July 12
We’ve got a long day ahead of us this Wednesday morning. We’ll be leaving Montréal on a bus headed to Sudbury. But that’s not all. Once we get there, we’ll have to show the participants how to fill up their canoe barrels to ensure their belongings stay dry during the entire trip.
The day starts early. Wake-up call at 6:00 a.m. and breakfast at 6:30 a.m. so we can hit the road at 7:30 a.m.
And boy do things get off to a funny start. At 6:15 a.m., we knock loudly on one of the doors, no answer, we call the room a first time, then a second, and even a third, all while pounding on the door. Finally, after a good five minutes, Jesse wakes up and opens the door. Despite his alarm going off, he was still fast asleep.
Breakfast goes smoothly and all gathered in the lobby, the group meets Alexandre, Jasmine and Ève. We’re on schedule and everyone’s on the bus on time.
Next stop: Orleans, a suburb of Gatineau. Our first pitstop and also where we’ll be picking up our last participant, Emeric, as well as Justin, our expedition physician, and Naïla, our experienced expedition nurse.
This is the part of the trip where we collect the participant’s watches and cellphones. It never ceases to amaze how once they lose their networks, their interpersonal connections improve. I love saying this: we go from WIFI to WILDFI. Card games and short naps are in the works.
We head toward Deep River where we stop for lunch. To simplify things, everyone was contacted in late June to choose their meal from the menu. Julien has to remind some people of their choices. No one is disappointed. We hop back on the bus to finish up this long day of travel.
Julien holds a workshop on basic knots for canoeing including the indispensable bowline, accompanied by his also indispensable mnemonic: a bunny that goes around a tree and hops back into its hole. Another pitstop halfway and we finally get to Sudbury around 4:45 p.m.
Once everyone’s off the bus, we get in touch with the team of guides who will be accompanying us on the Spanish River: Amy, Nick and Jack, and the group’s leader, Aaron. We have dinner together a short five-minute walk from the hotel. Both the short walk there and back are a welcome reprieve after a day of driving.
But the day’s not over! Our guides make sure that everyone has a well-fitted and well-adjusted helmet and PFD. Then Julien explains how to use a canoe barrel to ensure it remains properly sealed, which is critical if we want to stay comfortable and have dry clothes.
Marie-Michelle explains how to split the clothes between the dry day bag and the barrel, to avoid spending all day looking for things. For example, your rain jacket shouldn’t be at the bottom of the barrel under your tent, mattress, and clothes.
Attention wanes as the explanations go on and we can tell many of the participants are ready for bed, ahead of a 7:00-a.m. breakfast. What’s in store for tomorrow? We’ll be boarding a train that will take us along the Spanish River over 100 km, we’ll get in the water and spend our first night in the woods.
Louis-Étienne Provost
Volunteer photographer-blogger for the On the Tip of the Toes Foundation
—
Translated by Anna Tomczyk
