaan ruled. They live in tents called Gers, they move their livestock with the season, packing all their worldly belongings onto ox drawn carts and live off the land. Mongolia is great, just what I was looking for, people with a nomadic spirit. The entire time I was in Mongolia I never felt alone, everywhere I went people treated me as a friend. I spent days galloping a horseback across the Mongolian Steepe with nomadic horseman, I stayed in their Gers, I learned their culture and shared experiences with them. I am learning their language and plan to return to Mongolia next year to visit with Mongol friends and other friends I have yet to meet.

Interesting enough, where I traveled in Mongolia is exactly the other side of the world from Langskib; same latitude as Langskib and exactly 180 degrees difference in longitude. I could not help to think back on the experiences at Langskib and the skill I learned. The canoe trips I lead were stepping stones for the adventures that followed. I was hired as a hunting guide and cowboy because of my skills I learned at Langskib, the ability to live in the wilderness. As Koonze, a cowboy friend, said “We are men that do not need to go home at night.” At the end of the day, home was where we camped, just as it was leading canoe trips. What was hardship to many was just another day on the trail for me.

Several years back I had the thrill of watching my daughter go out on her first Northern Lights Trip and several other trips in the following years. Stepping onto the dock at Langskib for the first time in thirty years brought back memories, seeing Northwaters for the first time show me how much the camp has grown since I worked there. And watching my own daughter return from canoe trips was an emotional experience beyond words for me, having my own daughter learn and experience the same things I did when I was her age.

Soon I will be up at Langskib and Northwaters for the Alumni Weekend. I hope to see old friends and share experiences with others who lead trips over the years.

Life itself is the journey, what an adventure!!

DR/

As the director of Northwaters and Langskib, I often receive queries from parents trying to figure out whether NWL is an American or a Canadian organization. Every other canoe camp I know is predominately one or the other.  One even claims to be “Canada’s Canoe Camp”. Given the recent Olympic events, this seems like a good time to set the record straight; NWL is both.

This is not the simple answer everyone is looking for. Alluding to my dual citizenship when crossing the border seems to virtually guarantee further questions from customs officials. People  prefer if you fit into a category, neatly please, without a whole lot of explanation. Check one box only, as it were. That’s not always possible.

Northwaters and Langskib enroll about 90% of their participants from the U.S. and Canada, the remaining 10% from foreign countries. Enrollment in individual programs and on individual trips can vary considerably.  I remember one trip whose 10 participants represented 6 different nationalities and spoke 7 languages.  Our staff, since they come from the ranks of participants, follow the same pattern, a bunch of Canadians, a bunch of Americans and the occasional international (Germany, France, Spain, Mexico, etc.)

Our organizational structure follows the same pattern – offices, bank accounts and business entities in both countries. Thus, Canadians and Americans pay in the currency of their country of residence and enjoy the simplicity of not having to concern themselves with wild swings in foreign exchange rates or credit card charges for foreign transactions. Moreover, their kids come away from a summer in Temagami with friends from places that would otherwise be just distant places on the world map.

Since 1971, a central tenet of every one of our programs has been tolerance; acceptance and appreciation of differences among people, whether they be racial, cultural, physical, spiritual, economic, you name it.  For many participants, our program is their first exposure to cultures different from their own.  We work hard to build community in our programs, to facilitate participants getting to know each other early on, so when the time comes to meet a challenge together on the trail, everybody works together.

When the beauty of a place takes my breath away, when I am filled with admiration, respect or love for another human, nationality is never a factor. When I take inventory of the people and places I know, love and respect, they span the U.S., Canada and more.  There were moments during Sunday’s hockey game when I was deeply proud of my citizenship in both countries. I was tempted to stop watching when the game tied in the last minute. I didn’t want either country to lose.

My son McKenzie, age 7, who also enjoys dual citizenship, asked me which country was my favorite. I responded “whichever I happen to be in at the time”. I hope McKenzie and his generation can continue to enjoy the blessings of both nations.

Well, it’s finally happened.  Winter is here, and my thoughts now begin to shift from rivers and giant pine trees to cross country skiing and hot chocolate.  I live in Toronto where winter really never completely sets in.  While there are people running around in minus 40 celsius rated down jackets and there is talk of storms of the century, its really not much compared with the rest of the county.  Even though here in Toronto we don’t really “do” winter, the same sentiments arise once the weather turns colder.  People slow down a little bit, nest a little and eat a little more.

One of my winter traditions is to thumb through my pictures of the past summer.  I look at them fondly and think about the long days and warm nights in Temagami.  This picture in particular brings back memories of this past summer. In June 2009 I stepped into a new role as Program Director at our Northwaters Basecamp.  Along with this amazing new challenge I was also planning a wedding, my wedding for the end of August.  Now, in honesty when I told my plans to my friends, family and fiancé I was faced with a healthy amount of disbelief.  How would I mange to plan a wedding from an island in the middle of lake Temagami while my husband to be worked in Toronto? What better place to plan a wedding and be inspired than in the Canadian wilderness… think of all the decorating ideas I’ll get!   And for my fiancé I added that distance makes the heart grow fonder, so our separation would actually be an advantage.  My optimism however, proved to be a little naïve as I began to realize the demands of wedding and program planning.

Luckily for me, a supportive community who readily offered their ideas and help whenever I needed it surrounded me at basecamp.  From asking for colour scheme advice, to the use of the Hobart industrial mixer for my wedding favours, Northwaters was always there to help.  NWL creates a community where each individual is celebrated for their unique gifts, allowing everyone to feel safe and valued.  I felt that about the community on my very first trip on the Makobe River and it is a feeling that is cultivated and nurtured every summer.

The shift from a trip leader to a program director has been an exciting one.  I was thrilled to be able to meet and know many participants instead of just a small group.  I was also blessed to be able to see participants before their adventure, and have a chance to speak with them when they returned.  The change has also been a nice dovetail into my work outside the summer season; I am set to complete my Masters in Teaching from the University of Toronto this coming April.   I have included my passion for experiential and outdoor education into my studies, and I will carry it on as a teacher when I graduate.

Even though this past summer was probably the busiest time of my life, I wouldn’t have changed a thing about it.  I thought about my wedding when I was in Temagami, and I thought of Temagami when I was at my wedding.  The pull that you feel from canoe tripping with Northwaters doesn’t end when you leave the island, but sometimes it ebbs during the cold winter months; so I hope that my attached picture brings a little bit of the summer to you wherever you are.

I can’t wait to see what next summer has in store for me, but it’s going to be hard to top portaging while wearing a wedding dress.

Thanks to everyone who helped

Teeth to the wind,

Christine McKenna

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.